As we head toward the final weekend of college football before the bowl season, some questions are on my mind:
-How is Charlie Weis still the coach at Notre Dame? Oh, that's right, he's not black. Weis has a worse winning percentage than both of his predecessors, Ty Willingham and Bob Davie and just coached Notre Dame its worst two-year span in history. The previous worst two-year span? Willingham's last two years. It got Willingham fired, but not Weis. No, Weis gets to keep his job because he got a 10-year contract in his first year at ND, winning with players he didn't recruit. Anyone else wish they could be the worst performer in their employer's history and still keep their job?
-Is there anyone out there that still thinks the BCS isn't a complete waste of time? College football doesn't need a playoff because "every week's a playoff"? Right, tell that to Texas. Texas beat Oklahoma back in October. If every week were actually a playoff, Oklahoma would have been eliminated. But since that argument's a load of shit, Oklahoma is above Texas in the BCS rankings. And thanks to the Big 12's ridiculous tie-breaker rules (albeit the 5th tie-breaker, but ridiculous none the less), Oklahoma gets to play in the Big 12 championship game over Texas because of its higher BCS position. And when last I checked, Texas had still beaten Oklahoma head-to-head. And what's even more ridiculous is that if Missouri were to somehow beat Oklahoma in said Big 12 championship game, Texas would end up in the BCS title game. One week, the BCS didn't think the Longhorns were good enough to play in their own conference championship game and in the next, they could be good enough to play for the BCS title. What a joke.
-Is there a funnier picture out there of a head coach than Kansas's Mark Mangino and Obie from last year's Orange Bowl? I think not.
-Speaking of head coaches, anyone still think Joe Paterno's going to retire at the end of the year? He's back coaching one week after hip replacement surgery. If that doesn't say, "I'm coaching until the day I die," I don't know what does.
-Would you be willing to forfeit two timeouts (one per half) just to wear your home jerseys on the road in a rivalry game? Pete Carroll would. And if UCLA is cool with it (and it appears Rick Neuheisel is), it doesn't bother me. What does bother me is this: As for losing a timeout? "I don't care about it right now," Carroll said. "I think it's the fun thing to do, and I think the fans will appreciate it over time. Seriously Coach, at least act like the lost timeouts are a big deal. Everyone knows you're supremely cocky, but dismissing the timeouts and focusing on a "fun thing to do" is a real slap in the face to UCLA. That said, I'm taking the Trojans (-33) over the Bruins in the pick'em league this week, timeouts or not.
-If you were Brian Kelly, why wouldn't you stay at UC? The only reason to leave would be for a Brinks truck full of money, which, at his current pace, some school will be throwing at hiim every year. Now, there's nothing wrong with taking the money and running, as long as you're comfortable joining the Weasel Club, like Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino. But if he's not a complete selfish bastard, Brian Kelly's in the perfect situation: he's in a high school football hotbed that isn't heavily recruited by the other big schools in the region; Cincinnati isn't all "rah-rah-we-love-Ohio-State-simply-because-we-live-in-Ohio" so he's not tasked with changing allegiances, just forming them; and the Big East is winnable, and as long as the BCS continues its stupid automatic bids for the 6 "major" conferences, he's got a shot at the Orange Bowl every year. And if he were to sting together an undefeated season, he might have a shot at the BCS title (remember, West Virginia was in line to play for the BCS title last year until they choked against Pitt). It may sound crazy, but if Boise State or Utah had their seasons in one of the BCS conferences, they'd have a shot at the title game. UC could be a Boise State or a Utah, but in a BCS conference, and I mean that in good way.
-So how would I fix the BCS? The same way most people would- by having a playoff. Want to keep the BCS rankings? Fine, treat them like the RPI in college basketball. I say 8 team playoff, must be in BCS top 12 to be elligable, no limit on teams from one conference (if 3 of the best teams are from the Big 12 South, so be it, that's the way it is), and no automatic bids for any conference champions. Top 2 teams not selected for the playoff meet in "consolation bowl game" played at one of the current BCS bowl sites (see later). [Note: Yes, arguments will still ensure, and that's not a bad thing. Argument and debate is a fundamental part of sports, especially college football. However, I'd rather those arguments be about which team deserves the last spot in a playoff system for a chance at the national title than be about which team deserves a spot in the title game itself. The model is right there in college basketball; everyone argues about who's the "last 4 in, last 4 out", but no one argues about who ends up playing for the national title, be it a #1 seed or a #8 seed, because its decided on the court.] First round of the playoffs are home games for the higher seeds. Current BCS bowls (Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Rose), are used for Championship game, semi-finals, and consolation game in rotating fashion (title game one year, consolation game the next, then semi-final, semi-final, back to title game, etc.). Also, keep all of the other bowl games. Opponents say that a playoff would render the bowl games meaningless; tell me, what do the bowl games mean now? Exactly. So keep the bowls and the extra weeks of practice for eligible teams, add a playoff to determine an actual NCAA National Champion, and everyone goes home happy.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
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3 comments:
re: fixing the BCS, its still a break from tradition, so people will still argue that they, the purists, lose out. And, the BCS is locked in until at least 2014, I think, with ESPN picking up broadcasting rights in 2011. So nothing doing for a while anyway.
re: Texas/Oklahoma debacle, your argument seems to ignore the same points that Wilbon and Kornheiser ignored. (I would include those ass-clowns on Around the Horn, but, except for Reali, they're, well, ass-clowns.) Specifically, that even though Texas beat Oklahoma, it is a 3-way tie for first place, with one-loss Oklahoma State. Why do people conveniently forget that Texas lost to Oklahoma State?
If you want to argue that Texas' loss was by far the toughest loss of the 3 (on a last-second play on the road vs. Oklahoma's close but still convincing loss on a neutral field and Oklahoma State's demoralizing loss at Oklahoma), then do so. But you can't leave that loss out of the conversation.
I think Oklahoma is the best team amongst the three and deserves the conference championship game as much as Texas. The root of the problem, though, is that the BCS obviously doesn't put enough weight on head-to-head results. It will probably be tweaked to do so next year and, voila!, problem solved. That's the case here: Texas had the higher ranking in the AP and Harris polls, but got done in by the computers. That can be fixed, and it probably will be. Texas Tech never had a shot, anyway, because of how far it fell in the human polls.
But, I do agree with you: if Mizzou pulls off an upset, Texas will be playing in the national title game, probably against Florida (at least I hope, given how much I loathe Nick Saban). It will be a flashback to about 10 years ago when Nebraska lost 63-7 (or thereabouts) in the Big 12 championship game but still played for the national championship.
Re: Texas Tech- why are the Red Raiders out of the conversation? Because they got run out of the building by Oklahoma. Tech didn't show up in that game, which is something neither Texas nor Oklahoma did all year. Fair enough that I should have mentioned them, though.
As for "tweaking the BCS next year"- that's the inherent problem with the BCS! It's reactive, not proactive. Instead of having a system that works, they wait until something goes wrong (and a team gets hosed) and fix that specific problem next year. Band-aids on a leaking dam.
Human subjectivity has to count because it is important how a team wins and loses, and computers can't see that. But you need the computers to balance out that subjectivity against any potential over-bias for or against one team. Anyway you do it, there's going to be some level of arbitrariness. The problem with that is the BCS touts itself as the definitive 1 vs. 2 championship game using that arbitrariness, and that's a load of crap. No other team sport decides its champion in this manor. It doesn't make college football unique; it makes college football a joke.
i totally agree with you that tech is out of the picture. my comment was that you could not ignore the Texas loss to Tech, simply because Tech was out of the picture. In other words, Oklahoma's loss was a "better" loss than Texas'. Which, of course, brings us unsatisfyingly full circle to the head-to-head match-up, yes. Ugh.
I guess I just don't buy the argument that a playoff is the best solution. I understand that the playoff games would be given the former bowl game titles, but its not the same; its just a capitulation to the purists.
I do agree with you that the BCS is a reactive system, and, unfortunately, it only reacts when one (or more) team(s) get screwed. Then again, Texas could have defended better in the last 90 seconds of the Tech game and none of this is even on the table.
Long story short: I think we agree on most points, but I'm just not convinced that a playoff should replace the BCS/bowl system.
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