B(c)S - Part II

There is a fundamental flaw in the way that we determine the teams that vie for the BCS National Championship. The problem is that, as long as you are limited to choosing only the top two teams. Unless you have two, and only two, teams from the major conferences that go undefeated, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to narrow the field to two teams.

The problem is not just that the top teams rarely play each other, it's that they don't even play many common opponents, unless they happen to be in the same conference. Prior to bowl season, Florida, Texas, USC and Utah played a grand total of two common opponents. Utah and USC both played Oregon State, while Florida and Texas both defeated Arkansas. Not until the bowl games had been played did we see how Texas and USC matched up against Ohio State, Utah and Florida against Alabama, and Florida and Texas against Oklahoma.

Because there is not enough meaningful data to be able to the best team(s), there is a tendency to rank the conferences that belong to, instead. This is how we ended up with Oklahoma v. Florida. By most accounts, the Big XII and the SEC were considered to be the two best conferences in the country. Oklahoma and Florida were the champions of those two conferences. It didn't matter that Utah was undefeated, or that Texas beat Oklahoma, or that USC might have a better loss when compared to Florida. It sounds reasonable, doesn't it? The BCS Championship was ultimately what many people have been asking for, a "plus-1" game. It is just based on the regular season, without taking the bowl games into account.

The problem with this is that, just as we don't have enough information to determine which is the best team, we also don't have enough information to determine which is the best conference. Nine out of the twelve games that a team plays are against teams in their own conference (ten of thirteen for conferences with a championship game). That means that three-quarters of the data by which we evaluate conference strength is based on the conference playing with itself. Going into the bowl season, who would have picked the PAC 10 to go 5-0 in bowl games? Does that make the PAC 10 the best conference in the country? No, but neither are they the weak step-sister to the SEC and the Big XII as they were made out to be.

Many have suggested that the way to solve this is to play one more game after all of the bowl games - a "plus-1" scenario. Yet, this year, a "plus-1" would solve nothing. Any teams that were not invited to play in the plus-1 game would still have a legitimate claim that they should have been. Maybe the "plus-1" scenario would help settle a debate in some years, but in other years it would merely extend it. This year was a great example of a year that the "plus-1" would be insufficient.

The argument against a playoff system is that it would diminish the importance of the bowl games. I would suggest, however, that the bowl games be the starting point of a "plus-2" scenario. This would allow the BCS affiliated bowl games to retain not only their importance, but also their traditional match-ups. Under this scenario, we would return to eight teams that would play in the four BCS affiliated bowl games, all of which would be played no later than January 2. The eight teams would be, first, the winners of the six BCS conferences - the SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big XII and PAC 10 - followed by two "wild-card" teams. As is currently the case, the top ranked non-BCS conference team would receive an automatic wild-card bid, provided it finished in the top eight of the final BCS standings, otherwise, it should be the top two remaining teams. Winning your conference should mean something. If you can't win your conference, you take your chances - maybe you are in, maybe you're not. This year, Texas might have had a legitimate beef, tying for the Big XII South title, but missing out on the Big XII championship game because of the three-way tiebreaker rules set out by the Big XII. Based on this, the eight playoff teams this year would be Florida (SEC), Oklahoma (Big XII), Virginia Tech (ACC), Cincinnati (Big East), Penn State (Big 10), USC (PAC 10), and wild-cards Texas (Big XII) and Utah (MWC). As mentioned previously, the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose Bowls could retain their traditional affiliations, which could have resulted in the following match-ups:

Rose Bowl
USC v. Penn State

Fiesta Bowl
Oklahoma v. Utah

Orange Bowl
Virgina Tech v. Texas

Sugar Bowl
Florida v. Cincinnati

Okay, I admit it, I manipulated these match-ups to ensure that the same four teams that are in the national championship discussion could win and move on. Were these the match-ups, who knows what might have happened, but who wouldn't be excited to see match-ups of USC v. Utah and Florida v. Texas next Saturday, with the winners contending for the championship the following week.

Would this system be perfect? Certainly not. Alabama ended the year ranked fourth in the nation, yet would not have a chance to contend for a championship. As noted above, if you don't win your conference, you take your chances. It could just as easily have been Texas ranked fourth and Alabama third, leaving Texas on the outside looking it. Or Oregon State could have won the PAC 10 with a 9-3 overall record, and USC, ranked fifth, would have had to sit on the sidelines. Wouldn't it be better, though, to be arguing over who the seventh and eighth teams should be, rather than the first and second? And enough of this nonsense about "every game being an elimination game." If that were really true, Utah would have gotten their shot, as they didn't lose a game, and therefore should not have been eliminated from contention.

Think, also, about the additional revenue that would be generated by having not one, but three additional games (the two national semi-finals, and the one national championship games). These games could be played at the sites of the existing BCS games. Instead of getting an extra game once every four years, as is currently the case, each site would get an additional game three out of every four games. Add to that the additional revenue generated by the advertising during the games, additional sponsorship, and there would be enough money to make it worthwhile. Two more weeks of college football, a playoff system that embraces the the existing bowl structure, and a Football Bowl Subdivision championship played the week before the Superbowl. That sounds like College Football Nirvana.