The college football season is ending, meaning that in order to get my fix I'm watching Appalachian State take on Villanova. I figured I'd discuss a few of my problems with the current system of FBS football and how they handle their championship. By and large, I am opposed to the BCS not necessarily because it doesn't set up a good match between 1 and 2, it usually does to some extent, but because it really messes everything else. It's a system in which you can win all your games and still be left out of a good bowl or the national championship. Let's look at Auburn a few years back, or Michigan State this year. They beat Wisconsin, have the same record, but because Michigan State's loss came later in the year they miss out on the Rose Bowl. I have a word for that, idiocy. Think of the reaction were that to occur in a professional sport. Let us say that the Pats and the Jets have the same record at the end of the year and the Pats own the head to head tie breaker. If the Jets got into the playoffs over the Pats because of random computations by a shadowy cabal of nerds there would be rioting in the street. Things should be settled on the field, not by the perceptions of coaches, sports writers, and others who pay no more attention to the game than looking at scores, records and the name of the school in a newspaper.
Many would argue that the implementation of a play-off would diminish the regular season, that if teams didn't have to go undefeated the games would be less thrilling. There is some truth to this, emphasis on some. Not every game is important for every team and different games have different levels of importance. It turns out that Virginia Tech, Stanford, Arkansas, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Oklahoma didn't have to win every game, as long as they lost earlier in the year everything was peachy keen. Virginia Tech and Connecticut both lost to more teams and to inferior competition than Boise State and Michigan State yet both get to attend prestigious bowl games with large payouts. To say that every game matters is to be disingenuous. If every game mattered, only undefeated teams or teams with better records would be represented in the bowls.
I happen to be an ardent supporter of a playoff though there would be less excitement for some teams. Auburn or Oregon or another highly ranked team could likely drop a game and still get a good seed in the playoff. Other teams though, would still have the excitement of having to play there way in, still making every game important. The same number of games would likely still be important, people would still have stayed up late to watch Boise State vs Nevada because it would have determined whether or not that Boise State could have gone to the playoffs, most current projections for a playoff would have the top eight teams competing, a distinction that Boise State lost when it lost the game. I personally like the idea that the individual ranked conference champion gets in with a few at large bids. With the current standings, that would mean that Oregon, Auburn, TCU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Boise State, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and UCF would all receive automatic bids, add in 5 wild-cards that would probably be Ohio State, Stanford, Arkansas, Michigan State, and Boise State. Oregon and Auburn would receive a first round bye making for thirteen games to be played in total over four weeks, which is about how long the bowl season lasts as it stands presently. Are teams left out of this system? Yes. Do some lower ranked teams get in over higher ranked teams? Again, yes. But, this view completely disregards the fact that there are competitive disadvantages between certain conferences that make this plan better than the current one.
Over the course of the last season, many complained about Boise State being included in the same breath as Oregon or Auburn, claiming that Boise would never be able to compete week in and week out with the rest of the SEC or Pac 10. My problem with this argument, is that I don't think that Auburn or Oregon could compete in their respective conferences if their funding and facilities were at the same level as Boise's. The NCAA is not like the NFL, there is no larger revenue sharing or salary cap. Certain conferences make a lot more money and the schools that belong to it benefit more from it. I'm for more amenable to the argument that the champion of the NFC West should be left out of the playoffs than I am that the champion of the Mountain West should be left out. Besides, I think that a robust playoff like this might actually put a huge dent in the perceptions that people have of rankings and the mega conferences. Right now I'm watching unranked Villanova convincingly outplay #1 ranked Appalachian State.
Many would argue that this would interfere with the studies of the students etc etc. These are unconvincing arguments because every other sport has playoffs and they manage to do just fine. If the University Presidents were actually concerned about the impact that playoffs would have on academic performance they would schedule their games to take place in the Summer. Besides, I guarantee Villanova has great academic achievements and that they still manage to win a playoff match up to get a national championship. Furthermore, if the University presidents actually cared about student part of the student athlete, they would have academic performance and graduation rates factor into the BCS computation, likely pitting Stanford and TCU in the championship game. These are student-athletes, so being good students should result in some kind of tangible reward for them on the field.
Really, the attachment to the bowl games has everything to do with money but here's the thing, these schools would still make a ton of money if there was a switch to the playoff and there's nothing that says that the various bowls can't still be utilized. There could be a two tier structure like we have with NCAA Basketball, the good teams get to go into the playoffs and the bad teams get to go bowling. Most of the bowls are really stupid anyways and are only important to the teams that are in them.
As a final note, I want to touch upon the Cam Newton scandal. This feels like the height of hypocrisy to me. Bush loses the Heisman because the NCAA held that the actions of the parent are not to be held distinct with the actions of the child. If the parent does something wrong, the child did something wrong. The NCAA decided not to do it that way this time and argued that Cecil Newton acted independently of Cam Newton so Cam should not be punished and found disqualified. That's pure idiocy, even if he did not know, he may have materially benefited from his father's actions, which gives him a competitive advantage that is against the rules. Not to mention that this makes it way easier to cheat in the future, athletes can just claim they didn't know what there parents were doing. The only reason why the NCAA went all limp-wristed on this issue was because Auburn is getting ready to play for the National Championship and Cam Newton is up for the Heisman, if the team sucked you know they would have found him ineligible. Frankly this just seems like an event where the NCAA will punish Auburn and Cam after it's no longer important anymore.
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