Austin Murphy: Times are a-changin'

2009-02-04T09:39:15-05:00

2007-12-03T12:24:37-05:00

2008-09-10T06:39:53-04:00

2007-12-04T23:16:24-05:00

NCAA Nut

HOmestead 162617

I agree with the article. Time to revamp the process and let the traditional bowls give up their traditional conference champion tie-ins or.... we can play the championship brackets without them being in the running. It is time for all conferencesto enact a conference championship game. If they are short teams to make up two divisions down here in Florida we got some extra good ones to spare as do several other states around the country. Round out the conferences and legitimately crown a champion. There are your regionals. Then do the seeds and matchups and expand the major bowls until we accomodatre all the conference champions in a bowl playoff. After that go to a plus one or two single elimination bracket. We need and deserve a legitmate national champion. 654108

2007-12-04T14:07:42-05:00

CyPack

Cary 205581

Bravo, Football Junkie. Okie1717 is confusing the way things are with the way they ought to be. Football players should meet the same academic expectations as everyone else. Just because they often don't doesn't mean they shouldn't. 650636

2007-12-04T04:06:19-05:00

http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/179/244/thumb/Miami_Eagles_Panther_3.gif 6772 AK

Prove It

Frellin Cold in 179544

if you think this is the only problem with installing a playoff sysem, you haven't thought out the issues. 647875

2007-12-03T23:56:40-05:00

Okie1717

Cedar Park 205045

Oh, and by the way Football Junkie, you obviously don't have a clue about the graduation statistics among Division I football players? As a former Div I athlete and I can tell you that a couple of extra games wouldn't matter when it comes to education. The NCAA isn't in the business of education, they are in the money business. You can name call like a six year old on a school playground, but this is an adult debate..... 647501

2007-12-03T23:47:15-05:00

Okie1717

Cedar Park 205045

Pac Ten commissioner Tom Hansen also insures Pac Ten referees oversee all Pac Ten home games. Like these guys ever play fair. If computers determine the BCS then I would like to know WHO programs the computers. It is obvious that politics has corrupted the system. Whenever money and humans are involved, corruption is ALWAYS present. I am a huge college football supporter but, the time is quickly coming when I simply don't care anymore. It's obvious what needs to happen but it will only change when fans can unite, if just for a brief time, to tell the NCAA, this is what we want to see. The arrogance of the NCAA and the system only responds to one thing.....MONEY!!!! 647468

2007-12-03T23:08:37-05:00

mud4feet

Jackson 204984

You said it well, Austin! Every other sport on every level has figured out a way to conduct a playoff without impacting "finals" or "tradition". Are we all just deluding ourselves that it's not about the MONEY!!!! C'mon!!!!!! It's a true shame that the ONLY undefeated team will not even have the opportunity to play for the "Championship" (I use that term VERY,VERY loosely). 647314

2007-12-03T20:38:36-05:00

http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/204/623/thumb/helmet.jpg 3 OH

Football Junkie

Newbury 204923

What you all seem to forget with the never-ending playoff system is that these KIDS are in SCHOOL. I know they all want to go pro, but let's face it the percentages are low. So what you propose is that they give up studying, finals, a reall future, etc. for a system that will make you all feel better and stop crying in your pillows. There's no crying in football. Get over it. The system that causes so much controversy...causes so much interest. Archie was right, why change it when we're all interested week after week and claiming wins decades later because a player was "ineligible" or was he. It's awesome! GO BUCKS...GO BIG TEN!!...where football is still football and not a press junket to warmer climates with coaches who have "Breck Girl" hair. 646773

2007-12-03T20:19:02-05:00

http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/204/623/thumb/helmet.jpg 3 OH

Football Junkie

Newbury 204923

Look folks...what you all seem to forget when you talk about this playoff system and games running continually througout the end of the year is that these KIDS are actually in SCHOOL. Granted, many of them hope to go on to the NFL, but the percentage of those who will actually go pro and those who will go on to get jobs in the real world is much lower. Continual football means no time for studies, finals and family. I JONES FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL during the off season, but I'm also a parent and understand the bigger picture. Not only that, but it's like Archie Griffin said...why would the sport want to fix a system that causes so much controversy. Look at us all, talking about it, blogging about it, etc. It's a beautiful thing. Got to dig that college football. 646661

2007-12-03T19:14:12-05:00

WTP1066

Montoursville 204844

This is a minor thing, but it bothers me to no end. Why do the writers and reporter in the media, the NCAA, the individual schools as well as many of us fans continue to call the winner of the BCS game the National Champions. There has never been a National Champion of (former) Division I-A college football and until we get a playoff, the won't be one. I did a quick google on football national champions and I think I counted 51 years where there was more than one champion.You can't have more than one National Champion! In 1935, there were FOUR of them. When you look up the same for basketball, guess how many years there were multiple National Champions? That's right, zero.Let's call them what they are. You can be BCS Champion, the AP Champion etc...just not the National Champions. This really struck me a couple years ago when USC (and I actually like USC) was walking around claiming to be two time defending National Champs and I remembered LSU winning the BCS two years before. Of course, USC got the AP vote that year which I had forgotten, but that was never pointed out going into the Texas game. Now your first thought might be, how is that going to make the BCS better? You have to remember our target audience for this. College Presidents. These are the same people who think that calling their division I-A and I-AA is somehow offensive and having a Native American Mascot is a major crime against humanity. Something as stupid as this might actually work. 646391

2007-12-03T19:00:26-05:00

Brant

Raleigh 4978

http://strayvoltage.blogspot.com/2006/11/plus-one-bad-idea.html Here's the problem with "plus 1": 1998: Tennessee beats FSU, only undefeated team left standing. Who's their "plus one"? 1999: FSU beats VT, only undefeated team left standing. Who's their "plus one"? 2000: OU beats FSU, only undefeated team left standing. Who's their "plus one"? 2001: Miami beats Nebraska, only undefeated team left standing. Who's their "plus one"? 2002: Ohio St beats Miami, only undefeated team left standing. Who's their "plus one"? 2003: USC, OU, and LSU both have one loss, BCS rules says OU plays LSU. USC whines because they're #1 in the polls, so the country whines with them. 2004: OU, USC, Auburn (oh yeah, AND Utah) all unbeaten, Auburn whines because they're left out, so the country whines with them. 2005: Texas beats USC, only undefeated team left standing. Who's their "plus one"? So, out of all the years of the BCS, we've had 2 years with real complaints once everything was played. The *real* problem with the BCS is that they kept tinkering with the formula to try and make their formula match what all the opinion-makers in the media were saying, thus the bonus points for winning your conference (in response to Nebraska playing in 2001 evern though they didn't win the Big XII). Or the bonus points for "quality wins" after Miami beat FSU head-to-head and got passed over in 2000. If the BCS had stuck to their guns from the start and said "that's our formula and we'll re-evaluate next time the contract is up" then 90% of the whining would be gone. People whine because they know the BCS listens. 646341

The upside of this latest, worst-ever BCS train wreck is that it provides clarity. Not that there haven't been plenty of deeply unfulfilling resolutions in the 10-year history of this Rube Goldberg contraption. But last Saturday's Gong Show took it to a new level. What became clear this season, and was thrown into sharper focus over the weekend, is that the way we choose a national champion in this sport is pathetic. I'd call a well-intentioned joke, but that's being overly generous to some of the main parties standing in the way of change.Look, I get that college football is unique among our major sports, with its cornucopia of traditions and animal mascots and its urgent regular season. Heck, I wrote a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Saturday-Rules-Trojans-Buckeyes-Wolverines/dp/0061375772/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196690529&sr=1-1">book</a> about it. But there is a way to determine a champion with a scaled-down playoff that doesn't devalue the regular season or kill off any of the 32 bowls <strike>blighting</strike> filling the postseason landscape.Standing in the way of progress, as one frustrated AD told me recently; holding an entire sport hostage, "is the Rose Bowl parade."The guy is right. I talked BCS coordinator Mike Slive last week: between all the hemming and hawing, he doesn't rule out the possibility of a "plus-one," somewhere down the road. I talked to Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports. While describing himself as "thrilled" with Fox's deal to broadcast BCS bowl games through 2010, he didn't pretend there wouldn't be interest on his end if the BCS started talking about plus-one.Two conferences, two men, stand in the way. In separate interviews, Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen and his Big 10 counterpart, Jim Delany, told me basically not to hold my breath. A plus-one would require teams to be seeded, Hansen points out, which would result in "conference champions being seeded out of their traditional bowls."Which would be followed immediately, seismologists have predicted, by a cataclysmic tectonic event that would quickly cause the earth to spin off its axis.So let's never ever force conference champions to play anywhere other than their traditional bowls. Yes, it would solve the biggest problem facing college football. It could prevent teams like 11-2 Mizzou from getting as royally screwed as the Tigers were Sunday. But then, it would remove from the hands of the power conferences the knife they use to cut the pie of TV revenues. Can't have that.Plus, it might cause traditionalists several moments of ... discomfort! Don't want that.Or do we? I haven't seen I'm Not There, the new Bob Dylan biopic, but this dispute has put me in mind of these Dylan lyrics:Your old road isRapidly agin'.Please get out of the new oneIf you can't lend your handFor the times they are a-changin'. 2278

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