FanNation

The BCS

Three little letters that may as well stand for B*LL, C*CA, and S*IT.

Seriously, this little organization is billion dollar version of Augusta in which a select few people sit around and decide whether or not you and your little team will be permitted to play with the big boys.

Sure, they'll begrudgingly let the undefeated and nearly undefeated tweener teams occasionally sneak into one of these hefty pay check games but they'll do their best to match them up against a BCS team built to exploit whatever weakness they have. Two years ago we were thrilled by an amazing up and down then up game by Boise State against the Sooners. Then watched in horror as the high powered offense of Hawaii was rendered impotent.

So after years of complaining that NCAA dvision one football is the only major sport without a play-off what does the BCS offer us?

Plus One.

In other words, keep things status quo but at the end of the year the top two seeded bowls essentially play a mini-playoff with the winners meeting for the national championship.

What could be more fair than that? after all these are the top four teams in the polls, right ???

WRONG!

The biggest problem is that these polls are filled in by fallible humans, most of whom reside on the East coast. I know, several of my East coast friends don't like to hear that but the reality is that both in Football and Basketball the average East Coast Voter goes to bed while some of the late games on the West Coast are still underway. This translates into West teams struggling for respect while 'traditional powers' get free passes based on their body of work.

Huh? What? How does that work?

Voters determine the polls and the big bowls select their participants based upon the pool of available teams and their perceived rankings.

In other words, so long as we have that little clause allowing for a top 12 ranked Notre Dame school to be eligible for a BCS bowl, you will continue to have one and two loss legitimate teams dismissed in favor of ratings and ND boosters. By the way, who are these ND fans anyway? I know hundreds of people and only 2 of them actually like ND ... were are these fans???

The reward for Notre Dame is an average BCS payout of 3 to 7 million dollars - free and clear - independent and therefore they don't have to share the cash at all. Our reward, watching ND get thumped, whacked, destroyed, and rear ended time after time after time. Check the stats, their last win was 9 bowls ago and that was a squeaker at 24 to 21.

Since then they lost by an average of 17 points. That includes a 28 to 6 drubbing by NC State ... NC State, honestly did you even know they had a football team?

Okay, so that's a little mean and disrespectful and led me to research the team. They are a lifetime 518 - 506 - 55 ties. They play against Florida State, Boston College, and Wake Forest so that's a formidable foe, but they also feast on William & Mary (student population of around 30), Maryland, Duke, and North Carolina. True, you wouldn't want to face them during basketball season ... but during football season? Cha Ching! WINNER!

Sorry, a little off topic ... back to my grumbling about the BCS in general and the Plus One scenario.

This was a flawed concept that the Western conferences were never going to accept because they're already miffed at how teams are ranked. Honestly, I would love to see the voters forced to rank blindly based on overall record, conference record, and strength of schedule without seeing the uniforms of the teams in question. My hunch is that you'd see very different polls than what we're used to.

A few years ago, UCLA was demolished by USC in the season finale but there had been a chance that UCLA would beat SC and they'd finish 1 -vs- 2. The mere thought sent voters and writers scrambling to argue that under no circumstances should they be allowed to rematch for the championship. The next year or so we witnessed Ohio State (pretender, cough cough) and Michigan play themselves into a 1 -vs- 2 finish.

This time the voters and writers all argued that these teams were clearly the two best teams in the country and should play a rematch.

Isn't it ironic that voters guffaw at the concept of favoritism and yet they all have preseason top-25 rankings. How many non traditional powers make it to that list? You may have one or two surprises from the previous year make an appearance at 21 or 22 but would anyone say, look for Hawaii or Boise State to be # 9 by mid-season. I don't think so either.

In short, the plus one concept would never work since it would continue to overemphasize the human polls (keep in mind even the computer rankings factor in the human polls to a large extent). I'm in favor of an actual playoff, sixteen would be impossible to manager but maybe eight teams with a first week bye for the top 2 seeds? A combination of home field and traditional bowl site configuration. But not this condensed approach that does nothing but raise further questions and pad the NCAA wallet a little more.

I don't blame the BCS as much as I do the NCAA. We often forget that this isn't some government sanctioned entity, it's a corporation that made themselves bigger than they ever should have been. Let me get this straight, this is a nonprofit group that's pulling in billions of dollar in revenue???

So where is that money going? College tuition keeps going up? School books and dorm fees are going up? Where's the money?

Hmmm - perhaps I've said too much, if I disappear off the boards for awhile keep an eye on that Smug Stern and the Wiley NCAA.

Until next time, take care and have a great day!

PS Go Bruins ;-)