Just a few weeks into the "BCS-this, BCS-that" portion of the college football season, most fans have already spent their yearly allotment of soapbox time protesting the sinister Bowl Championship Series rankings and lamenting the obvious lack of a true playoff system in the sport.
The most popular (and least profanity-laden) of these conversations may go a little something like this: Bubba: "Reckon them Hawgs goin' all the way this season, what with that Saban feller running things." Larry: "Um, I reckon you talkin' ‘bout the Crims'n Tide, but ne'ermind all that cuz that dang BCS done gum things up again this year ... now I don't know why they just won't have some kinda playoff like they do at the end of the NASCAR year."
Now, it is certainly true that NCAA division I-A football is the singular major American sports draw that does not crown a postseason grand champion through a head's up playoff system. It is equally true that the "good ol' boy" syndrome is still alive and well in the ranks of college football, which further leads to a doubting eye being cast the way of the sport and its methods. Sure, money is very much a part of the decision-making process, as is the unavoidable pageantry that accompanies each bowl game. These points of fact, however, are not necessarily tantamount to a failed system. In fact, I am of the belief that the system has its pluses.
The BCS gets far more than its share of negative publicity each and every year. With all this bad press, it seemed like a good idea to try to convince some fence-sitters that it is not as bad as you are led to believe. Below you'll find that proverbial silver lining...
1. The BCS Looks Out For the "Little Guy." With a 31-26 record since 2003 and nine consecutive bowl game losses, few teams need help from the BCS like this group. This team is such a long-standing joke that they refused to join any organized conference in fear of having to split what small amount of revenue the team managed to scrape up each year with the rest of their conference. In an attempt to salvage this perennial also-ran's status as a national player, the Bowl Championship Series committee took the unprecedented step of naming this university's athletic director to the committee as an equal to the eleven commissioner's of the NCAA's Division I-A conferences. Additionally, the BCS guarantees this lowly squad's place in one of the five BCS bowls if they finish in the top eight of the post-season rankings. That team? The Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
2. A Foolproof Scientific Methodology is Used. Most rating polls in college football are completely subjective. Left to the devices of coaches who see only a handful of games other than their own each year and a group of sports experts that have no credentials beyond their communications degrees and any alma-mater affiliation they may have from years gone by, rarely do these polls represent the actual strengths and weaknesses of all the nations' football squads. To help remedy this, the BCS has installed a highly scientific method of averaging out two of these totally subjective polls and leveraging in a handful of equally subjective computer polls, creating a "super-group" of subjectivity that can't help but become a fairly objective representation of the opinions of the masses. They call it the "two wrongs make a right" plan ... as in if you take one wrong poll and add it to another wrong poll, the results must be a right poll.
3. Championship Games Pit a True No. 1 versus a True No. 2. As a result of the foolproof planning the BCS committees have exhibited over the past decade, a fan is almost always guaranteed a championship matchup of the two teams who play the most mediocre schedule while remaining affiliated to a highly rated conference at least 50% of the time. Case-in-point, in the years 2004 and 2005, teams such as Auburn, Texas, and Michigan were denied a shot at a national title as a result of their reckless scheduling of in-conference games and their foolish idea of actually participating in a postseason conference playoff system.
4. Recent Results. Any BCS backer will be quick to tell you that the system has an unprecedented 100% success rate in brining you a first rate matchup of the undisputed top two teams in the land in games carrying the official "National Championship Game" designation. The proof to this is in the pudding — in 2007, No. 1 Ohio State was beat soundly by No. 2 Florida — the system had worked like a charm, much to the dismay of those anti-BCS masses. Oh, did I mention this is the only such game in the history of the BCS?
5. No "Bad Weather" Games. I don't know about you, but this fan finds few things more unnerving in life than kicking back on my sofa to watch an HDTV broadcast of the PapaJohn's.com Bowl only to be faced with the unyielding slight drizzle and temperatures in the mid-60s common to Birmingham, Alabama throughout the month of December. Thankfully, the BCS has had the foresight to schedule their five BCS bowl games in weather-friendly locales such as sunny southern California, temperate central Florida, and in the dry heat of Arizona, just to name a few. Never again will my BCS-watching be rudely interfered with by an unexpected strong breeze.
6. Expert Testimonials. The BCS website is littered with claims such as, "the celebration that occurs among the student-athletes, coaching staff, and fans at the end of each bowl game is an indication of the importance of all bowl games." Such glowing testimonials may well be expected on the organization's own website, but these comments are coming directly from the committee that signs off on all BCS decisions, making them that much more meaningful and reflective of the general public's opinions.
7. Financial Importance. Reflect, if you would, on the monetary import of these games to the 10 schools that participate. Of those 10, seven are likely perennial BCS game invitees. If a playoff system were to emerge, those seven schools that bank on that BCS bowl money would lose millions in sponsorship payouts and would be forced to unfairly share that wealth with the teams that wind up beating them in a revamped playoff system. How fair would it be for these schools to surrender their funds to the better team just because of a minor detail like the results of the game?
The Impact on Student-Athletes. Consider the plight of all those highly touted high school student-athletes who have dedicated their collegiate careers to playing the sport they've loved and excelled at since their youth at a school that they've watched on TV for years. Without the BCS bowl games, they'd never have chosen those famous institutions of higher learning as their secondary schooling destinations and may well be forced to see the inside of one of those "other" schools' classrooms once and awhile. Perish that thought.
9. FOX Affiliation. As a product of the television age, the import of all facets of my life is generally defined through TV affiliations. There is no bigger fish in that pond than the almighty FOX corporation, and their likeness is plastered all over the BCS and all related BCS propaganda. For my money, this fact goes further than silly historic results, sound reasoning and public preferences combined. Hey, if its good enough for "Haywire" and "The Pitts," than it sure must be good enough for me!
There you have it, nine tried and true reasons to believe in the Bowl Championship Series and its value to college football. And if this still isn't enough to get you drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid, than I submit to you that it could be far worse...
Just wait a few weeks and see for yourself.
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