[Husker] Congress to investigate BCS - bring it back to

[Nick Chevance]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Mike Nolan <nolan at romaine.tssi.com> wrote:

> Yeah, well having a conference championship game didn't prevent the
> Big 12 South from having a very controversial choice for the
> conference championship game.

Good point.  The fact that the tie breaker was whomever is highest in
the BCS rankings may be an unreasonable way to decide things, but it
did provide a resolution.  But it is a good point.  We had three one
loss teams, each of whom had beaten one of the others.  Clearly that's
an issue that can be addressed in the conferences (how does the SEC or
ACC handle it?) but at least in the Big12, everyone played everyone
else.  That doesn't happen in the Big11.

> The Big 10 did have exploratory talks with Notre Dame about joining
> the conference to give them 12 teams.  Whether a conference championship
> game was seriously discussed (ABC has made it clear they'd put up a
> nice pot full of money to televise it) is unclear, but Notre Dame said
> no thanks anyway.

Ah, well, if you want to throw money into the equation, then all else
ceases to matter.  No, wait, that's how we ended up the BCS.  Anyway,
at the time the Golden Domers decided to go their own way, they were
on top of the heap and could pretty much make a deal like that, and
they continue to make enough money for NBC to make it worth their
while, though I'd argue that the product is mighty poor right now.
I'd venture a guess that as long as they have television revenues,
they'd be stupid to join a conference, and that contract with NBC was
extended this year to 2015.  But Mike has another good point - where
would the Big11 go to get another team as long as ND is raking in the
cash?  Do they need to?

> Also, the geographical distribution of the Big 10 conference makes two
> six-team divisions difficult, putting Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan
> in the 'east' division might make it too unbalanced (most years), especially
> if Notre Dame is in that division, and there's no way that Penn State
> belongs in the 'west' division or that Ohio State and Michigan would
> agree to give up The Game at the end of the season, which means there's
> a reasonable chance they could wind up playing two games a week apart.  Ugh!
> --
> Mike Nolan

Well, I said there were structural problems.  The Big11 is lopsided
geographically, and frankly talent wise too.  But much the same can be
said for the Big12 (though much more so since the conference was
formed, and the North going through ... changes).  Yes, The Game is a
big deal at the end of the year, but I'd argue that there have been
some other big games (perhaps the annual Thanksgiving Day game between
Nebraska and Oklahoma) that have been sacrificed for the good of the
conferences.  Yes, yes, I know the history of the Big Game, and all
that school pride stuff.  And I know it wasn't as big a deal for
Oklahoma as it was for Nebraska, since Oklahoma saw Texas as its big
rival.  Its easy for me to say this since I left the Big11 many years
ago and can't get myself too excited about what happens up there
anymore, but I'd say the Big Game could still take place, and still
have room for a conference championship.  If they could resolve a
divisional split, its unlikely that the OSU and Michigan would play
again in the championship if they are in the same division.  After
all, they managed that with Texas-Oklahoma when they formed the Big12.
 They just didn't count on an extended period of Nebraska (and the
rest of the north) sucking.  But would the uneven conference divisions
hurt a Big11?  Pretty much the same teams end up at the top anyway,
with maybe an occasional surprise.  Look at the SEC and the Big12.

I'd also argue that even the issue of deciding the Big12 South didn't
necessarily disqualify the loser of that tie-breaker a chance at
making the playoffs if there were such a thing.  But I don't want to
get into how all that would work, because that will take more than
just coming up with scenarios for how it can work, that will take some
arm twisting (heck, leg breaking even) to actual make it work.

Good points, Mike.  But I wonder if the Big11 wouldn't benefit under a
playoff, rather than going into a bowl game after 7-8 weeks off and
stinking it up (my apologies to Nittany Lions everywhere, but you did
really stink it up).  Maybe by continuing to play a few weeks more
might make a difference.

Nick
-- 
"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
Anatole France