The ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll came out this past week, and
Oklahoma is supposedly the favorite to win the national
championship. Congratulations Sooner fans. It’s too bad this
a preseason poll and thus doesn’t matter. It’s also a
stinging indictment about the state of affairs in college
football.
Once again, the traditional powerhouses are dominating the top
of the rankings, and all the old and tired names are readying
themselves for the major bowl bids. Instead of trying to find a
solution to this problem, the Bowl Championship Series is only
causing more problems.
For those of you who don’t know, the BCS is a system
implemented in college football that places the No. 1 and No. 2
teams in the country in a championship game (the Rose, Sugar,
Orange or Fiesta Bowl) based on a complex formula and helps
determine which teams go to the other three BCS bowl games.
Unfortunately, the BCS does not contain a playoff system like
every other NCAA sport, which makes it near-impossible for any
school not in the six BCS conferences to qualify for one of the
prestigious BCS bowl games.
The ostentatiously named BCS Presidential Oversight Committee
has directed the six BCS conference commissioners to come up with
proposals for changing the BCS without a playoff.
So what could possibly make the BCS better for college football,
except a playoff system?
Nothing.
These proposals would only serve as ways for the big conferences
to make more money, one of the main reasons there is no playoff
system in the first place.
One proposal is to add a fifth BCS bowl game. In theory, this
would give a school not in a big conference a chance to get into a
big money BCS bowl. But theories are for mathematicians, and
I’m not sure the average offensive lineman knows anything
about Alternating Series theorem.
A fifth bowl would only give two other big conference schools
opportunities to make more money. Besides, do we really need
another obscure bowl? Aren’t bowls supposed to be about
tradition? How much history do the Continental Tire Bowl, Gaylord
Hotels Music City Bowl, GMAC Bowl, Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl,
AXA Liberty Bowl and the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowls
have?
The number of bowl games grow every year and will continue to
grow until they stop getting sponsors to attach their names to
them, which won’t happen anytime soon.
Perhaps the most obviously bogus argument are the school
presidents and athletic directors saying that the reason there is
no playoff system is that they care about their
student-athletes’ education.
“I’m skeptical a national champion could be
determined in a playoff without infringing on a student
athlete’s welfare,” Penn State President Graham
Spanier, a member of the Oversight Committee, told the Associated
Press.
Yeah, right.
Penn State is one of the dozens of schools who are now
scheduling 12 games instead of the traditional 11-game season. Some
schools are even scheduling 13 games. Yet, they claim to care about
student-athletes’ education when it comes to adding a game or
two for the playoffs, but not when they add a game or two to the
regular season.
Divisions I-AA, II and III have playoff systems. Why can’t
Division I-A?
It’s very simple, really. When you’re making
millions and millions of dollars, why change what you are
doing?
Just ask Mo Vaughn.
The University of Florida put a crocodile on the cover of
its football media guide. Just remember, you can’t spell
Florida, without the DUH. E-mail the Stat Geek at
gquinonez@media.ucla.edu