BCS – Stay or GoDecember 2, 2009
The BCS was designed to pit the two best teams against each other for a mythical national championship. We, as fans, have been subject to the whims of the BCS since 1998 and in all that time there are maybe two years where we have truly seen the two best teams play one another. I thought that last year went a long way to showing how ridiculous the BCS was but I guess the powers that be wish to remain oblivious or they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.
Along comes 2009. To be honest there is no team that screams IAM #1!! There are a handful of solid teams, any of which could make a case for playing in the National Championship. I find it against my fiber to root for Iowa, Cincinnati, Boise, and TCU but I am becoming the biggest Hawkeye, Bearcat, Bronco, and Horned Frog fan in the country. My theory? Chaos. They way I see it is the only way to make these fat-cat suits that control the system change is to throw in a little chaos. Have four teams finish undefeated and watch the BCS scramble for answers. “Well the reason why a one loss SEC team and a one loss Big 12 team are playing in the Rose Bowl is…..” Yeah good luck explaining that one. But wait we can’t have playoffs because of the bowl system! We can’t lose the precious bowls!!! I mean do you know how many people watch the SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl?? I think like 4….maybe 5. C’mon!!
Solution: It isn’t rocket science…apparently it is very difficult though. Start with an 11 game regular season plus a conference championship. There are 6 “BCS” conferences. Make each one play a conference championship game with the winner receiving and automatic bid to the playoffs. Sorry Big 11 (don’t get me started on this, hey Big Ten conference you have 11 teams in your conference! Rename your conference!) and Pac 10 you have to go to the grown up table and actually decide a champion on the field. Keep the BCS formula, whatever it is, and use that to seed the conference champs as well as to decide the remaining 10 at large teams. Oh your alma mater is #17 and has to go play in the “Nobody Cares Bowl”, sorry get better at Football. The Higher seeds get home field advantage in week 1. Have two large Bowls (or whoever wants to pony up the money) join the 4 “BCS Bowls”, maybe the Cotton and the Holiday. This will give you 6 stadiums to host Weeks 2 and 3 of the playoffs with week 4 being the National Championship which is rotated among the 6 Sites exactly like it is done today.
I don’t even want to hear, well it’s a money issue (in a baby crying voice). You have got to be kidding. That argument is worse than arguing for Bobcat Goldthwaite to be President. Do you mean to tell me there are actually people out there who believe people won’t travel to see their school in the playoffs?? What a joke. Another argument that is raised is that the athletes will miss too much school. It doesn’t seem to hurt Division II or I AA, yes I still call it 1 AA. College Football, in my opinion, is the 2nd most popular sport in the U.S. and it is a complete laughing stock when it comes to declaring a national champion. So please please please root hard for the Frogs, Broncos, Hawkeyes, and Bearcats and hope that a little chaos will knock some sense into the BCS.
Yeah, Yeah
Jon Reynolds
