[NU Sports] Big Ten and the BCS ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> All of this banter is why I love college football so
> much and would not want a 2 or 3round playoff to
> determine the national champ

I hear this argument all the time ... but I just don't
buy it. If there were an 8 or 16 team playoff at the
end of the season, it wouldn't be like the regular
season would mean nothing.

Actually, I think it would be quite the opposite.
While teams like Ohio State and Florida may have had
their bids "locked down" going into this weekend with
a playoff format - they'd still be playing for
seeding. And you'd spread the excitement to more
teams, as there would be 20 or so teams playing for
playoff bids in the last week or so.

And September games would still mean a lot as well -
heck, we might even see the big boys schedule big
games in September to get those early boosts in the
ratings. Michigan's win at Notre Dame and OSU's win at
Texas were huge for each team in the early rankings,
but sadly were two of only a handful of significant
cross-conference matchups this year. It'd be nice to
see some of those SEC schools coaxed out of their
comfortable humidity-soaked surroundings into the
crisp autumn air of a midwestern stadium every once
and awhile.:)

So I never quite understood this argument that the
current system makes the regular season so meaningful.
You'd still have controversy galore and mega-matches
dripping with significance during the regular season
if you had a selection committee choose 8 or 16 teams
to duke it out on the field for a champonship. And
then you'd also get the mega-matches ON the field of
the playoffs themselves and the thrill of a champion
being crowned. So you'd have double the excitement.

The current system is lose-lose. Yeah, it works out
every so often when you have two unbeatens like 2002
or last year, but more often than not it plain old
sucks. And the addition of all these other bowls has
absolutely cheapened the meaning of the entire system.
How many bowl games this year are you truly looking
forward to as a fan? How many bowl games will be
played before stadiums with 75% or more of the seats
filled?

If we can't have a playoff, the Big Ten and Pac Ten
can at least decide to scarp this system that has
screwed with them numerous times in the past (Oregon
and SC being frozen out of title games for Big XII
teams that were whupped in their final game ...
Michigan snubbed of the title shot and Wisky snubbed
of a BCS bowl this year ... etc.) and go back to the
Rose Bowl tradition. That didn't crown a champ either
but at least it gave us something better than what we
have now.

Like I said before, I'm not trying to knock Florida
here because going 12-1 in the SEC is a lot and
they're worthy of a shot. I'm knocking the B(C)S
system that didn't mention a word of Florida's #1
schedule the last two weeks when it was all "SC or
Michigan?" ... then crowned SC the clear #2 when they
pounded an overrated Irish team ... then kicked the
hype machine into full effect again after SC's loss to
suddenly respect Florida (a team they had all but cast
aside the week before) and their schedule and try to
get voters to drop Michigan AGAIN, a second week in a
row that Michigan would be dropped in the polls
despite NOT LOSING simply because they didn't want a
rematch.

If they didn't want a rematch or non-conference champ
in the title game, they had many chances to change it
after Oklahoma and Nebraska got trounced in their
regular season finales and still made the title game.
They didn't. And we paid the price by watching Miami
crush Nebraska and getting a split title with LSU and
USC without the two playing on the field.

Nothing against Florida, but when Michigan ended their
season, they were the #2 team in the country. How they
can be dropped twice without losing exposes the entire
system as a load of utter crap.

Oh well, maybe I'll have to cheer on the Bucks out of
Big Ten pride after all. At least I love listening to
their band and respect their coach.:)

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


 
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