I came here to get the BCS fixed, don’t tell me it works! (Scott)

Everyone is always spouting his or her thoughts on the BCS, so I know you’re thinking, “Great, now I get to read this idiot’s opinion.” First, who are you calling an idiot? Second, my opinion is distinct because I think it has always “worked.”

We have the BCS to create a championship game. Before the BCS the top 3 or 4 teams in the country would always play someone else, which was in some ways more exciting and in some ways less. Either way, a championship game is what we wanted, and a championship game is what we have been given. What I think is funny is almost each year the BCS formula gets “fixed” as if it was broken, when it has done exactly what we wanted it to do.

Take this year: only one undefeated team from a major conference and two solid one loss teams to choose from. It’s a tough decision so we have a formula that does it for us. In 2003-04, USC was ranked 1^st; however, it was left out of the BCS championship game. They complained about it to no end, and then maintained that they had won the Championship so adamantly that most people have since forgotten that LSU actually won the BCS championship that year. The complaint was that Oklahoma had lost their conference championship, and thus did not deserve to win. However they still went undefeated in the regular season and had more wins than USC that year. There were three really good one loss teams. Sure they loss their conference championship game, but USC didn’t even have to play a championship game (the PAC-10 has since remedied that by having each team play each other in the regular season). There were three legitimate one-loss teams to choose from, and again the BCS formula came in and made the decision for us.

2004-05 was different. This year Michigan should not be able to complain because if they had beaten Ohio State once, they would not need to play them again. In 2003 if USC had won all of its games they would not have had to convince the nation they won the national title even though they did not. In 2004-05 Auburn did everything they could. They made it through a tough schedule winning dominantly. However, so did Oklahoma and Southern Cal. I was not happy with the results, but the BCS did its job and picked 2 teams.

These are just a few recent examples but there are more that I will not go into (98-99, 00-01, 01-02 seasons). The fact is the nation title in college football is little more than a myth. A group of you and your friends could get together and decide to name a national champion each year, and it would have as much validity as the Associated Press Poll, the Coach’s Poll, or the Harris Poll. All the BCS does is use a formula to determine the two highest ranked teams and pit them against each other. It has yet to fail in that regard because it defines how it will rank them. Each year people say that the formula needs to be tweaked, but essentially it’s just reshuffling the same deck of cards. Every year that the BCS has wrecked “havoc” a different formula would have wrecked the same havoc just with possibly different teams. An undefeated team was getting left out of the Orange Bowl in 2005 no matter what.

A playoff fixes this, but at a cost that must be acknowledged. College football has the best regular season in American sports, because there is virtually no post-season; every game matters. This is important because the NFL has better football every Sunday. Professional athletes are much better, the league is much better managed, even the refs are much better. The NFL has a great playoff, and that is when I get more excited about it. I don’t get that emotional about a regular season game, because in the back of my mind I know, one loss does not really matter now, it’s not the playoffs yet.

That is what makes the NCAA football season better than the NFL’s. Each game matters, each game is invested with emotion. If you take that away, I’m not as happy when my team wins, and I’m not as sad when they lose. Essentially I am watching a game of football emotionally detached, and if I am going to do that, give me the NFL where defensive linemen run 4.5 forties, my stadium seats have backs on them, and the referees don’t blow games.

Many people understand this and still want a playoff. The prospect of a true National Champion is worth diminishing the regular season. What do I think? I said earlier there are too many opinions on television and the internet so I won’t clutter it up with one more. I just want you to understand the trade-off, when you criticize the BCS or call for a playoff.