Throwdowns > Closed

Bigalke said 02/01, 03:43 PM
I'm going to have to disagree with you here... and here's why:

College football has always been predicated on uncertainty. It is that uncertainty which fuels interest. Bowl games used to be a vacation for these players, a reward for a job well done over the course of the season. Now, in our emphasis to crown some semblance of a definitive national champion, too many fans are ready to jettison over a century of history...

We've already seen the cheapening of the bowl schedule through the introduction of the Bowl Coalition... into the Bowl Alliance... and then into the BCS. A playoff system would completely obliterate any relevance the bowls still have...

You assert that "only 7 bowl games would be needed"... and in saying so, you are ready to toss out every other bowl both historical and of recent inception. But a sport is only relevant when it has a past to look upon. The Rose Bowl wouldn't be as great as it is without decades of mythic contests -- and the same holds true for every bowl game.

Besides, no matter what, the NCAA has NEVER been in the business of sanctioning titles in I-A football. Learn your history before you junk it...

Bigalke said 02/01, 06:58 PM
Perhaps you need a history lesson:

The NCAA was founded in 1905 following the second MacCracken conference. Not every school was a member, nor did the NCAA really develop regulatory powers of any potency for another half-century. It does not have a playoff precisely because a system was already in place to reward seasonal excellence...

You assert that you want to make seven bowls relevant rather than one. However, all but that final bowl would lose relevance. As it is, seventeen I-A teams get to go home champions of something. It might seem absurd, but it is just reward for schools big and small...

Now, do you really think the Rose (or Cotton, Sugar, Orange, etc.) Bowl is going to just come out and say, "Please let me just be a quarterfinal contest -- I don't want any relevance outside of a #2-#7 matchup"?! The problem with your system is that it is infeasible -- no bowl is going to agree to take a backseat...

So you either have to scrap the bowls altogether or stick to the status quo. There is no palatable middle ground. A tournament would be just as much of a crapshoot as is the current BCS system... so why prolong the shaking of the dice?

Bigalke said 02/03, 10:01 AM
Did your head explode with that history lesson?!

Did you belatedly come to the apt conclusion that you were, by your proposal, STILL leaving but one bowl relevant?

Did you think dead space would give you a better chance at the upset than another misguided argument?

Did you think this was a two-argument debate?

So if I am to defend the BCS, wouldn't that USC/Texas championship game be in MY favor?!

Do you even know why there are divisions in college football... and why the NCAA holds tournaments for lower-tier teams? (Hint: it was part of the original television contracts... so it isn't the NCAA even funding them...)

Do you really think an eight-, sixteen-, or even thirty-two-team playoff is going to definitively solve who should be in the national title game?

You argue in favor of monster contests like that Longhorn-Trojan shootout in Pasadena a couple years' back... but if we went by a playoff, this year's championship game just as easily could've been Penn State v. Boise State...

And would that have been as exciting as Florida-Oklahoma?


It might not always get it perfect... but the BCS always gets it contentiously entertaining...