Should BCS Be Replaced By Playoffs? -- Guynemer's Proposal

[Drake Tungsten]

Why do you say that the current system is in the best interest of College football? That's the whole point of this thread. A playoff system would be great for college football, just like March Madness is for basketball.

You and Guynemer want college football to be like every other sport. I'm telling you that I love college football because it's not like every other sport. A playoff would destroy the thing I love most about college football; the fact that a single loss on any gameday can ruin a team's chances for the national title. It makes every game important, every upset exciting. If BC upsets Miami, it ruins Miami's season. If the Bengals upset the Dolphins, however, it means very little.

Can't you guys see that college football is special because it doesn't have a playoff? Half the fun of college football is the arguments that erupt about the polls and the BCS. I can get into fights with Penn State fans about the 1995 national title, or with Michigan fans about the 1997 title and I love every second of it. There is a passion in college football that doesn't exist in any other sport and I don't want to lose that. In your quest to determine who the "rightful" national champion is every year, you're taking all the fun out of the game. Unfortunately, the powers that be are on your side...

[Ming]

Sorry Drake... I can't agree with you. I see a corrupt bowl system that doesn't give any of the non major powers a real chance to win a championship. If you aren't in a major conference, YOU ARE SCREWED... You can win every game, be the best team in the world, and no way to prove it. What we now have is a system that only lets a select bunch of teams win a championship, not a FAIR system that allows ANY team to win... I don't see the "charm" of that at all...

[Drake Tungsten]

How do you figure? Have a link that give details on this assumption?

Just my opinion, but not an unfounded one. Look at March Madness. Even the worst games of a playoff will get a hell of a lot more viewers than the Humanitarian Bowl. The TV contract alone would be a massive source of revenue for the NCAA.

[Drake Tungsten]

Sorry Drake... I can't agree with you. I see a corrupt bowl system that doesn't give any of the non major powers a real chance to win a championship. If you aren't in a major conference, YOU ARE SCREWED... You can win every game, be the best team in the world, and no way to prove it. What we now have is a system that only lets a select bunch of teams win a championship, not a FAIR system that allows ANY team to win... I don't see the "charm" of that at all...

I agree with many of your points, Ming. However, the answer is to reform the current system, not destroy it and college football in the process. There are ways to give the mid majors a fair shake without resorting to a playoff...

[Ming]

The bowl system as it is now produces tons of money for those running the bowls, and the teams that go to them.

But, here I will agree with you on the total money issue.
I've seen the NCAA reports... and the Network reports on the type of revenue that a 8 team national championship could deliver. It's far more than the current bowl system (plus, many of the minor bowls would still be played)

However, it's WHO gets the money that is important. And right now, a bunch of corrupt bastards ,who would rather have ND play in their bowl game so that they can make more money than if they invited a more deserving team, run the show. And they are doing everything possible to make sure a true national championship never occurs.

This is NOT in the best interest of College Football.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
There are ways to give the mid majors a fair shake without resorting to a playoff...

The only possible reform that would give these guys a chance IS A PLAY OFF. The greedy bowl people offered up the current system, just so they could keep their monopoly... This is a joke for college football. Money is determining who gets to play... I would prefer it to be bsed on the skill of the teams. If you win all your games, and your conference, why shouldn't you get a chance to prove you can beat the big boys. In any other sport, you have to lose before you are out of the hunt. As it is now, all you have to do is be in the wrong conference to lose

Again... as it stands now, and can not be changed without a playoff... everybody DOESN'T have a chance to prove they are the best.

[DanS]

"why shouldn't you get a chance to prove you can beat the big boys"

You already had your chance by having a credible schedule. You passed on that opportunity. So everybody should subsidize your poor choices?

Kvetching about ND is poor form. ND plays the big boys more than any other team and more than deserves the shots it gets.

[Drake Tungsten]

If you win all your games, and your conference, why shouldn't you get a chance to prove you can beat the big boys.

The problem with this point, as both DanS and I have said, is that the conferences are not even close to being equal in talent. The difference in talent levels between the Sun Belt and the Big 12 is unbelievable. To say that winning the Sun Belt championship is impressive at all is an assinine comment.

The problem, in my view, is that teams are locked into their conferences. While most Big 12 teams are better than most Mountain West teams, the elite of the Mountain West certainly could achieve some level of success in the Big 12, certainly more than Kansas and Baylor. Under the current system, however, teams like BYU can't escape their ****ty conference, even if they are consistently good enough to deserve it. I think there needs to be some sort of liquidity in the conference structures that would allow teams like BYU and Marshall to move up to the major conferences and compete for national titles while teams like Baylor and Vanderbilt would drop out of their conferences and the national title picture. You have to give teams the opportunity to better their chances with consistently good play.

There you go, a way to let mid-majors compete for the national title without instituting a playoff...

[Ming]

I didn't say that ND doesn't deserve it this year... they have surprised everybody, and beaten many teams when they were the underdog.

But, there have been many years where they have gotten bowl bids FAR BETTER than they had earned on the field... and only because some sleazy bowl commitee wanted the money that ND could bring them.

A team should earn their chance to play in the championship based on winning... not the conference they play in or the tv contract they have.

[DanS]

"I didn't say that ND doesn't deserve it this year... they have surprised everybody, and beaten many teams when they were the underdog."

Dance, dance, dance.

Why does ND deserve it this year? Just because it's ND? NO. It's because ND beat more good teams than anybody else.

"But, there have been many years where they have gotten bowl bids FAR BETTER than they had earned on the field... and only because some sleazy bowl commitee wanted the money that ND could bring them."

Totally inapposite, Ming.

When has an ND national championship bid hinged on being "unfairly" chosen by a bowl? Sure, ND might have displaced a no. 4 team, but the national championship wasn't on the line.

"A team should earn their chance to play in the championship based on winning..."

...against good teams.

[Ming]

Originally posted by DanS
Dance, dance, dance.

Not at all... please feel free to point out in this thread where I have specifically said that ND doesn't deserve a shot this year... oh that's right, you can't

Totally inapposite, Ming.

No... just simply the truth.

Sure, ND might have displaced a no. 4 team, but the national championship wasn't on the line.

My point exactly... some other team has been denied a chance in an honored bowl game that they earned on the field, but loss to ND because of money. As long as the NCAA lets OTHER people determine who gets to play in these games, based on money, it's a joke.

...against good teams.

Exactly... I see we agree. A playoff system would allow just that. They would get their chance to play the good teams... and prove that they have it or don't... a far better system than just assuming they can't win.

[Drake Tungsten]

My point exactly... some other team has been denied a chance in an honored bowl game that they earned on the field, but loss to ND because of money. As long as the NCAA lets OTHER people determine who gets to play in these games, based on money, it's a joke.

If this is your concern, then just use the BCS to set up every bowl game. 1 v. 2, 3 v. 4, 5 v. 6 and so on and so on all the way down to the Toilet Bowl. A playoff isn't the only solution to this legitimate problem.

[DanS]

"please feel free to point out in this thread where I have specifically said that ND doesn't deserve a shot this year..."

Just keep on dancing, Ming.

Especially important to dance, when you just can't bring yourself to say that ND is deserving because of its strength of schedule.

Oh wait. We can't have evaluation based on strength of schedule. ND rules that category. Let's figure out a way that NC State can leach off of the teams that play credible schedules.

[JohnT]

A long, meandering post that goes nowhere but does give a good link to stat fans.

I'm kind of reminded of Marvin Miller's retort back in 1964 when he was trying to form the MLB's Player's Union and someone asked "But won't your proposals mean that only the big market teams will be able to win the World Series?"

He replied: "As opposed to a system that has given the Yankees 20 of the last 40 World Series'?"

Ming is right: the current system only allows for a select 20 teams to have a real shot at the championship. Don't these names sound depressingly familiar?

Penn St (2), Miami (5), BYU, Oklahoma(2), Notre Dame, Colorado, Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, FSU(2)...

These are the teams that have won the past 20 championships (AP Poll, and, for multiple winners, I put the number of championships the teams won in parenthesis). All of them, except for BYU, Colorado, and the Florida teams have been in contention for National Championships since before any of us were born, and Miami and FSU have been consistent powerhouses over the past 20 year span.

Here is another 20 year span - the similarities with the above list will be in bold: Alabama, USC, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio St., Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Georgia.

And yet another 20 year span (once again, those teams repeated from the above 2 lists are in bold): Ohio St., Notre Dame, Army, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Michigan St., Maryland, Auburn, LSU, Syracuse, Minnesota.

60 national championships won by 23 different teams. Whoo-hoo.

Now it doesn't totally prevent the unusual from happening, ala a Syracuse with Jim Brown or a Minnesota (or Clemson) who came out of nowhere and promptly went back, but the trend is unmistakable - teams win the championship not because they truly deserve it, but that they get the rep. Hell, the pollsters just about did everything they could to get Steve Spurrier "his" national championship in 1996 even to the point of ranking Florida #2 after losing their game (and the number 1 ranking) to FSU on 11-30-1996. Even though Florida lost, the pollsters were bound and determined that FL would rematch against FSU so they swapped the two teams in the polls and made FSU play Florida twice in a row.

Btw, I found an awesome site - amazing it is from the U. of Tennessee:

http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/ranking/

The above has power rankings, strength of schedule stats, and other info for every team and every game played since 1869.

For example, here is the final ranking for 1996: http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr...king_Best.html

And, if you click on, say, Florida, you get this:

http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr/cfr/Output/1996/CF_1996_Team_Florida.html

He'll even give you the power rankings for every conference, every year, ala: http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr...nferences.html

[Ming]

Yeah... but what about this year. It is possible that 3 teams in major conferences and ND could all end up undefeated... yet only two of them will play for the championship... How is that fair.? We are letting computers, coaches, and the media decide which of the 4 teams are the best instead of letting the players prove it... it's a farce at best. Unless they play, we won't know if the "right" teams were given the chance to play for the championship.

What if ND goes undefeated but by some quirk, doesn't get to play in the championship game. How would you feel then. I'm sure the Georgia fans are going to the feel the same way if there team wins them all, and then has to sit on the side lines for the championship game.

The current BCS system is cheating the players out of even a chance at the big game.

The system is totally flawed, and only a play off can truely determine a real national champion.