For those of you who aren't football fans, BCS stands for Bowl Championship Series. The member conferences of the BCS are the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, and Big East.
Somehow these conferences conspired together to create the BCS and in the process aced all the other conferences in the country out of the big money bowl games that are held each year after the college football regular season winds down. These so-called "elite" conferences or "power conferences" made the big money grab of alltime..... and no one stopped them.
All other NCAA sports whose teams compete for a national title use a playoff format that consists of more than 2 teams - which is the current maximum # of BCS title game participants. You read that correct: 2 teams make the playoff. Even Division II and Division III football programs have a playoff in order to ensure that every qualified team has a shot at the title. The games are thrilling to watch.
The lucky participants of the BCS title game are decided by computers that are as sophisticated as those used to launch the space shuttle. Two teams are selected. And make no mistake, 2 great football teams WILL meet at the Rose Bowl on January 7, 2010....it's just that another 3 or 4 teams, maybe more, have LEGITIMATE arguments to also be included in that very game.
Every single year there are at least a couple of teams that should be included in the discussion of who should play for the national title. Last year it was Utah and Boise State, this year it's TCU, Cincy and Boise State....again.
Why the NCAA FBS schools can't get together and figure out a better plan is annoying has hell.
Arguments for maintaining the current system are laughable:
Many BCS proponents wish to maintain the integrity of the bowl games. This is BS. Bowl games sold their soul and with it their integrity 2 decades ago to sponsors waving wheelbarrels of cash. The younger crowd doesn't remember this, but the "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl" was once just called simply "The Fiesta Bowl." Players wore sombrero's and panchos instead of snacking on tostitos scoops or Tostitos Restaurant Style Chips with Hint of Lime.... The Fedex Orange Bowl was once, you guessed it, just known as "The Orange Bowl." It was played in a rickety old stadium that was named, guess again, The Orange Bowl.
Really, who cares about all those meaningless bowl games - and they are all meaningless except one of them. A playoff would provide instant credibility to EVERY BOWL GAME since the loser goes home. What better motivation is there for kids having to play in Las Vegas in cold and windy December than the winner gets to move on and play the next week in Orlando? Or Miami? Or New Orleans?
Arguments that school administrators use like "keeping kids in school" are laughable. These very same schools HOLD THEIR BREATH while the NCAA Men's Basketball field is picked HOPING their school gets an invite - no matter how much class the kids miss. A ticket to the big dance means money and prestige. It's the golden circus ticket.
For once I would like to see an Athletic Director decline a NCAA tournament bid based on the grounds that the kids just can't miss any more classes. That'll never happen. Never, yet they use that argument against a football playoff all the time. I'll go out on a limb and say that football players are, generally speaking, smarter than their basketball counterparts so if any group needs to stay in school for class, it's certainly the basketball players.
2 years ago Ohio State played their last conference game 51 days before playing for the BCS title. Not only was the product on the field lousy after not competing for nearly 2 months, but many saturdays were wasted on meaningless Pointsetta/GMAC/Bell Helicopter bowl games. These games meant nothing.
So why does the BCS continue to operate and essentially freeze out all of the other conferences except those in the BCS? Shouldn't "National Championship" mean that all schools have the opportunity to play for the title and not just the SEC, Big 12, Pac 12, ACC, Big East, and Big 10 schools?
What if, for example, the same logic was applied to the men's basketball tournament? Schools would freak out if the BCS template was used in basketball yet somehow the BCS supporters most of whom are fat, white, crazy, old, plaid jacket-wearing, skirt-chasing dinosaurs don't want to pull back from the money trough. They are blinded by greed. to the detrimant of the entire system, the BCS lives on.
It's time to blow up the BCS for good. It's time for a college football playoff. Hey Obama, alittle help here.
3 comments:
I agree completely, and the BCS folks have shown even more hypocrisy this year by not allowing TCU or Boise to prove they can play with the "power" conferences. 75 % of the time that non-automatic qualifying teams were given the opportunity they have won, and oftem comfortably.
The only positive developments this year are that the MWC and the WAC will get in on a share of the money available, and that the entire country, not just the fans of the MWC and the WAC now see the hypocrisy.
One clarification...Cincinnati is a member of the Big East, a BCS automatic qualifier that is not as strong as the MWC and might not be any better then the WAC.
Amen to that anonymous.
College football players are smarter than college ballers? Hmmm. I'd have to question that.
Ok, maybe the quarterback and the kicker. But the rest of them spend everyday head bashing each other. hard. The term "meathead" didn't come undeserved. hehe.
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