Well, rightly or wrongly, one half of the BCS "National Championship" game is set. Notre Dame took care of business against a very very disappointing USC team in Los Angeles. The other two contenders; Bama and Georgia, both won rather easily and will square off in the SEC Championship game next week. The winner will likely be beating the Irish in the "big game at the end." Ohio State is left out of the mix entirely due to NCAA sanctions, but if they were eligible they would be meeting with the Irish, if they would win the championship game (ineligible), despite the fact that more than half of the Big Ten (with twelve teams) is about on the same level as second tier MAC squads.
About the only thing we do know is that the BCS system does not work. There are always to many teams on the outside looking in and we never really know for sure who the best team in the land is. Never! Just this year Oregon and KSU will not have a shot at the title. Both teams have only one loss and granted KSU lost to a team with a losing record while Oregon lost to a very good Stanford squad, but still.........There is no clear consensus. There can not be without a real playoff system like all other sports, including lower division college football, has.
One often hears about how a playoff will get in the way of "final exams" etc. etc. Ridiculous notion and who cares anyway? Are we to believe that the average college football fan gives a hoot about such? Of course not. Don't try to fool us with that some false care about the "student athlete." I don't hear all that nonsense going on about schools from the lower divisions. I certainly don't hear that about college basketball. Oh. but the D1 football season is longer than lower division football. Yes it is. That would be easy to remedy. Get rid of one "sure win" non conference game. I believe that all SEC schools played one team from IAA (FCS) this year. Is that really necessary? Of course it is fun when one of those schools sneaks up and bites a major conference team (as Towson came close to doing to LSU this year), but still......
The real problem in determining a true national champion is that a playoff will damage the "integrity of the bowl system." Yes it will. Destroy it likely. That is somewhat of a shame for a college football purists' point of view, but progress has to be made.
It is better than wondering who the real Division One Champion is year in and year out.
Yes the BCS system is a scam and no amount of tweaking will really remedy the situation. It is way past time for it to go.
3 comments:
a playoff will damage the "integrity of the bowl system." Yes it will.
No, it will not. You cannot destroy the integrity of something which had no integrity to begin with. Any team with as few as six wins is "bowl eligible" now, and there are 573 bowl games lasting 4 months and nine days over the year end.
San Diego has two fucking bowl games one week apart in Qualcomm Stadium, for God's sake.
I should have said the "integrity of the major bowls" such as Cotton, Orange, Sugar, Rose, Fiesta and one or two of the old line lessor bowls like perhaps the Liberty.
You are right about there being too many bowl games. A six win (or even seven) should not qualify anyone for the post season.
I'll go along with the Cotton, Orange, Sugar and Rose Bowls. We don't really need any more than that, and with just those four, playing in one of them would REALLY mean something.
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