Editorial:
Football's bowl championship system needs major repairs
By Spencer Johnson
October 18, 2007 | If you ask any regular person about
their position on the current BCS system, they probably
wouldn't be able to tell you what the acronym represents,
let alone their feelings about it. However, if you ask
anyone who is either directly involved with collegiate
football -- coaches, players, analyst or indirectly
fans or former players -- they would more than likely
express a sense of hate and disgust.
The BCS, also known as the Bowl Championship Series,
is the determining factor in which who will compete
in the top games at the end of the college football
season. If a college football team could accomplish
a combined record that reflects a winning percentage
over .500, then they become what is known as "bowl eligible."
They are granted an extra game against another random
team, which is called a bowl game. Once a team is determined
to be bowl eligible, they can accept a bid to a bowl
game, which is decided upon the conference in which
team participates in.
The top games are a part of the Bowl Championship
Series, which include the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl,
the Fiesta Bowl, the Rose Bowl, and the National Championship.
Once the BCS started, people believed it was a foolproof
system. People were excited because it was a well thought
process and it now had the perfect way to decide who
should compete for a championship. It involved numerous
factors which included an AP poll, a Coaches poll and
a computer average of various polls across the nation.
It also included the team's strength of schedule, and
losses counted heavily. Also, points will be awarded
for a "quality win," which is a win over a team that
has a high ranking.
After all these factors were averaged out, the two
teams closest to a perfect 1.000 would be the participants
in the National Championship game. The other four games
would be determined by the champions of the "major"
conferences, which includes the Pacific Ten (Pac-10),
the Southeastern Conference (SEC), The Big Ten, the
Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and the Big 12. They
will each play an "at large" team which is selected
from the next three top teams closest to the perfect
1.000 rating. The last spot is for the winner of the
Big East conference.
With all these determining factors, it is a mystery
why people believed that it was a good system to begin
with.
Once the BCS began receiving controversy, the BCS
committee began scrambling to fix things. The main problem
was that computers can't watch football games, therefore
how can they be part of decided who is eligible to compete
for a championship? Also it didn't give the schools
from the "mid-major" conferences much of a chance to
be able to compete for a BCS bid, let alone a National
Championship.
The main problem was how many flaws there actually
were. In almost every championship game since the BCS
has been in existence, there has been a disagreement
about how is represented in the National Championship
game. Also in every National Championship game, there
has been a mismatch with the participants and this caused
a lopsided game. These games that end up in a landside
take interest away from the game and less people tend
to care about it.
USA Today writer Jeff Zillgitt believes the
controversy is all about money. A major argument was
the teams that were forced to play in an extra conference
championship game were in fact being punished for playing
another game if they lost, whereas teams in conferences
where there was no extra championship games were reaping
the benefits. "Some will question why there's even a
conference championship game in the first place. It
comes down to money, more than any other reason. Money
wields great power in this mixed-up setting," Zillgitt
said.
There have been numerous people that have openly complained
about this subject. There has even been discussion about
doing away with the BCS and just have a playoff system
in place of the current method.
Although Steve Wilstien from NBC Sports believes there
is "no simple answer for the BCS controversy, there
is a light at the end of the tunnel. A positive from
the discussions is that there is a committee that was
started whose sole job is to figure out how to improve
the BCS system, if not change it completely.
In any case there is progress being made and anything
will help the situation in my opinion. The BCS system
is in shambles and needs to be repaired quickly.
NW
MS |
