I don't doubt the two best schools, poll-wise, will play for this year's NCAA Division I football national championship. But yet, how we arrive there -- in relation to other schools and where they belong or don't -- again is a source of frustration. I speak of course of The Bull Crap Series, errr, umm, Bowl Championship Series.
Auburn and Oregon played solid football all year, particularly down the stretch, impressively beating their foes. Yet look elsewhere. So, Connecticut ties West Virginia and Pittsburgh for the Big East championship. UConn beat the other two to end the three-way tie and gets to play in a so-called BCS bowl, which somehow is seen as a holy grail even outside of the national title match itself.
Yet, West Virginia finishes 9-3 overall and No. 22 in the AP poll. UConn, at 8-4 overall, ends up No. 25 in the AP poll and OUT of the top 25 BCS final standings…huh, what, am I missing something? Don’t get me wrong. I’m a booster for the little guy. The supposedly “little” (relatively speaking) schools that could defy the odds and upset the college football elitists over the last years, such as Boise STATE, TCU, Cincinnati, Utah and UConn.
I’m sure you’d say, well, Connecticut gets the automatic qualifying bid from a BCS conference. Someone how has to be there in a BCS bowl, even if some conferences (even some BCS conferences) are, ahem, inferior. I get the idea of auto qualifiers, which assures supposedly premier conferences get good play in notable bowl games.
But if these teams are such quality programs, why need this AQ process to begin with? In the greater scheme of things, do you think UConn deserves to play in a BCS bowl game when Boise State, even with their kicker screwing the pooch against Nevada, nearly ran the table and ends up in the Las Vegas bowl, a non-BCS contest?
As the Bleacher Report points out in one article, “since the BCS began its system of bowl determination, there have been six teams with three losses that won a spot at the big kids’ table. Only one team had gone to a BCS bowl with four losses: the 2005-2006 Florida State Seminoles.
The Bleacher Report article by John Krenek continues: “To further the point, each one of those three-loss teams, and FSU, gained entry via the ‘conference champion’ clause. What's more, each one of those teams was never ranked higher than 10th, and that was a Kansas State team who beat Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game, only to see OU play for the national title. Talk about your muddied waters. Do teams outside of the top 10 really have any business playing in games that were meant for the "best of the best," as they [the BCS powers that be] say?”
And I find it interesting that some who back “smaller schools” all year, honks for the likes of Boise and TCU who said their program deserved a shot at the national title game if either were to run the table, also endorse an inherently broken BCS system that’ll pretty much ensure smaller, lesser schools will only sniff but not touch a national bid…even if they truly deserve the top rankings. (Just to think how in 1984, freakin’ BYU won a national title in a Holiday Bowl by knocking off a questionable Michigan squad. This scared the bejeezus out of the powers that be.)
Those “powers that be” are primarily television executives and power conference presidents who only want to see and sell sex when it comes to bowl games. They'd rather arbitrarily pair two traditional powerhouses via a computer rather than let rising star schools settle such questions where it truly counts: on the playing field. Just like virtually every other level of sport. Wow. What a startling concept. Even the Kazahkistani kick-goathead league has a playoff. I’ve won money there. Without the NCAA basketball tournament, schools like George Mason and Butler likely would have never made it to the Final Four. You see Gonzagas and Marquettes make their mark on the national scene. Without the College World Series, schools like Cal State-Fullerton and Long Beach State -- not so much a Texas or USC -- get to shine and quite often.
Well, we won’t waste further time going into the minds of those myopically opposed to a NCAA Division I tournament of some kind. Even the “bowl games are a tradition” and “schools will lose money” and “you can’t make the student-athletes play that long or late into January” philosophies. None of those arguments really work. Never did, never will. Some say the BCS isn’t perfect, but that it’s a start.
So, what if a playoff system did exist for college football? My goodness, what fun that’d be. OK, let’s use BCS as a springboard. This is what I'd do. You start with automatic champions from 11 FBS conferences (regular-season champs and/or championship game victors). If there are co-champions, it’s up to the affected conference to determine who gets what we’ll call an FBS bid. You could combine the final regular season total average poll ranking with regular-season head-to-head outcomes for a tie-breaker. (Sound unfair? Good then. You get to retain some semblance of unfairness in the process of arriving at a final national champion)
You could average the rankings of the AP, ESPN, USA Today, Harris and Coaches' polls, emphasizing which schools get the most place votes and arrive at a final aggregate Top 25 poll (a de facto BCS without the computer interference). Those are arguably the strongest, long-standing, most popular and credible of Division I polls. And you get to a beautiful bracket like the one above (courtesy of NCAA). Isn't it gorgeous and awe-inspiring?
Here’s the final 2010 AP poll with related final 2010 BCS rankings:
1. Auburn (BCS No. 1 SEC champion-automatic qualifier)
2. Oregon (BCS No. 2 Pac-10 champion-automatic qualifier)
3. TCU (BCS No. 3 Mountain West champion-automatic qualifier)
4. Wisconsin (BCS No. 5 top co-Big 10 champion-automatic qualifier)
5. Stanford (BCS No. 4)
6. Ohio State (BCS No. 6 co-Big 10 champ)
7. Michigan State (BCS No. 9) (co-Big 10 champ)
8. Arkansas (BCS No. 8)
9. Oklahoma (BCS No. 7) (Big 12 champion-automatic qualifier)
10. Boise State (BCS No. 11)
11. LSU (BCS No. 10)
12. Virginia Tech (BCS No. 13) (ACC Champion-automatic qualifier)
13. Nevada (BCS No. 15) (WAC champion-automatic qualifier)
14. Missouri (BCS No. 12)
15. Alabama (BCS No. 16)
16. Oklahoma State (BCS No. 14)
17. Nebraska (BCS No. 18)
18. Texas A&M (BCS No. 17)
19. South Carolina (BCS No. 20)
20. Utah (BCS No. 19)
21. Mississippi State
22. West Virginia
23. Florida State
24. Hawaii
25. Connecticut (Big East champion-automatic qualifier)
Also, Miami, Ohio (Mid-American champion-automatic qualifier)
Also, Florida International (Sun Belt champion-automatic qualifier, beat Troy earlier in season)
Also, Central Florida (BCS No. 25) (Conference USA champion-automatic qualifier)
Ultimately, FBS automatic bids go to Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Nevada, UConn, Central Florida, Miami (Ohio) and Florida International.
You add the top independent team ranked high enough (overall in polls) for an FBS bid and/or four (or five) other highest-ranked schools (overall in polls). So this year these schools get an at-large bid: Stanford, Ohio State, Michigan State, Arkansas and Boise State.
The ultimate FBS tournament seedings in a 16 vs. 1, 15 vs. 2, 14, vs. 3, etc. format would be:
1. Auburn
2. Oregon
3. TCU
4. Wisconsin
5. Stanford
6. Ohio State
7. Michigan State
8. Oklahoma
9. Arkansas
10. Boise State
11. Virginia Tech
12. Nevada
13. Connecticut
14. Central Florida
15. Miami, Ohio
16. Florida International
Take into account the oldest, popular, most lucrative, traditional bowls and mix in some regional flair and considerate schedules. You can keep some of the best bowls. (I mean, really. The glut of bowls is ludicrous. More and more are added each year, some from inauspicious sponsors. Does anyone care to see the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl? Oooh, barnburner. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl? Really? New Era Pinstripe? Good lord. Oh, we could so perpetuate the Poulan Weedeater FreeCreditReport.com Pomegranate Bowl joke.)
All joking aside, use 15 of those prestigious, richest, most famous (i.e. powerful, established) bowls as the FBS bowl matches. All other bowls… yes, even your precious uDrove Humanitarian, Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersburg, Little Caesars, GoDaddy.com… may remain independent and ongoing aside from the FBS contests. No changes needed there. (But tell me if there’s a difference between the Armed Forces and Military bowls.)
Rotate the FBS bowls as quarterfinal, semifinal and final games, all of which could retain and maybe even increase the number of ticket-buyers, TV viewers and payouts. One reason? There’s even greater incentive to play in such a bowl. Not just one bowl. But a series of true head-to-head games where all the conference champions (not just the typical, known powerhouses) and other top-ranked squads have a genuine (and fair) shot at an undisputed national title. Throw in serious regional consideration and voila. Imagine that!
The younger, Decemberish bowls host quarterfinals on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday:
December 15
Connecticut v. Wisconsin - Independence Bowl, Shreveport
Nevada v. Stanford - Insight Bowl, Tempe
December 16
Florida International v. Auburn– Chick-Fil-A (Peach) Bowl, Atlanta
Miami, Ohio v. Oregon - Sun Bowl, El Paso
Dec. 17
Virginia Tech v. Ohio State – Gator Bowl, Jacksonville
Arkansas v. Oklahoma - Alamo Bowl, San Antonio
Dec. 18
Central Florida v. TCU – Liberty Bowl, Memphis
Boise State v. Michigan State – Holiday Bowl, San Diego
Probable winners?
Wisconsin, Auburn, Oregon, Ohio State, Arkansas, TCU, Boise State, Stanford
More bowls in Thursday and Friday (or Saturday were it not for holiday) semifinals (lowest v. highest-seeded winners):
Dec. 23
Boise State v. Auburn – Capital One Bowl, Orlando
Arkansas v. Oregon – Cotton Bowl, Dallas
Dec. 24
Stanford v. Wisconsin – Rose Bowl, Pasadena (See? It still shakes out Pac 10 v. Big 10)
Ohio State v. TCU– Outback Bowl, Tampa
Probable winners?
Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Stanford
Final Four of sorts/Friday, Dec. 31
Stanford v. Auburn - Fiesta Bowl, Tempe
TCU v. Oregon - Orange Bowl, Miami
Probable winners?
TCU (yep, I’d go for them), Auburn
Championship game, Friday, Jan. 7
Sugar Bowl, New Orleans
TCU v. Auburn
I’d probably still back Auburn in this one, but would not be surprised if TCU gave them a great run. But I guess we’ll never know. I recall how a House subcommittee approved legislation in late 2009 aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine a national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress had more pressing matters on its plate. To those naysayers, I say screw war, health care and jobs. Give us a playoff system!
I’m sure you’d say, well, Connecticut gets the automatic qualifying bid from a BCS conference. Someone how has to be there in a BCS bowl, even if some conferences (even some BCS conferences) are, ahem, inferior. I get the idea of auto qualifiers, which assures supposedly premier conferences get good play in notable bowl games.
But if these teams are such quality programs, why need this AQ process to begin with? In the greater scheme of things, do you think UConn deserves to play in a BCS bowl game when Boise State, even with their kicker screwing the pooch against Nevada, nearly ran the table and ends up in the Las Vegas bowl, a non-BCS contest?
As the Bleacher Report points out in one article, “since the BCS began its system of bowl determination, there have been six teams with three losses that won a spot at the big kids’ table. Only one team had gone to a BCS bowl with four losses: the 2005-2006 Florida State Seminoles.
The Bleacher Report article by John Krenek continues: “To further the point, each one of those three-loss teams, and FSU, gained entry via the ‘conference champion’ clause. What's more, each one of those teams was never ranked higher than 10th, and that was a Kansas State team who beat Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game, only to see OU play for the national title. Talk about your muddied waters. Do teams outside of the top 10 really have any business playing in games that were meant for the "best of the best," as they [the BCS powers that be] say?”
And I find it interesting that some who back “smaller schools” all year, honks for the likes of Boise and TCU who said their program deserved a shot at the national title game if either were to run the table, also endorse an inherently broken BCS system that’ll pretty much ensure smaller, lesser schools will only sniff but not touch a national bid…even if they truly deserve the top rankings. (Just to think how in 1984, freakin’ BYU won a national title in a Holiday Bowl by knocking off a questionable Michigan squad. This scared the bejeezus out of the powers that be.)
Those “powers that be” are primarily television executives and power conference presidents who only want to see and sell sex when it comes to bowl games. They'd rather arbitrarily pair two traditional powerhouses via a computer rather than let rising star schools settle such questions where it truly counts: on the playing field. Just like virtually every other level of sport. Wow. What a startling concept. Even the Kazahkistani kick-goathead league has a playoff. I’ve won money there. Without the NCAA basketball tournament, schools like George Mason and Butler likely would have never made it to the Final Four. You see Gonzagas and Marquettes make their mark on the national scene. Without the College World Series, schools like Cal State-Fullerton and Long Beach State -- not so much a Texas or USC -- get to shine and quite often.
Well, we won’t waste further time going into the minds of those myopically opposed to a NCAA Division I tournament of some kind. Even the “bowl games are a tradition” and “schools will lose money” and “you can’t make the student-athletes play that long or late into January” philosophies. None of those arguments really work. Never did, never will. Some say the BCS isn’t perfect, but that it’s a start.
So, what if a playoff system did exist for college football? My goodness, what fun that’d be. OK, let’s use BCS as a springboard. This is what I'd do. You start with automatic champions from 11 FBS conferences (regular-season champs and/or championship game victors). If there are co-champions, it’s up to the affected conference to determine who gets what we’ll call an FBS bid. You could combine the final regular season total average poll ranking with regular-season head-to-head outcomes for a tie-breaker. (Sound unfair? Good then. You get to retain some semblance of unfairness in the process of arriving at a final national champion)
You could average the rankings of the AP, ESPN, USA Today, Harris and Coaches' polls, emphasizing which schools get the most place votes and arrive at a final aggregate Top 25 poll (a de facto BCS without the computer interference). Those are arguably the strongest, long-standing, most popular and credible of Division I polls. And you get to a beautiful bracket like the one above (courtesy of NCAA). Isn't it gorgeous and awe-inspiring?
Here’s the final 2010 AP poll with related final 2010 BCS rankings:
1. Auburn (BCS No. 1 SEC champion-automatic qualifier)
2. Oregon (BCS No. 2 Pac-10 champion-automatic qualifier)
3. TCU (BCS No. 3 Mountain West champion-automatic qualifier)
4. Wisconsin (BCS No. 5 top co-Big 10 champion-automatic qualifier)
5. Stanford (BCS No. 4)
6. Ohio State (BCS No. 6 co-Big 10 champ)
7. Michigan State (BCS No. 9) (co-Big 10 champ)
8. Arkansas (BCS No. 8)
9. Oklahoma (BCS No. 7) (Big 12 champion-automatic qualifier)
10. Boise State (BCS No. 11)
11. LSU (BCS No. 10)
12. Virginia Tech (BCS No. 13) (ACC Champion-automatic qualifier)
13. Nevada (BCS No. 15) (WAC champion-automatic qualifier)
14. Missouri (BCS No. 12)
15. Alabama (BCS No. 16)
16. Oklahoma State (BCS No. 14)
17. Nebraska (BCS No. 18)
18. Texas A&M (BCS No. 17)
19. South Carolina (BCS No. 20)
20. Utah (BCS No. 19)
21. Mississippi State
22. West Virginia
23. Florida State
24. Hawaii
25. Connecticut (Big East champion-automatic qualifier)
Also, Miami, Ohio (Mid-American champion-automatic qualifier)
Also, Florida International (Sun Belt champion-automatic qualifier, beat Troy earlier in season)
Also, Central Florida (BCS No. 25) (Conference USA champion-automatic qualifier)
Ultimately, FBS automatic bids go to Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Nevada, UConn, Central Florida, Miami (Ohio) and Florida International.
You add the top independent team ranked high enough (overall in polls) for an FBS bid and/or four (or five) other highest-ranked schools (overall in polls). So this year these schools get an at-large bid: Stanford, Ohio State, Michigan State, Arkansas and Boise State.
The ultimate FBS tournament seedings in a 16 vs. 1, 15 vs. 2, 14, vs. 3, etc. format would be:
1. Auburn
2. Oregon
3. TCU
4. Wisconsin
5. Stanford
6. Ohio State
7. Michigan State
8. Oklahoma
9. Arkansas
10. Boise State
11. Virginia Tech
12. Nevada
13. Connecticut
14. Central Florida
15. Miami, Ohio
16. Florida International
Take into account the oldest, popular, most lucrative, traditional bowls and mix in some regional flair and considerate schedules. You can keep some of the best bowls. (I mean, really. The glut of bowls is ludicrous. More and more are added each year, some from inauspicious sponsors. Does anyone care to see the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl? Oooh, barnburner. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl? Really? New Era Pinstripe? Good lord. Oh, we could so perpetuate the Poulan Weedeater FreeCreditReport.com Pomegranate Bowl joke.)
All joking aside, use 15 of those prestigious, richest, most famous (i.e. powerful, established) bowls as the FBS bowl matches. All other bowls… yes, even your precious uDrove Humanitarian, Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersburg, Little Caesars, GoDaddy.com… may remain independent and ongoing aside from the FBS contests. No changes needed there. (But tell me if there’s a difference between the Armed Forces and Military bowls.)
Rotate the FBS bowls as quarterfinal, semifinal and final games, all of which could retain and maybe even increase the number of ticket-buyers, TV viewers and payouts. One reason? There’s even greater incentive to play in such a bowl. Not just one bowl. But a series of true head-to-head games where all the conference champions (not just the typical, known powerhouses) and other top-ranked squads have a genuine (and fair) shot at an undisputed national title. Throw in serious regional consideration and voila. Imagine that!
The younger, Decemberish bowls host quarterfinals on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday:
December 15
Connecticut v. Wisconsin - Independence Bowl, Shreveport
Nevada v. Stanford - Insight Bowl, Tempe
December 16
Florida International v. Auburn– Chick-Fil-A (Peach) Bowl, Atlanta
Miami, Ohio v. Oregon - Sun Bowl, El Paso
Dec. 17
Virginia Tech v. Ohio State – Gator Bowl, Jacksonville
Arkansas v. Oklahoma - Alamo Bowl, San Antonio
Dec. 18
Central Florida v. TCU – Liberty Bowl, Memphis
Boise State v. Michigan State – Holiday Bowl, San Diego
Probable winners?
Wisconsin, Auburn, Oregon, Ohio State, Arkansas, TCU, Boise State, Stanford
More bowls in Thursday and Friday (or Saturday were it not for holiday) semifinals (lowest v. highest-seeded winners):
Dec. 23
Boise State v. Auburn – Capital One Bowl, Orlando
Arkansas v. Oregon – Cotton Bowl, Dallas
Dec. 24
Stanford v. Wisconsin – Rose Bowl, Pasadena (See? It still shakes out Pac 10 v. Big 10)
Ohio State v. TCU– Outback Bowl, Tampa
Probable winners?
Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Stanford
Final Four of sorts/Friday, Dec. 31
Stanford v. Auburn - Fiesta Bowl, Tempe
TCU v. Oregon - Orange Bowl, Miami
Probable winners?
TCU (yep, I’d go for them), Auburn
Championship game, Friday, Jan. 7
Sugar Bowl, New Orleans
TCU v. Auburn
I’d probably still back Auburn in this one, but would not be surprised if TCU gave them a great run. But I guess we’ll never know. I recall how a House subcommittee approved legislation in late 2009 aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine a national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress had more pressing matters on its plate. To those naysayers, I say screw war, health care and jobs. Give us a playoff system!
