Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Bashing the BCS
The BCS is ruining the college football regular season. For the past few years, the few people who still fully support the system (aside from those reaping enormous monetary gains due to its implementation) have cited the excitement felt at every game as reason enough to continue relying on it. They say only giving two teams a chance at the national title makes every regular season game feel like a playoff game.
Until this year, while many disagreed with their ultimate conclusion, some believed the people who supported the BCS were arguing a valid point in asserting that every game matters. But now, more than ever, it's clear that their argument doesn't hold any water.
In 2007, it was Boise State. This year, it's TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State again. All undefeated, all with at least two impressive wins, all without a snowball's chance at even being given an opportunity to win a national championship. The Boise State team in 2007 proved that they deserved that chance, as they beat an extremely talented Oklahoma team that featured Adrian Peterson in the backfield. But for some reason, the BCS supporters were unwavering in their belief that the current system was, and still is, the best available option.
If they were right, and if every game really mattered, the rankings would change drastically throughout the year based on the performance of each team every week, and this would include mixing up the top spots in the polls. But that won't happen this year. At the beginning of the year, most people said the top two teams would end up being the winner of the Florida vs. Alabama SEC Championship Game and Texas. Fast-forward three months, and it's still the same top three. We're still expecting the same formula for determining the national championship matchup.
If the ultimate goal of football, or any team sport, is to win the championship game, and only the top two teams in the nation will get a chance to win that game, why does every game matter for the other 118 teams this year? If Florida can win by 10 points against an unranked opponent, and TCU can win by 27 points against a top-20 opponent, all without any movement in the top five spots of the polls, what, besides a playoff system, can give TCU, or any of the other 118 FBS teams, a fighting chance this year?
Some will say that allowing a top team to drop in the rankings, despite being undefeated, is unfair. But these people must keep in mind that the initial rankings are based on an offseason poll. If we use the logic that being undefeated protects a team from falling from a top spot, we are then putting far too much stock in the preseason poll. We are saying that being impressive on paper, and then playing mediocre football during the regular season, is enough to earn a chance at the national title game, but winning against good teams isn't. We're playing the season on paper, rather than letting the players play it on the field.
I understand that right and wrong in sports is hard to determine. Bill Belichick will forever be questioned about his decision to go for it on fourth down inside his own 30-yard line on Sunday night. But an ultimate determination of whether that call was right or wrong cannot be reached unanimously. Some will say Peyton Manning was going to lead his team to a touchdown with two minutes left whether he had to go 30 yards or 80 yards, so it was the right call. Others will say you've got to trust your defense to not give up 80 or so yards in that situation, especially considering they had already intercepted two of Manning's passes that night.
The same basic idea is true of the BCS. We will never have both sides of the argument come to an agreement on whether the system is right or wrong. But, like Belichick, what we can do is use each failure as an opportunity to change for the better. If Belichick makes that call a few more times in his career, and it only works once, he'll wisely decide not to go that route anymore.
In a similar manner, if we continue to see that there are consistently multiple teams not getting the chance at the national title that they deserve, we need to change the way we do things. Even if there is occasionally a year that the team that is clearly the best wins the championship game, we need to look at the bigger picture. One successful year does not make the current system the best one, just like one successful fourth down conversion in an attempt like the one Sunday night doesn't mean it's necessarily the right call.
It's not a matter of right and wrong anymore. What really matters is that the BCS has failed so much more than it has succeeded — we cannot continue to rely on it. TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State deserve much better than what they've been given this year. They've all earned at least a chance to play in the national championship game, and it's a chance they won't get.