[NU Sports] Money and the BCS

[Herman Wang]

Well, I think the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange bowls have something to say about being undermined.  A playoff would make those bowls merely a 1st round matchup, not the marquee attraction that they currently are.  This is debatable, of course.  I would argue that many of the matchups in these BCS bowls are hardly marquee (Georgia vs. Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl a few years back comes to mind, as does the many bland ACC vs. BigEast matchups in the Orange Bowl).  But I suspect that the BCS bowls like being "the big deal" that closes the football season.  Having a semifinal and then final matchup afterwards would somewhat diminish their place in the grand college football universe, possibly leading to smaller crowds and lower television ratings.

I could do without the BCS personally.  I liked having the BigTen and Pac10 champions meet annually in the Rose Bowl.  I also have no problem with "split" national champions decided by polls.  But people apparently want an "undisputed" national champion decided on the field, and as imperfect as the BCS is, it performs this function.  My solution would be to go back to the traditional bowl affiliations:
BigTen champ vs. Pac10 champ in the Rose Bowl
SEC champ vs. at-large in the Sugar Bowl
ACC champ vs. BigEast champ in the Orange Bowl
Big12 champ vs. at-large in the Fiesta Bowl
If you need to add a fifth bowl game to appease the mid-major conferences, then throw in the Cotton Bowl.

Then after those games are done, re-rank the teams.  Use human polls, computers, whatever obscure formula you want.  Then take the Nos. 1 and 2 teams and match them up in a championship game the following week.

Go 'Cats!
Herman



> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:04:03 -0800
> From: jleonard518 at yahoo.com
> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: [NU Sports] Money and the BCS
> 
> I don't hate the BCS like some people do, but I don't understand the why the current BCS hasn't developed a simple playoff system. We're always talking about how in college football 'it's all about the money', so why does the BCS leave so much on the table? 
> 
> The formula may not always get it right, but BCS ranking is fundamentally an attempt to identify the top teams when they may not meet on the field. The choices for #1 and #2 may be suspect some years, but it does a DECENT job of capturing the top eight teams. Any team that runs the table or has only 1-loss in a major conference should land in the top eight. (Please don't research the one exception, it doesn't change my argument) So it's safe to say that the BCS top eight includes your best teams. 
> 
> I know it has been outlined before, but I just don't understand why it can't happen. Let the BCS top eight go to the four major bowls (Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange), let the four winners meet the following week and let the two finalists play the week after that. Why would this be so hard to implement?
> 
> I've heard a few arguments:
> -----------------------------------------
> 1) The extension conflicts with classes in the new semester. === Not Really. The BCS already allows two schools to play one week after January 1st and most schools don't start back until the 3rd week of January. I will gladly let NU players miss classes when we finally get there. 
> 
> 2) It will undermine the smaller bowls. ==== Not Really. The Motor City Bowl is as irrelevant as it gets and it somehow survives in the current landscape. I could argue that there are too many small bowls, but I can't see how interest in small bowls would be affected. 
> 
> What am I missing?
> 
> Go Cats!
> Jim
> 
> 
>       
> 
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