TheAgitator.com
BCS Fail
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009So if you’re running a sports league, and if one of the teams in your league finishes the season undefeated, and if that team still has no chance of being your league’s champion, your system pretty much stinks. College football isn’t my favorite spectator sport. But I do watch the major bowls every year, mostly just to root for a BCS train wreck.
So way to go, Utes!
You would think that, given that there has been a train wreck every freaking year since the BCS was started, they would just give up on it already and either go back to the old system or put in a playoff.
You would think that, yes.
Will they EVER get a playoff system in place? I have my doubts. For some reason the powers that be want to maintain the bowl games and the political system of ranking teams to determine a champ.
the system will never change as long as there are millions of dollars at stake. even the crap bowls award at least a million.
Same thing happened to Auburn in 2004 (except we won SEC game)
War Eagle!
Didn’t Obama say he was going to fix this come Jan 20th? Oh yea, he was just telling us what he thought we wanted to hear…….
Obama has the same stance on a college football playoff as any sane individual. He’s also supposed to have the same amount of power to change it as any of us. I don’t know if that would stop him, though.
Thing is, as much as I would be opposed to Obama getting involved in principle, I loathe the BCS so much that I might just say “fuck principle.”
But the BCS makes the regular season more important. Like when Texas beat OU during the regular season and then…no, that didn’t work out for the BCS either.
Hook ‘em = not a BCS fan.
I would vote for Utah as the #1 team personally.
They trounced Alabama which was the #1 team in the nation for 7 weeks, and still ranked #4 last night.
The tore Alabama apart on defence, with a total of 8 sacks (wow).
The only reason anyone can say they should not be champs is because they are not a BCS school, like they are in the Big 10 where only Iowa has won a bowl so far, Ohio state may beat Texas (LOL I do not think they will), PAC 10 is USC and some other teams that do OK some years, ACC they are very good in basketball, Big 12 good conference with a couple big bowl losses thus far, SEC another good conference with some big losses.
If Notre Dame went undefeated they would already be crowned.
They went undefeated, nothing else needs to be said.
The old system, or lack of one actually, was much more interesting than this purgatory called the BCS.
Back then there might be 3 or even 4 bowl games with teams who, with a win and depending on the outcomes of the other games, had a shot at being voted the “National Champion”, making them all interesting to watch.
Either go back or go forward (to…say…an 8 team playoff) but stop this BCS madness. It has rendered all but one of the bowl games meaningless from a ranking standpoint to all but the fans of the teams involved and even those fans have less to root for. Who wants to chant “WE’RE NUMBER THREE! WE’RE NUMBER THREE!”?
True Erik, but I would chant for being number three over “we’re number two”.
I don’t think that having a lone undefeated team, who can’t compete for the championship, necessarily means that the system doesn’t work. The regular season games are weighted and the harder games (i.e. against tougher, better teams) are weighted more heavily than those against cream puff teams. Therefore, the team that has played, and won, more games against tougher opposition get an advantage. Since teams set some of their matchups, the system is designed to reward those teams that take chances and play better opposition.
Let me give you a boxing analogy. Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr, has a professional record of 38-0 with 29 KOs and Antonio Margarito has a record of 37-5 with 27 KOs. Who do you think the better boxer is? Let me give you a clue, it’s not the guy who is undefeated. Why? Because Margarito has faced much tougher opposition, even if he’s lost 5 times, than Chavez Jr, who’s fought nothing but tomato cans.
Therefore, I don’t think that having a lone, undefeated team not compete for the National Championship is necessarily a bad thing.
BTW, I also favor a playoff system, but not because there might be an undefeated team left out of the National Championship game. It’s because there are too many bowls and this would create an undisputed, definite national champion (like in all the other major sports).
You might have a point, Nando, but you never truly know how good Chavez is until you put Chavez up against someone who can actually beat him……..
#7- Big 12 as of this writing is 3-2 in bowls (Missou, Kansas and Nebraska winners). Since only Texas Tech was in a “big bowl”, I don’t understand your position.
Nando, I’m with you that a team’s record doesn’t necessarily reflect its strength, but your boxing analogy breaks down after last night, when the two boxers met and the 38-0 tomato-can-beater whooped the 37-5 stronger-competition guy.
If Ball State and gone undefeated and beat a 7-5 team in the Motor City Bowl, there would be very little argument about voting Ball State #1. But Utah went in to a BCS game and beat up Alabama, who was ranked #1 going into the last week of the season and played for a chance to go to the national championship game (in the SEC conference championship against Florida) just a few weeks ago. Florida only beat them by 11.
If I were a coach and the BCS Championship was remotely close, I’d give my vote to the Utes.
Boyd, you nailed it. The only way the BCS makes any sense is that then you would have regular season games be de facto playoff games. It’s completely indefensible that the #2 team lost to the #3 in a head to head game, on a neutral sight no less, and yet the rankings end as such. The regular season meant everything when Texas lost on a last second play on the road, and then the next week when Oklahoma beat the crap out of that same third team at home. Or when USC lost to Oregon St. what seems like 4 months ago – it meant everything then. But head to head games on neutral sights can be swept aside. Just dumb.
And let’s not even mention that all these state schools are even in the business of sports entertainment as a role of government.
Radley, the word “failure” has been part of the English language for centuries. Your recent illiterate adoption of the word “fail” in its place seems out of place on your website, which is generally not so inane and childish.
College football isn’t a “sports league” though. The NCAA is a sanctioning body. Conferences are leagues and undefeated teams invariably win conferences. The NCAA isn’t even in charge of scheduling! So a system that guarantees playoff berths to undefeated teams would lead to the schools racing to the bottom to schedule the weakest possible non-conference opponents. You wouldn’t have one undefeated school in that scenario — you’d have eight or, heaven forbid, nine. Nice solution there.
Radley, the word “failure” has been part of the English language for centuries. Your recent illiterate adoption of the word “fail” in its place seems out of place on your website, which is generally not so inane and childish.
Comment fail.
So a system that guarantees playoff berths to undefeated teams would lead to the schools racing to the bottom to schedule the weakest possible non-conference opponents.
Isn’t this allready happening?
The BCS does have a playoff: a two team playoff. Now you can argue it should be bigger, but how big? If you make it four teams, the number five team every year will complain they should have gotten a chance. If you make it an 8 team playoff, the number nine team every year will complain they should have gotten a chance.
Stormy Dragon – That analogy goes on forever. Make it an 8 team playoff and let #9 cry their eyes out. Or, go back to what it was before. Anything but the BCS!
You guys just don’t get it. The whole point of the BCS is to include all the big boys (and some of the little kids), give the system a way to match up the best teams, not in a playoff, and then, the most important part, get everyone to talk about it for 5 months!!!!
They’ll never have a playoff, and that’s really not that bad. Right now they have an exciting season, where there is suspense and drama every week. There’s no ‘coasting into the playoffs’ like happens in every other league. Every game matters. Maybe some of the polls matter a little too much (preseason polls should be entirely ignored, because you get too much credit for being high in that, even if you’re a more mediocre team), but overall they get the results they’re looking for:
Buzz
Probably 2 of the 3 best teams playing each other for a championship.
Buzz
Participation from all conferences, with the opportunity for lesser schools to get into the deal.
Buzz
More Buzz
Lots of money
Why go to a playoff? So that we can sit around and say ‘Oh yeah, they were the best team’? Even THAT wouldn’t happen. Say you have a playoff this year, and in the semi’s USC plays Penn State in that meh game they had, and then Florida and Oklahoma play a complete corker that has everyone on the edge of their seats, and OU wins. Then they go and TROUNCE USC into the ground. Did you have the best teams in the championship? Really? Or do you talk about how USC shouldn’t have been there… just like we do now!
No, they played in the semifinal, where the best team won, and then that team went on to become national champion. What argument does Oklahoma really have? “We should have had a chance to delay the inevitable for one more game by trouncing a weaker team in the semifinal”? They still had their shot, which is all anybody is really asking for with a playoff. Honestly, what was your point again?
Sorry, I meant to write “What argument does Florida really have?”
“There’s no ‘coasting into the playoffs’ like happens in every other league.”
We sure wouldn’t want a situation where teams that have locked up a playoff spot rest starters for part of a game. Power teams never sit players in blowout wins over the scrubs they schedule to make themselves sexier for the BCS. That never happens.
Egggh, football sucks. It’s gotten even more slow and boring than it already was. I don’t know how you guys can put up with it.
I just like that Utah has won 2 BCS bowls.
“Two Utes” has even mroe meaning now.
WTG Utes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about takin numbers and clockin’em out they did that and BIG time! About the time Saban realized the game had started Utah had 21 points on the board. Yeah Baby!
Bama woke up and played one hella game to almost the very end, but could not pull it out. Congrats to them they were, for sure, a worthy opponent.
Unlike some of the supposed “big” games this bowl season, this one was everything it was billed to be!
I’ve always wondered why the schools who are essentially ineligible for the championship even consider themselves Division 1?
You guys just don’t get it. The whole point of the BCS is to include all the big boys (and some of the little kids), give the system a way to match up the best teams, not in a playoff, and then, the most important part, get everyone to talk about it for 5 months!!!!
I think the interest generated by the BCS is overrated if it means that people are no longer interested in most of the games. I used to watch most of the major bowls, and don’t anymore because all but one is utterly meaningless.
Proponents of the current system act as though the choice is between the BCS and an NCAA tournament style field of 64(which admittedly destroys the value of the regular season). The small playoff that D1A could institute wouldn’t need to be like that. By limiting the tournament to conference champions, the fun of the college regular season would be preserved.
One last stray point. If they’re going to argue that they isn’t time in the academic schedule to accommodate the extra games, why do they play the BCS title game a full week after the other bowls?
“Comment fail.”
Radley, I’m sorry but I have to agree that this usage is wrong. Really, that was an “epic fail.”
My system:
Play the good ol’ fashioned bowl games with the traditional conference matchups.
Then, take the top two teams that won their bowl game and won their conference championship and have a title game.
A-freaking-men!!!!
Buncha illiterate slobs!
It’s even worse David. Every other division of College Football has a playoff system. Apparently the academics in the lower divisions don’t matter as much.
Also, to whoever said it, I’d rather be arguing about which team goes 8th or sitting outside at 9th rather than arguing 1, 2, or 3.
The BCS is a joke. It’s relies on inertia to keep it viable. The system is archaic. There isn’t a single good reason, explanation, or argument for why it is made the way it is.
Until the players are paid this is not even close to the list of the biggest problems in college football.
A few things the Alabama-Utah game means nothing about who the better team really is between those two. Alabama had nothing to play for, it was a reward for the players so they could get there 400 dollars and go to a theme park and parade. Utah actually had something to play for mainly the argument that they should be ranked higher in the polls and to have a shot at the national championship game in the future. That and that they belong in the BCS so if they go undefeated or with 1 loss in the future that they can be expected to get the 7 plus million. Hawaii on the other had will never be invited back.
Someone already mentioned that the old system was better and I agree. The current system is busted in that except the national title game and the rose bowl the other BCS bowls do not matter at all to anyone except boosters. There is no motivation to play anywhere near full effort as this is just an reward for a good to near great season. This system also hurts the regular season by allowing teams lets call them U Florida to continue to run from everyone OOC and yet still play for the National Championship and teams like OSU, UT, Neb, FSU and USC that regularly play top tier teams OOC get screwed out if they lose a tight game.
And Texas was not that screwed. The game was close and there was controversy late in the game. Texas lost to a team that got blown out of the state by Oklahoma. If they did not play each other but instead had the same retaliative wins and losses Oklahoma would be the no brainier pick. Texas should not have lost is what it really comes down too. Especially when they had to know that no matter who wins the SEC they are now basically an auto in to the championship game because of the successful bullshit campaign.
And you complained about the NFL … this B(C)S stuff makes me glad at the way the NFL does it.