About a month ago, I promised another user that I would post a blog sharing my opinions about the Bowl Championship Series. I didn't think that this would be the forum for it then, but, after watching the Utah Utes soundly defeat the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, this seems like the perfect avenue for it. I am neither a supporter nor an opponent of the BCS. I know one thing, though - the system is unfair to schools from non-BCS conferences. Case in point - the University of Utah. Anybody that doesn't think Utah should be playing the BCS National Championship Game after watching them dismantle Alabama is certifiably insane.
I said before the BCS bowl matchups were announced that Utah should be playing Florida for the national title. I'm a Mountain West guy, so it was easy for me to say, but I meant it then every bit as much as I mean it now when I say that Utah deserves a share of the title. The system is rigged against certain conferences, and that needs to change. Utah - sorry USC fans - has been the most consistent program in college football over the past five years. In fact, they are the first school in the BCS era to complete two undefeated seasons. They have won 8 consecutive bowl games that they have played in, and have dismantled the opposition in both of the BCS games that they have appeared in. This season, they defeated six ranked opponents on the way to winning the Mountain West Conference championship, and a seventh tonight when they knocked off Alabama 31-17. With all of the talk about Texas or Oklahoma deserving a spot in the title game, Utah was overlooked, though they should have been in the game long before either Texas or Oklahoma. If there is a shared national title, which there should be, it should be Utah, and not USC, that receives a share. They simply can't be overlooked any longer.
Normally, I think that the BCS does a pretty good job. I have never been a huge advocate for a playoff system, although I wouldn't be opposed to it. The bowl system is one of the great traditions of college football, and I see no reason to take it away. However, there does need to be a complete overhaul of the BCS if it is to stay around. Otherwise, a playoff is the only solution.
Automatic BCS bids need to be done away with. I am afraid that if this happens, then the BCS would be dominated by SEC and Big 12 schools, but there's no other solution. How is it that the champions of the Big East and ACC deserve to be in the BCS before BYU, TCU, Boise State, and Texas Tech? The reason that I think that they should do away with automatic bids altogether rather than giving them to different conferences, though, is that it would leave out deserving teams from some conferences that are left out, just like it does now. I don't understand why it is so difficult to pick the 10 most deserving teams in the nation and put them into the BCS. A 10-2 Cincinnati team and a 9-3 VA Tech team simply should not be in before 12-0 Utah or 12-0 Boise State, particularly with the schedule that Utah played.
As a student at Colorado State University, a Mountain West school, I will always be an advocate for the "mid-major" conferences. The only reason that these conferences are known as such is that the media chooses to portray them in that light. If they had a legitimate shot at a national championship every year, then these schools would be able to land the 4-star and 5-star recruits that always go to the SEC, the Big 12, or USC. That is the only way that parity across the NCAA Football Bowl Series will truly be created. The number of available scholarships does not matter. Otherwise, a playoff system is absolutely necessary. For now, though, I can take solace in the fact that a school from my conference proved once again that we belong among the elite. Congratulations to the Utah Utes - 2009 NCAA FBS National Champions, at least in my mind.
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I agree with you on your point that it is unfair to TCU that the ACC and Big East Champions get automatic bids while pretty much only 1 non-BCS conference school can get in per year.
JAubin
Swansea, MA
Total Comments (1593)
I totally agree. Any system where a school that goes 13-0 and has no shot to win the national championship is broken. Utah isn't a fluke either. It began the year by going to The Big House and beating Michigan (you can laugh now, but that's how you schedule non-conference games), beat Oregon State (which as we all know beat USC), beat TCU (which beat Boise State and will finish the year in the Top 10), beat BYU (who most thought would be this year's BCS buster) and finished the year off by dominating an Alabama team that was the No. 1 in the country before losing to Florida in an epic SEC title game that went down to the wire. Now how is a team like that not even in the national championship conversation?
Arash Markazi
Los Angeles, CA
Total Comments (118)
Agree Chief. Well said.
Mondo Jay
Fan Nation, HQ
Total Comments (12761)
What was Alabama playing for tonight? I think it was Barry Switzer said "Alabama plays for the National Championship game, Utah plays for the Sugar Bowl." Alabama had nothing to gain from tonight's game and they played like it. Utah would not have gone undefeated in a BCS Conference. Well, maybe the Big East.
ckah28
Holly Springs , NC
Total Comments (17)
You beat me to the punch, Nelson... we must've been frantically typing these at the same time. I completely agree with your stance on this issue...
http://www.fannation.com/blogs/post/316857
Bigalke
Springfield, OR
Total Comments (22418)
Do you think that the BCS title match up is fixed?? It seems so to me. So, who decides the teams?
IMO, Alabama lost so Alabama should be eliminated.
BUT, just because team A beats team B, who beat team C, etc, doesn't make any sense. The Browns beat the Giants, the Broncos beat the Browns, but does that make the Broncos better than the Giants??
eylesy
Total Comments (141)
http://feastfirst.blogspot.com/ try to beat this system
hpcc19
Fairfax , VA
Total Comments (5)
oops
http://feastfirst.blogspot.com/
hpcc19
Fairfax , VA
Total Comments (5)
Preaching to the Choir. We were Dominated by Utah. Beginning with the first kickoff, our loss to Utah was FAR more punishing than to Florida. I look at the strength of the opponent.
FACT: U of Utah is the ONLY team in the Nation to win ALL 8 of its last Bowl Games. All 8--CONSECUTIVE! Ouch. Too bad Mountain West has no chance at a NC game. EVER.
BCS--Beauty Contest for Simpletons
Utah, #1 AP (and that's from an Alabama Man)
Enterprise Alabama
Total Comments (125)
I am soo glad to hear a Bama fan give Utah its credit!!!
& the BCS is all F**d up!!!! some people act like this system has been around forever & thats why we cant change it......no....money talks....& thats why we will continue with an unfair system!!
USC-GIRL
Kalaheo, HI
Total Comments (69)
Any system is flawwed if ALL particapants don't have a chance ( let alone an equal chance ) to come out as a winner. the BCS never intended a non-BCS team to ever win the title, allowing one of them to qualify for a BCS bowl game was merely a pacifier and clearly a big mistake.
Among BCS teams it isn't even impartial - Eastern BCS conference teams are automatically stronger schedules regardless of what the conference does for the year. an example you say ? the SEC , what makes it such a powerhouse this year ? Not its record , either seasonal or bowl. the SEC Champion playing for a NC has done what other than score a lot of points by running up the scores ? During the Rose Bowl I constantly heard that USC 's only problem was they had a hiccup and lost one during the season , Didn't the same thing happen to Florida ? USC's hiccup was at least to a higher rated team who won their bowl game . In fact the WEAK PAC10 is undisputedly the highest percentage winner of bowl games for this season, How does that happen with such a WEAK division ?
A system in which the # 19th ranked team plays the # 23rd ranked team in a BCS Bowl game because of the auto-bid - what kind of joke is that?
and finally back to the reason this blog exist - CONGRADS TO UTAH , You defeated a team who spent 5 weeks as the # 1 ranked team in the BCS this year , and you DEFEATED THEM SOUNDLY . the fact is you looked FAR SUPERIOR towards them than the SEC champion who supposedly is the best team in the nation and will playing in the NC game . NO OTHER TEAM CAN CLAIM AN UNDEFEATED SEASON , so YES - you should do NO LESS than share the NATIONAL TITLE regardless of how great the self proclaimed power houses say they are.
the plumber
Boise , ID
Total Comments (101)
Your 4th paragraph said it all. The BCS wants to have its cake and eat it too. It provides national rankings during the season based on record and strength of schedule and then disregards those rankings when it comes time for Bowl selections in favor of automatic bids. This has made travesties out of traditionally important Bowl games - this year none so much as the Orange with Virginia Tech playing Cincinnati. Other than fans of those schools, who cared? To quote Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post, "the bowl games have turned into meaningless BCS exhibitions". Never has the need for a playoff system been so evident. And instituting that system would be easy. As WT stated, you take the top 10 teams and put them into the BCS. Keep the historically important bowl games as part of the picture and rotate which of the big 4 ( I'm talking Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton ) gets to host the championship on a yearly basis. This will preserve the relevance ( of which the Cotton is quickly losing, if it hasn't already ) of these Bowls and provide a fairer determination of a national champion.
Great blog, WT, thanks.
Seabird 56
Total Comments (1820)
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