Everyone takes their shots at the BCS today, from Dennis Dodd and Ivan Maisel to King Kaufman and John Lopez. I don’t think the problem here is strength of schedule, though Kaufman makes a great point about how a team may be better when you play them than their end-of-season, strength-of-schedule record indicates. The problem is that all of the computer rankings have to start with some initial data that relies on assumptions about how good everyone is, a point that Lopez tries to make but is too clumsy to pull off. You can’t completely remove the human element since humans designed the formulas.
I find it amusing that twice now a team that didn’t win its conference has gotten to play for the national championship, and that each time it was a Big XII team at the expense of a PAC-10 team. Big XII Commissioner Kevin Weiberg obviously got a better deal for his soul than Pac Ten Commish Thomas Hansen did for his.
Here is a question that I have for all supporters of the Bull Crap System (BCS). Why is it that every other NCAA football divison, and all other NCAA sports, regardless odf sex, have playoffs? Isn’t an education is as important in Div. III as in Div. I-A? They could make more money with a playoff, (ex men’s basketball) than they can with the BCS
The reason you won’t see a true playoff is simple: $$$MONEY$$$. It doesn’t make financial sense (or cents) for the NCAA to change a system where virtually half of the teams in I-A football (including in some cases a seventh place team in a conference) play in a bowl game that provides mucho dinero to the schools, conferences, and host cities. I would much rather have a playoff, but you can see why it won’t happen.
Oh, I dunno, I think there will be a way to make a playoff financially attractive. I have faith that these guys know what they’re doing when they’re properly incentivized. 🙂
Incentivized or ridiculed. I saw the BCS committee chairman on ESPN last night, and he was really hard-pressed to explain this.
Oh, if there are any Univ. of Houston fans reading this, we look forward to seeing you all in Hawai’ii on Christmas Day (no trash-talking here!).
I don’t care for the BCS, but I also don’t have much sympathy for the Big 10/11 teams.
1. A loss late in the season shouldn’t be valued worse than a loss early on.
2. Let’s see a Big 10/11 championship game. If the Big 12 didn’t have it, OU would be undefeated. OU played a game that Michigan didn’t.
3. Why should a two-loss team be ranked higher? One of Michigan’s losses was to an Iowa teamer similarly ranked as KSU. The other was to an unranked Oregon team.
4. The team that was screwed was USC.
But I agree: The BCS needs to go. Can anyone really judge who is the best team among the top 4 or 5 without them playing each other?