Decision Time!

Now that you have heard our arguments, it is your turn to make your opinion heard. Is the BCS so bad it should be replaced, or does it have more benefits than any replacements would? Vote in our poll, leave a comment… Make your voice heard! Tell your friends to log on and vote too, the more votes we get, the better the results will be!

We look forward to seeing what you, our readers think. If you have any other thoughts, please leave a comment.

The BCS will live on

You may raise one Rob, but it no good to go all in on a pair of twos!

You did bring up some good points in your rebuttal, but unfortunately for you, I have a response to them all!

You say that the BCS only gives two teams a shot at the National Championship. While this is true in the end, every team has a chance of making it to #1 or #2 before the end of the season. And ultimately, the playoffs narrows it down to two teams as well. So its really all the same, but in your system the good teams play a few more games and get more tired for the big showdown. This brings me to my next point, where you suggest that, in order to keep the season at its current length, teams in the playoffs would give up their winter breaks. While this would shorten the season to the point that it is currently, it would also lower the caliber of play in the final games and increase the chances of injury as the teams would be playing more games and practicing less.

Back to my point about every team being in the running for a national championship until the very end, the BCS has a good system in place for those who don’t make the final showdown: the bowls. While you argued that they playoff games could easily be the same bowls we currently play, the winner of any given bowl would not be referred to as the “Orange Bowl Champion” but rather, the “5th best in the nation.” There is more respect in being called the bowl champion than just 5th best. Also, in this system, a team that loses miserably in a bowl game for 3rd and 4th place gets to be ranked 4th, while a team that blows out their opponents in the 5th and 6th place bowl is ranked 5th. They would win their bowl, and still be thought of as 5th best, behind that team that got destroyed in the X Bowl.

Now on to your argument about players not playing their best every week. I don’t think there are many people who like to see players getting injured out there, but they also don’t want to see a sub-par performance week to week. Also, while injuries are a threat to a players future NFL career, so is not playing well. I don’t think the current level of injuries is anything unexpected from football, so I don’t think it is necessary to lower the level of play to avoid them, rather I think it is important to practice more to be able to avoid them through conditioning and knowing how to not get hurt.

Finally, you mentioned how the bowl payouts are not nearly as good as they seem. I know this is true, but they are still better than leaving the school on their own to foot the bill. The payout may not profit the school that much directly, but it does allow them to afford the trip. This in turn, builds the schools prestige, and potentially increases their fan base, who then potentially buys more jerseys, tickets, etc. I fear that if the bowls are turned into playoff games, the sponsors would be less willing to offer big payouts to the schools and we might see the deterioration of the bowls altogether as schools lobby for something cheaper.

So, as I just showed, while many see the BCS as an unfair and inaccurate system, it has many benefits, and there are no alternatives that would improve the system while keeping these benefits. I foresee the BCS living on for quite a few more years, and maybe in time people will see the benefits that it actually brings.

Playoffs, here we come!

I’ll take that and raise one.

I don’t really have any new points, but I’ll touch on each of Aaron’s.  First off, with regards to the fairness of the top two teams, how could you say that having two teams in the running for the national championship is more fair than 8 or more.  Sure, someone’s going to complain that they didn’t make it in, it’s going to be that way no matter how many teams there are, but the cutoff has to be made somewhere.  And clearly, it’s better to give 8 out of the 119 division 1 teams a chance at taking the championship than just 2.

Now, a good college football team should play their best regardless of rankings, but I understand that rankings play a big part in the performance of a team week to week.  But how much difference would it really make if a playoff system was created.  It’s still incredibly fierce competition just to stay in the top 8 teams.  In fact, lower ranked teams would be gunning even more for the 7th and 8th spots, which as of now are relatively unimportant, so in my opinion, these games would only become fiercer.

On a side note, even if the playoffs resulted in a weaker performance in some games, is that necessarily a bad thing?  I mean, we all love watching the players giving 110% every play of the game, but is it really a good idea to be running these athletes ragged.  Most of these players are hoping to end up in the NFL, where, as much as I resent it, they’ll get payed much more than I will with my engineering degree.  But an injury, which is much more likely to occur when the teams are playing as hard as they can, can seriously set back the possibility of a career in professional sports.

I also have two comments on the bowls remaining a factor.  First, the bowls do a hell of a lot less for a school than they really ought to.  The bowl payout, which initially seems great, is greatly reduced when you consider it includes all the costs of the teams and bands travelling to the game, as well as merchandising.  Second, there’s no reason to get rid of the bowls that already exist with a playoff system.  These bowls would just be used as the playoff games themselves that lead up to the national championship.  This would even give 2 extra bowl games a chance to join in with the already elite bowls because it would require 6 games to determine the championship players.  Oh, and I’m sure no one is trying to delegitimize the Superbowl.  In fact, the Superbowl is the end of a postseason playoff series…

Lastly, there’s an easy solution to the time requirements for playoffs.  What about the month long winter break.  2 games a weekend for 3 weeks and you’ve determined your #1 and #2 for the 4th weekend.  This won’t hurt the academic performance of the players, and teams that make it into bowl games now have to stay through winter break anyways to practice for their upcoming game.

In the end, the BCS is and unnecessary and completely unfair system for determining the national champions and could easily be replaced with a better system using a little logic and planning.

The BCS is legit

College Football currently uses one of the most controversial championship systems ever. Many people say that it should be scrapped all together, while many others propose changing it drastically. This system, the Bowl Championship Series, is not actually as bad as the masses make it out to be. Is it perfect? No. But it gets the job done.

One of the main reasons the BCS was created was to ensure that there was only ever one national champion per year, and since its inception that has been the case. While there may be a team some years that claims they had a more legitimate claim to the #2 than who was awarded it, between the #1 and #2 teams there is no question who the champion should be. In any other system, there would be similar arguments about teams claiming they should have been higher than they were. In a 8 team playoff system that some favor, the #9 team would undoubtedly complain just as loudly as #3 does now, and in a 16 team playoff #17 would feel left in the cold.

What the BCS does well however, is that it forces teams to play their hardest every game of the season. ESPN has been using the catchphrase “every week can change the season,” and nothing could be more true under the BCS. Any loss seriously hurts a teams chances at the national championship, so teams have to make sure they don’t lose their focus against an opponent they expect to beat. By forcing teams to play their hardest every week, the caliber of play across the entire season increases, making the game more exciting and more competitive.

The BCS also keeps the bowls in play, which is important to the schools that play in them because they offer huge payouts. These payouts are used to offer scholarships, build new seating, training facilities, and so on. Under a playoff system, the bowls would lose importance and therefore sink into obscurity, taking their money with them. Also, the bowls are a great tradition that many fans are drawn to regardless of who is playing, just like the Superbowl. Anyone who is in favor of delegitimizing the Superbowl is not ok in my book.

Finally, the BCS promises a shorter season than playoffs would allow, at least for the successful teams. This is important to the players because they still have to keep up with their academics during the season. Adding two or three weeks to the season would be extremely taxing on the players and might even cause some key players to fall to academic ineligibility.

So, the BCS isn’t the greatest system ever invented, but it gets the job done well in a sport that is very different from any other. It may not be perfect, but it is the best that we have thought of so far, and thus should not be scrapped or drastically changed.

Take that Rob!

Bulls*** Championship Series

Let’s get right down to it, the BCS is a terrible system for deciding the best teams in the country.  Sure, maybe statistically the BCS polling system works, but when has a sport ever been based solely on stats?  Part of what makes sports so great, particularly college, is the passion that goes into the games that cause the big upsets we all love to watch.  When you come right down to it, there really is no good reason the BCS should exist.

The biggest and best argument against the BCS is the lack of a playoff system.  Every other sport in college football has one.  Without it, the end results of the season are often unfair and very bad at determining the best team in the country.  The way the system is set up now, if you win all of your games in the season, you’re practically guaranteed a spot in the National Championship.  Granted, this is a difficult task for any team, but the problem is that most games in a season for any team are played against other teams in their conference.  That means that even if a team sweeps their schedule, it really only proves that they’re the best team in their conference.  Without playoffs, though, these teams are assumed to be one of the best in the country irregardless of the strength of their conference/schedule.  A post-season playoff would easily fix this problem, allowing the top ranked teams to play each other until the two best could be determined and be sent to the National Championship game.

Aside from the way the rankings work, there is another problem with the way the BCS is set up.  It is possible, and quite probable, that the teams that head to the BCS bowls won’t even be the top ranked teams.  Aside from the National Championship game, which is always the #1 and #2 spot, the BCS bowls get to choose which teams they want to play there.  Not only that, but certain conferences (the more popular/wealthy ones) have automatic BCS bowl bids (some even have 2).  So even if a team is ranked high, if the winner of a conference that has an automatic bid is ranked lower, they still get preference in going to a BCS bowl game.

So, in short, the Bowl Championship Series is an unfair, biased, and certainly unnecessary system that could easily be replaced.  Oh, and I’ll be giving plenty of examples in my next post.  Aaron, your move.

BCS Showdown!

Well, college football season is back again, and I for one couldn’t be happier.  Back are the days of tailgating, loud student sections, long lines for excessively priced food, and for me, showing up 3 hours early to put on a full wool uniform and stand on my feet in uncomfortable shoes for 4 straight hours (yay marching band!).  All jesting aside, though, college football season for me and many other people is the best time of the year.

But one argument has surrounded the college football scene for years; what’s the best way to determine who the best teams in the country are.  Since 1998, the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) has been the set up system for determining the rankings of the teams.  The BCS uses a compilation of several different polls, including computerized polls and human based polls, to give a final ranking system, from which the top two ranked teams will play in the national championship game.

But the BCS system is not perfect, and many people believe that it should be changed.  The controversy rages on today, and that’s what we’re here for!  I got to pick my side for this one, so I took the anti-BCS argument, and Aaron will be defending the system.  He deferred to go second, so check back tomorrow to see my opening statement.