8/3/2019 Whither BCS

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Whither BCS?

Another year, another freak out about whos playing in the national championship (its LSU and Alabama). We are witnessing the precipice of change that seems predetermined to happen,

which brings up i nteresting questions about how we go about change. What will it look like? Will it be better? Will there be an overreaction, giving us a system that is much worse than now?

These are the critical questions that I dont hear anyone talking about. All I hear is the same as every year; people complaining about team X or Y and fai rness, or greed*, or stupid, or

whatever.

So what would it look like? Would it be an NFL/NCAA Basketball format, with conference champions getting automatic bids? Would that only include B CS conferences, meaning 6 automatic

bids? Would there be Wild Cards allowing for the smaller conferences to get in, or maybe tiered bids, as in NCAA Basketball (e.g. for 2011, if you had 4 wild c ards, Alabama and Stanford would

get in, as well as Boise State andTCU)? There are a few problems that come up here, for example, that puts Wisconsin, Clemson and West Virginia in and leaves out:

y Arkansasy Boise Statey Kansas Statey South Carolina

o Wisconsiny Virginia Techy Baylory Michigany Oklahoma

o Clemsony Georgiay Michigan Statey TCUy Houstony Nebraskay SouthernMiss.y Penn State

o West VirginiaThen theres the seeding is sue, do you do it like the NFL? Where divisi onal champs get the top seeds and the Wild Cards get the last two s pots, I think it would look like this (I wont go into

byes and Ill keep it at 8 teams to keep it small enough but still let in higher ranked at-large bids:

The issues that jump out here are that y ou have the #4 Stanford, going up a gainst #1 LSU, while the #22 WVU goes up ag ainst #5 Oregon. Also, you have #2 Alabama going up a gainst #3 OK

State.Havent these higher teams earned the right to go up against lower ranked teams? What didOregon do to get an almost lock to get in to the second round? Well, I also dont think it

works in the NFL, where in 2010, the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks not only got IN to the pl ayoffs (more on that later) but they HOSTED (!) a playoff game, i n Seattlehome of the 12th

managainst the

11-5 New Orleans Saints, a dome team. No, this isnt the way to go and the NFL should c hange their format too.

So what would it look like if we seeded it by BCS rank?

Thats better, but I still dont li ke that WVU and Clemson made it in. What did they do to deserve to get in? All West Virginia did was be the best in a Conference (Big East) that is a apart of the

BCS because they are a good basketball conference. This goes to my point about last years NFL Playoffs. Seattle got in at 7-9, ahead of the NY Giants and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, both of

whom BEAT the Seahawks. Simply terrible.

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And what about Clemson? Why should Virginia Tech get left out because they were forced to play them i n the ACC championship? They had 3 l osses and were ranked 20th

when they played

Tech, VT was #5 and had only 1. On the other hand, is that Clemsons fault? Is it their fault that VT choked? Same for WVU (or Seattle for that matter)?

If you find the arguments agains t WV and Clemson compelling, perhaps youll li ke this bracket better:

Teams ranked 1-8 in the BCS are in, regardless of conference championship. But wait a minute, 3 SEC, 2 Big12, 2 Pac12 and a MWC team gets in? No Big 10 (or ACC & Big East?) Does that

render those conference titles meaningless? Does that matter? What do you think th e Big10, the ACC and the Big East would have to say to that? This to me is where the rubber hits the road

on why we havent seen a playoff in College football. Its not greed, or stupid-ness, its people with power and influence are making their case, and it is a difficult decision to make between

this bracket and the above.

I personally think if there is a playoff, it should be as small as possible, I just dont see what Kansas State, Boise State, Arkansas, Oregon or even Stanford did to deserve a shot at the titl e. In

fact, I can make a compelling argument that LSU should be crowned as champ now, clearly they are the best in the nation. Sure, Alabama can say, the only team to beat us is the best team in

the nation, we deserve a shot. But conversely, LSU can say, We beat the best team i n the nation, thats not us. We s hould be champs outright. But thats just not going to happen, so well

move on.

What about the controversy-du-jour; Alabama and OK State? The difference between their BCS averages is 8 one thousandths of a point. I am one who is skeptical of any type of playoff**,

however as a compromise, I would accept the NCAA having a special one game playoff between Oklahoma State and Alabama at a neutral location (say in St. Louis, which, acc ording to Google

Maps, is roughly equidistant between the two schools), the winner would then move on to the title game against LSU. I think that if the NCAA keeps it to these special cases (say, when the

difference between 2 & 3 is l ess than 1 one hundredths of a point), that would be the best case scenari o, in my opinion.

Whats yours?

*The greed argument is the worst offender. What is so al truistic about a playoff? Will a playoff magically erase all money from the college football bowl season, or in college football at all?

Does March Madness, or the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, etc. playoff systems no bring in big big BIG dollars? Ridiculous

**Im looking for the paper, but there was a study done that if you s et the order of an decision tree, playoff, vote or other wise, you get different outcomes, even with the same range of

choices. For example, consider our first 2 brackets, especially the right side. I can make a case that OK State would come out of one, and Alabama the other, or maybe even Andrew Luck goes

off and beats LSU. The point is, even with the same teams, just changing where they are seeding gives you different results. Its why the Speaker of theHouse is the most powerful

Representative, because he sets the vote.