In Defense of the BCS (Well, Sort Of...)
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 4:15 PM CST
in Football
111 comments
This article isn't going to win me any friends, I'm certain of that. Why? Because the other thing I'm certain of is that you hate the BCS. This sentiment has never been as fever pitched in the great state of Texas as it is now. Choruses of "we got screwed" ring out from every corner of Longhorn fandom. I've had countless friends unsuccessfully try to console me by mentioning a playoff. President Elect Obama went on Monday Night Football the day before the election and, while predictably behind the times McCain was rambling about steroids, made a brilliant political pitch to the South in advocating for an 8-team college football playoff. He repeated this advocation on 60 Minutes after the election, showing that he's legitimately serious and wasn't just pandering to a constituency he coveted.
But I beseech you, Mr. Obama, if you are serious about this whole "Team of Rivals" business, bring someone into the fold who has thought endlessly about what the college football postseason should be and who, while agreeing with you on the fundamental issue that the BCS is flawed, does not agree with you on the best way to fix that flaw. This is an incredibly nuanced issue and there should be an incredibly nuanced debate. But to be honest, sir, for someone as enamored of nuance as yourself, you display a shocking lack of nuance in your college football playoff position. Bring someone into the fold who understands the nuance, knows the political angle of it all, and above all else who won't blindly agree with you. Someone like, say, me?
Kidding aside (NB to Obama transition team: not kidding; please call), this mess merits looking more closely at the BCS than most of us have been in our blind calls for a playoff. So let's do that, shall we?
Let's start with the recitation of some facts and then go from there:
- The BCS National Champion is decided on the field, not by a formula. The BCS does not decide the national champion, it decides who plays in the national championship game. Your beef is with how those 2 teams are selected, not how the national champion is selected.
- The BCS is a playoff. If a certain number of teams play each other on the field after the regular season and the last team remaining without a loss in that postseason is declared the champion of the sport, then it is a single elimination playoff. Thus the BCS is a 2-team playoff. Your beef is with how many teams are in that playoff, not with the fallacious "fact" that there is no playoff.
- The BCS was meant to pit #1 vs. #2 at the end of the year to create a championship game in which the national champion was determined on the field rather than by a poll. It was not meant to do anything else. Your beef this year is not with the BCS, but rather with the Big 12 for foolishly tying its tiebreaker in with BCS rankings.
First of all, I want to address the third bullet point. What happened to Texas this weekend is not the fault of the BCS and is absolutely no reason to abandon the BCS system. Please stop blaming the BCS for this. This is the fault of the Big 12 and the Big 12 alone. The BCS is not a conference ranking system, it is a national ranking system. A national ranking system takes into account factors that a conference ranking system should not, such as non-conference schedule. The BCS is set up to do one thing and one thing only and the Big 12 decided to use it to do something completely different, and that's the fault of the Big 12, not the BCS.
Moving on to what the BCS was actually meant to do, it must be noted that the BCS was created to rectify the problem of the "mythical" national championship. Teams like undefeated #1 Texas didn't play undefeated #2 Penn State in 1969 to determine the national champion so it was awarded to the team that was #1 in the polls (or, in some cases, by Richard Nixon in the locker room after the regular season), giving such national championship a "mythical" or somewhat illegitimate quality.
[Aside: In fairness, Penn State had the option to play Texas in the Cotton Bowl, but turned it down to go to their pre-assigned Sugar Bowl because, I don't know, they liked debauchery? They were scared? Nixon had already named Texas national champion on national television? Who knows. And for those of you who are curious, yes, Joe Paterno was the head coach in 1969. In fact, JoePa's had 4 undefeated seasons in which Penn State was not named national champion, including BOTH 1968 and 1969 and most recently in 1994 with Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana Carter and Bobby Engram. The BCS was created so things like this didn't happen.]
The national championship is no longer mythical, irrational claims by bloggers notwithstanding. There are rules set forth before the season regarding who gets into a playoff to determine the national champion and whoever wins that playoff is declared national champion of division 1 college football. This is not mythical. This is exactly how every major sport does it. Your beef is simply with how many teams make that playoff and how we decide which teams make it, not with the legitimacy of the national champion named.
No doubt that for most of us (though not all), this system is superior to the previous system. But of course that doesn't make it perfect anymore than it makes Mack Brown perfect for just happening to succeed John Mackovic as head coach. And most people will agree, even those that don't consider themselves "playoff proponents" (considering the connotation that rides shotgun with that term), that there are flaws in the BCS system. As I stated in the facts above, though, those flaws are confined really to merely two categories: how many teams are in the playoff and how such teams are selected. Let's look at each.
How Many Teams Make it to the College Football Playoff: Currently the BCS restricts this to two teams. Barack Obama wants eight. I've heard calls for as many as 64 and I've heard calls that aren't patently ridiculous for as many as 16. The number of teams that make it to a playoff depends on what you want that playoff to be, as I have discussed previously on this site. Loyal and long-time readers know that I have been angling for a Flex Playoff system for over two years (see comments on this post and this post for the first primitive articulation of the system). The general idea is: (a) the college football national champion should be the team that has had the best season overall, (b) the college football playoff should include only those teams that have a legitimate claim to have had the best season overall, (c) the number of teams with such a claim changes each year, and therefore (d) the number of teams in that playoff should change accordingly, under rules for determining who has a legitimate claim to have had the best season overall.
The ultimate articulation of this system was a lengthy two-part treatise I wrote in early 2007 outlining the theoretical basis for the Flex System and then the Flex System itself. That's required reading for anyone who wants to fully understand what I'm talking about here, with the caveat that I will be slightly amending the rules of the Flex System itself this offseason as further thought has led me to slightly different conclusions about how to deal with certain situations. Be advised that these revisions have nothing to do with Texas' exclusion from the Big 12 Championship game (and thus the revisions are not just sour grapes) because (a) that exclusion has nothing to do with the college football playoff, as I have mentioned previously, and (b) Texas would already be in the college football playoff under the current Flex System, no matter what happens this weekend.
At the very least, I think that just about everyone can agree that in at least some years, two teams are not enough to be let into the playoff, most notably in 2003 (no undefeated teams but three indistinguishable 1-loss teams: USC, OU, and LSU) and in 2004 (three undefeated BCS conference teams (USC, OU, and Auburn). I personally believe that in some years, two teams is exactly the right number of teams that should be put into a playoff, most notably in 2005 when USC and Texas were the only two undefeated teams in the country and widely agreed to be the only two with a legitimate claim to have had the best year. But, continuing with the Penn State theme, what if Chad Henne hadn't hit Mario Manningham for a game-winning touchdown at the last second to give the Nittany Lions their only loss of the season? Penn State likely would have been an undefeated #3 and JoePa would have 5 undefeated seasons that didn't result in national championships rather than 4. And that's not fair.
So if there are some years in which two teams are simply not enough to put into a playoff, then you have two options: (1) adjust the number of teams who do get in depending on the circumstances of each year to only include teams with a legitimate claim to have had the best season overall (i.e. the Flex System) or (2) increase the number of teams that get in every year, and thereby let in teams that clearly do not have a claim to have had the best season and allow them the possibility of winning the national championship. Option 2 is what just about every other sport does (though MLB held out against this for a long time and still tries to maintain some semblance of this idea) and it rewards teams who get hot at the end of the season but who may have lost a lot of games early over teams that have had better seasons. Both are viable options and I have my obvious preference. But something needs to be done.
How Teams that Make the College Football Playoff are Selected: The determination of who gets into the playoff is a bone of contention as well. This has to be done in some manner, whether it's by a committee at the end of the season (like college basketball) or it's by only letting in conference champions or it's by a ranking system of some sort. Because very often some of the best teams in the country all come from the same conference, I think that you have to let in teams that did not win their conference if you really want to have a meaningful playoff. So for me, it comes down to a committee or a ranking system. Let's first look at a ranking system.
We're all familiar with the BCS ranking system after the massive amount of posts I've done over the past few weeks trying to figure out a possible way for Texas to make it to KC and Miami. I actually think this is a fine system in theory, with three caveats: (1) there should be nothing that computers can't take into account except for perhaps margin of victory over a certain point (really, beating a team by 42 points isn't much different from beating them by 28 points), (2) there should be more computers to get a meaningful average, and (3) human voters shouldn't be idiots who don't follow college football or coaches who think a team they just voted ahead of Texas is undefeated when they actually lost to Texas or who just vote for the team that played better against their team rather than which had the better season.
Honestly, I think the computers plus humans system is a good ranking tool. Humans are able to detect nuance in a team's performance that computers are not, and computers are able to give objective treatment to the accomplishments of each team whereas humans are not. The BCS can easily fix problem (1) above by executive fiat, and can fix problem (2) by not eliminating the high and low rankings and adding a few more reputable computers. Those are easy. The hard part comes in fixing problem (3). First, the coaches poll has to be eliminated from the system. If the coaches want to have a poll, that's fine. But it should have no bearing on who goes to the playoff. The ideal human poll is something like what the Harris Poll is supposed to be: a group of intelligent college football fans who know the sport through and through and who legitimately respect the job of ranking teams.
But the main problem with the notion of human voters at all is the recent dawning of their enlightenment about the place they hold in the BCS system. One thing that I'm not particularly comfortable with is the fact that human voters are learning how to manipulate their votes in their individual polls to get the result they want from the BCS. Maybe they're not actually doing this and it's just us speculating that they are, but all this talk of "voters won't allow a 1-loss SEC champion to be left out of the national championship game so they'll vote Florida #1 over OU just to make sure Florida goes over Texas" is extremely scary. Voters should be voting on who they think has had the best season and on no other basis, particularly not one with a specific agenda. In a sense, voters should not be sentient about their place in the system. They should, just as the computers do with their unique abilities, use their unique human abilities to rank teams and not worry about the ultimate effect of those rankings. This is a corollary to the stated reason for why the AP pulled out of the BCS: they want to report news, not make it.
Let's not forget that after all our politicking last week, large swaths of human voters moved Texas ahead of OU after Texas blew out a terrible team and OU won fairly convincingly over a good team. Did these two results warrant this change? Absolutely not. Voters were responding to what they saw as an injustice that was about to happen. Voters probably should have had Texas above by a lot to begin with and then considered the possibility of moving OU ahead after they beat OSU, but that's tangential to my point here. My point is that voters can be swayed by politicking. Sometimes it's politicking to get them to actually focus on the results of the season, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's to say "Hey, make sure you put Florida ahead of OU and Alabama ahead of Texas on your final ballot so we can make sure that the computers don't send Texas to the national championship game ahead of the Gators."
How do you get rid of that? You don't release any BCS rankings before the last one! You don't release the polls that are included in the BCS formula until late in the season! And you make every single person's vote public every single week that the poll is released along with a minimum 500-word explanation of why they ranked the top 5 they way that they did! These aren't going to cure everything, obviously. But the more transparency there is and the fewer opportunities there are for blatant manipulation of the BCS standings, the better the system will be. If you have read the Flex System proposal, you know that my preference is for taking these BCS rankings and applying certain rules to them for determining who gets into a playoff (i.e. if there are only 2 undefeated teams in the top 5 of the BCS standings and they are ranked 1-2, then there is a 2-team playoff between those 2 teams--like in 2005 with Texas and USC). But however the BCS standings determine who makes the playoffs, that ranking system needs some tweaks.
I owe you a brief word on the committee system, and here it is. It only works if you have a giant playoff where the last few teams in have approximately 0% chance of winning the playoff and where the teams in the playoff have to win a lot of games to win the whole thing. The fewer games there are in the playoff, the more illegitimate the committee will seem. Now, you will say that the same is true of a ranking system which means we should just have a big playoff, but that's not true. For instance, in my Flex System, the rules for who gets into the playoff are set before the season starts, not after the season is over. You may disagree with who gets in and who doesn't but it's not illegitimate because it's not biased against any specific teams. If you decide who gets into a playoff after the season, the decisions are suspect for bias, and if it isn't a huge playoff, there isn't a reason to dismiss any alleged claims of bias.
Conclusion:
I know there appears to be a rift between the title of this post and the content, in which I have criticized the BCS throughout. But if you look closely, the criticisms aren't of the premise of the system, but rather of its methods. It's an affirmation of the BCS, which is a playoff system in which the winner of that playoff is named national champion, and a refutation of numerous arguments against it. But it's also a recognition that the system would be better if sometimes we let in more teams than two, and maybe we slightly reformed the system for determining who gets invited to the playoff. At the least, it's a plea for everyone to make nuanced arguments for what we believe rather than blanket statements condemning the BCS (and that means you too, Mr. Obama).
REAL Conclusion: Seriously though, Mr. President Elect.....shoot me an e-mail on your blackberry while you still can. Team of Rivals!
[Note to everyone: This post is not an invitation to talk about politics in the comments. Talk about politicians and politics only in the context of what it means for college football. Nothing else.]
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Advantage of the flex
Silver bullet to any and all worries about the regular season becoming less meaningful: If you don’t know whether you need to finish in the Top 2 or Top 6 to get in the playoff, you assume they’re all must wins and are grateful for any one- or two-loss opportunity the season happens to provide when it’s all said and done.
--PB--
by Peter Bean on Dec 3, 2008 4:22 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Nice.
That’s one’s going in the rewrite.
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 4:46 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Nice post BZ
I also like the BCS for the most part and though the lead up to figuring out just who those two teams will be at the end can get pretty messy, I think it’s hard to argue with the eventual MNC teams from the past 10 years.
USC in 2003 and Auburn in 2004 may have a legit beef, but I think the BCS still got it right. If OU goes on to win the title this year convincingly, I may change my mind, but again, that won’t be the fault of the BCS, it’ll be the fault of the Big XII.
And as a fan of college football in general, nothing was more frustrating than those years when teams like Nebraska and Michigan would share the title with no op to settle it on the field.
Be nobody but yourself in a world that desperately wants you to be like everybody else.
by 54b on Dec 3, 2008 6:40 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
"if OU goes on to win this year convincingly"
then, to me, the system worked. We’re all crying UNJUST because we legitimately think that we’re the better team. We think OU got some scheduling advantages, that their defense is suspect, etc. But if OU goes and stomps Florida (in Miami, no less), then I will have to concede that the BCS worked.
As long as the National Title goes to a top-3 team at worst, then I’m ok with the system. I think most sports allow for top-10 or top-12 teams to get a shot, which is far more unjust than any results the BCS will likely ever produce.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 6:47 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
That's an interesting point
In this scenario, the BCS has affected the way the Big XII champion is chosen, which in turn then affects how the BCS champion is chosen. Thus the Big XII, through its own stupidity, has tarnished the entire BCS. Thanks, Beebe!
by Meekrob on Dec 4, 2008 8:43 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
What? How dare you defend the BCS!
Actually, good post.
However, let me focus on this one point:
The BCS National Champion is decided on the field, not by a formula. The BCS does not decide the national champion, it decides who plays in the national championship game. Your beef is with how those 2 teams are selected, not how the national champion is selected.
This is true in theory, but the BCS arguably leaves out teams that had a much better chance of winning. For instance, virtually everyone knew that Ohio State had no shot against LSU if the Tigers showed up half-awake (which they did, allowing a quick 10 points but coolly taking control from there). In that regard, some may argue that LSU was “given” the national title, not having to play superior teams to Ohio State like Georgia or USC.
by TheElusiveShadow on Dec 3, 2008 4:48 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
This furthers my point, though...
The BCS formula did not crown the national champion. LSU won that by beating Ohio State. Your beef is with how the teams are selected or how many teams get selected.
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 4:52 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Eliminates Contenders
The BCS formula does not crown the champion but it sure makes it impossible for several legitimate teams to be champion.
As you state we don’t have a beef with whoever wins the BCS championship, but with who gets to play in the BCS championship game.
by drycreek on Dec 3, 2008 10:27 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
BCS and Margin of Victory
There should be nothing that computers can’t take into account except for perhaps margin of victory over a certain point (really, beating a team by 42 points isn’t much different from beating them by 28 points)
This is what I thought as well, however when I was reading the Colley Matrix methodology today (work? Whats that?) which was written in 2002, and apparently not updated since I came across this:
However, even with considerable mathematical skulduggery, reliance on scores generates
some dependence on score margin that surfaces in the rankings at some level. Rightly or wrongly,
this dependence has induced teams to curry favor in computer rankings by running up the score
against lesser opponents. The situation had degraded to the point in 2001 that the BCS committee
instructed its computer rankers either to eliminate score dependence altogether or limit score
margins to 21 in their codes.
Which seems to indicate that what you suggest currently exists. Does anyone know for certain that MOV has since been completely removed?
Colley Matrix, by the way, concluded to not include MOV at all in its calculations.
by BoddickerIsClutch on Dec 3, 2008 4:49 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
It was completely removed after 2003
When OU’s massive lead in the computers (due to things such as it’s 77-0 romp over A&M and it’s 65-13 romp over Texas) allowed it to overcome AP and Coaches’ #1 USC in the BCS.
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 4:51 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
So..
The history of the BCS and MOV in computers is:
Inception – No rules, take whatever data you want.
2001 – Running up the score is rampant, limit MOV considerations to only 21 points
2003 – Ah screw it, remove it altogether, OU Sucks
If thats true, what argument would there be to add some MOV back in, much less at 28 points? The only way it could happen if the timeline above is correct, is if it was at an even smaller margin than 21. (My personal suggestion is a binary boon based on 10.5 points, but I digress)
by BoddickerIsClutch on Dec 3, 2008 4:58 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
The rationale is that it was stupid to take it out to begin with.
I actually had no idea that it was reduced to 21 for a while; that’s news to me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting you made a mistake. The BCS used to change the formula every damn year, which in effect was admitting that they were doing it wrong the previous year. I don’t know. But it needs to happen. 21 is a fine number, as is 28. I’m sure someone more mathematically inclined than I am can plug in some data and figure out where the valid “hump” is.
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 5:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
If the 2001 change is correct, we would have to know the real reason it was dropped in 2003
Then argue that shit into the ground!
by BoddickerIsClutch on Dec 3, 2008 5:06 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
When MOV was used...
…did it take under consideration the relative MOV?
By that, I mean the following:
Team A defeats Team X 30-0 in a truly dominant defense performance.
Team B defeats Team X 62-28.
Although most observers would agree that Team A posted the “better” win, a pure MOV method would not recognize it as such. But if the MOV is calculated relative to the total points in a game, then maybe not.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 5:24 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I have thought the same
Rather than margin of victory, I think some kind of relative victory score should be included. Some combination of the two might be appropriate.
by Longhorn in Canada on Dec 3, 2008 6:27 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Problems with the "flex"
While I agree that the system should ultimately try to reward a team that was both (a) good in the regular season, and (b) good in the post season, I don’t believe that a flex system would acheive such a thing.
First – Having any sort of selective postseason playoff process ensures that every game matters. You don’t need to make it a moving target in order for teams to care about the regular season. I don’t think it is a fair assumption to say that teams will stop trying and therefore make regular season games less meaningful. For one, the sheer size of Div-1 forces you to care. College football has almost 120 teams in it vying for 8, 12, or 16 playoff spots and you are almost always assured someone is going to have an undefeated, one loss, or two loss season. Secondly, there is no motivation to “tank” games by teams who have no shot of making the playoff. Similar to what we see in professional basketball, football, and baseball because in the end the motivation is different. In professional sports, teams that have no chance of getting to the post season are more likely to be motivated to lose in order to secure a better draft position. In CFB, programs don’t have an incentive to lose — its not going to help recruiting.
Every league defines a minimum threshold for an acceptable regular season performance either through RPI and a committee, or a holistically through a wild card, or what have you. In college football, that should be the top 12 or 16 teams as ranked by a new ranking system which I will describe in another post below.
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 4:52 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
No one said anyone was tanking anything.
The regular season does in fact count less with a larger playoff because you can still win the national championship with 3 losses. More games matter, but the outcome of those games doesn’t matter as much.
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 4:54 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
my point is simply
that if you take the top 8 or at most the top 16 out of 120 teams there is a very, very, small likelihood that their will be a three loss team in the mix. More often than not, before bowl season, the top 16 is comprised of teams with 2 losses at most.
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 5:16 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Realistically
Flex system, BCS, or full on playoff, you are still only talking about 16 teams a year with a realistic shot of making it to the championship game. Bump that to 25 if you want to take the current break point for “good” teams. Its not 120 vying for the top spots.
I don’t think its about teams tanking or not trying their hardest, but for me, as a fan anyway, its about the importance not only of my team’s regular season, but other teams as well. Like how I wanted Baylor to win badly last weekend, or Florida state, or insert-name-here. It makes me be a fan of the entire sport on a larger level than in any other sport.
That is what I usually think of when people talk of the importance of the regular season.
by BoddickerIsClutch on Dec 3, 2008 5:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
If we aren't worried about teams giving less than 100% effort
what difference does it make?
The measure of meaningfulness in sports is if a team gives 100% effort in the competition.
My argument is that as long as the playoff field is extremely selective (i.e. 16 out of 120 teams) every team will continue to give 100% effort in every game. If that is the case, then every team believes every game in meaningful.
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 5:22 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
What?
The measure of meaningfulness in sports is if a team gives 100% effort in the competition.
I don’t understand this. This is the only measure you have of whether sport is meaningful? The only thing that matters to you in sport is what goes into it, not what comes out?
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:03 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
meaningfulness
BZ – correct me if I’m wrong, but what you want to continue see is that a game like Florida/Ole Miss is “meaningful” so that the Florida loss has consequences in a playoff system. Better yet, you like the idea that Nebraska/Colorado was “meaningful” because it impacted Texas and Oklahoma’s rankings hence their post season aspirations. In that sense, the games have meaning, correct? What you and others want to avoid is that a team with 3 or 4 losses is able to make it into a playoff and compete against undefeated, one, or 2 loss teams for the same mythical championship. This would somehow undermine the legitimacy of the championship because it would give lesser teams the ability to win it all and would make their additional regular season losses “meaningless” versus the undefeated or 1-loss teams.
I have a few problems with this view. First, its too simplistic. The last team into any playoff system has to beat out at least one other team in order to make it. There will always be a cutoff, regardless of whether you have a flex system or a standard top 8, 12, or 16 system. The best team left out of the playoff can always make the argument that they system left them out because somone’s win or loss was considered less “meaningful” in retrospect. The last team in will likely have some arbitrary reason for being in while another team is left out and depending on your bias that reason could be meaningful while another possible deciding factor could be meaningless. Furthermore, in any playoff system teams are seeded, so less qualified teams have a tougher road to win and are inherently at a disadvantage. Thus teams will always be motivated to win (and give their fullest effort) to secure a higher seed – ensuring that the wins and losses of each team have significance.
Second, you approach is a hindsight view of assigning “meaningfulness” in which a person can cherry pick a few games whose outcome that person feels should have had greater consequence. You will always be able to find games that are not “meaningful” if you assess meaning this way. Does this mean that some teams shouldn’t bother playing or that we should have just handed the national championship trophy to Georgia or USC without playing the season? This disregards the fact that there were dozens of other “meaningful” games that had to occur in order for the “meaningless” game to have no postseason significance. Regardless of whether or not the outcome of the game had or did not have consequences for the post season does not make a game “meaningless”.
Lastly, because you are determining meaning in hindsight, no one can predict which future game’s outcome will or will not be meaningful. It is only once the season is finished that you cherry pick a game here or there that was or was not meaningful to the outcome of the season. Therefore, to the players on the field and everyone involved every game at the time is meaningful or at least has the potential to be meaningful. Thus, there is 100% effort and the chips fall where they may.
by BMG on Dec 4, 2008 2:13 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Very deontological, BMG.
That’s like the 4th formulation of the Categorical Imperative, right there. Now, I’m no utilitarian, but the meaning of sport has to be about more than just what’s put into it. If that’s all that mattered, then the value of the 1980 US hockey victory over the Soviet Union would have the same “meaning” as last week’s Texas game against A&M simply because all four teams involved gave 100% effort. There are numerous ways that games have different meanings attached to them, from the rational consequence of each game in the sport to the irrational emotion evoked by such games.
Now, you are misconstruing what I mean by meaningfulness, and I have absolutely no idea how you got this “retroactive” business and assigned it to me because I believe no such thing. You somehow manage to conflate my position (which you more or less state correctly in the 1st paragraph) with the idea that I would consider one team’s win or loss less meaningful than another’s and by doing so let one of the teams into the playoff instead of the other. This is absolutely not correct. The meaningfulness of each game is the same within a given system. Florida’s loss to Ole Miss has the same meaning as Texas’ loss to Tech. I’m not saying the meaning changes, only that the quality of the results (with regards to determining who had the better season) diminishes more with Florida’s loss than with Texas’ for obvious reasons. Perhaps this is “retroactive” as you say (and I’m not conceding that point, only saying that this is probably what you meant when you said my definition of meaning was retroactive).
What you’re doing is confusing my use of the world “meaningful” with “quality” or some other word that describes how the results of a certain game affect a team’s overall resume. I mean “meaningful” in the sense of how much the results matter to the crowning of a national champion. That is, when Florida loses to Ole Miss, Florida’s chances to win the national championship under the BCS system decrease a certain percentage. The more teams that are let into a playoff, the less of a decrease that is to Florida’s chances to win a national championship. The greater the decrease, the more the regular season matters. If Florida’s loss to Ole Miss decreases its chances of winning the national championship by exactly 1, then that game is a whole lot less meaningful towards deciding the national champion than if that loss had decreased its chances by 50.
The meaningfulness of the results of the regular season with regards to the national championship is inversely proportional to the number of teams involved in a postseason playoff that determines the national champion.
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 3:35 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
OUCH!
No need for philosphical name calling here. In my defense I was only answering your call for more nuanced debate.
We’ve got slightly different definitions of “meaningfulness” but are both using “quality” or “consequences” or “outcome” synonymously. Our disagreement is on (1) having a moving target for determining what a legitimate claim to the best regular season is and (2) the flex concept subjectively deciding how many teams can make that claim.
Let’s forget the concept of meaning (which we’ve completely beaten to a pulp) and stick to the notion of “quality” (or lack thereof) such as the one you define (i.e. quality of a regular season loss should undermine one’s championship chances). A fixed playoff system would rank teams based on the quality of their seasons via selection process. Inherently, teams with better quality face inferior teams. If the regular season is truly meaningful (%$^@, there is that word again) then the top ranked team should rarely if ever lose to the last ranked team. The results of the matchups should all approach their expected outcomes similar to how the first round of the NCAA tournament plays itself out over time (little to no upsets of teams ranked #1 or #2). The flex system just shields top ranked teams from having to play opponents we don’t want them to lose to, not teams they could potentially lose to. If a playoff system was in place in 2005 and USC had somehow lost prior to playing Texas you might have called it a travesty. Maybe USC just wasn’t as good as their regular season resume implied. At the heart of our disagreement is that if a team is worth its ranking, it ought to be able to beat inferior opponents on the field and not just on paper.
Logically speaking, your last point is conflict with the purpose of the flex system you propose. If we compared a scenario with eight 1-loss teams comprising a playoff field, or 10 2-loss teams comprising the playoff field you would say that the regular season in the first scenario was more meaningful (8 teams) than the second scenario (10 teams). If you agree that year-over-year, regular seasons are always meaningful, then there should always be a fixed number of teams in a playoff field.
by BMG on Dec 4, 2008 5:20 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
2005 USC playoff scenario...
…Sure they ought to be able to beat inferior teams, and that’s exactly what they did during the regular season. Why should they have to prove it again in a 4, 8, or however many team playoff? Nobody (except Texas) had a comparable resume, and making them play any playoff games before facing Texas in the finals would have devalued (or made less meaningful, if you prefer ;) their regular season.
by Sweed4Heisman on Dec 4, 2008 6:26 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
The problem with the 16 out of 119 rationale
is that it assumes that all 119 teams had a legitimate shot to begin with. If college football were somehow an egalitarian, “stock car” type sport, in which no team had significant advantages coming into the season, then you would be correct in your assessment that 16 /119 is a relatively low percentage that should increase the urgency of competition. But college football is a sport based on elite competetive advatages. In some respects, National Championships are won off the field by way of recruiting, facility up-grades, television contracts, etc.
More reasonably, we must concede that there are really only 6-8 legitimate title contenders entering a given season. In an 8-team playoff, all would make the cut, and in my eyes this kills the urgency of the regular season. The 6-8 teams we thought had a shot at the beginning, are the very same teams we’ve got at the end – and all each team needs to accomplish this is a 1-loss or possibly 2-loss season, which they all almost certainly would. So why play the regular season at all? An 8-team playoff would essentially take the preseason top-8 (which we’re correct about something like 95% of time) and build a tournament around them, rendering all the games in September and October as virtual pre-season games.
16 teams, to me is unthinkable. That would stretch even beyond the number of teams that legitimately have a shot, and would alter the regular season irreparably.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 5:21 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
16 and 12 would always be too many, 8 almost always would be, and sometimes 4 as well...
… 99 times out of 100, there won’t be 8 equally deserving teams at the end of a season. This year, it would be very tough to argue that USC, Penn State, and Utah deserve the same shot at a National Title as Florida, Alabama, Texas, OU and Tech. Like BZ mentioned, in 2005 (and 2002 – Ohio State/Miami) you simply didn’t need any more teams.
On top of usually not having enough deserving teams to fill an 8, 12, or 16 team bracket, the likelihood of regular season rematches increases as you add more teams. When I worry about the meaning of the regular season being taken away because of a playoff, I don’t worry so much about teams not playing hard as I do about getting rematches. I realize that this may sound dumb since Texas just got snubbed in favor of a team it beat in the regular season, but I blame that on the Big XII tie breaker, the voters, and the computers.
by Sweed4Heisman on Dec 3, 2008 6:20 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Big 12 Tiebreaker Issue Not News
Many of us have forgotten that last season could have also been a 3-way tie between Texas, Oklahoma and Okie State at 5-3 if the Cowboys had won. The Big 12 was going to ignore the language of Rule b. 3., which states: " The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish (4, 5 and 6)", (which would have favored Texas) and instead go to Rule b. 5. awarding the South Division to the highest BCS team (which would have been Oklahoma).
This was a small controversy in the week before the 2007 Texas/aTm game. So small I guess that everyone forgot it and ignored the rule about the BCS deciding our conference champion until now.
by RMHorn on Dec 3, 2008 5:07 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
the reason they threw that out
A better record against teams 4, 5, and 6 means that you only had QUALITY losses, whereas if you lost more games against 4,5,6, you have some good wins but more bad losses… It doesn’t really decide anything, except one team performed as expected (tough losses to good teams, undefeated against bad teams) and one team was multiple personality (beat the good teams, crap your pants against the bad ones)
I think I just confused myself.
"I have CDO. It's like OCD, but the letters are in alphabetical order. Like they should be."
by BigMOman on Dec 4, 2008 2:44 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Actually, using it makes sense
If you’re looking for the best team and everything else is equal, you should pick one that’s proven it can beat better teams, even if it’s slipped up against worse competition. So the teams that beat #4 and lost to #6 should probably be considered “better”, or at least “higher ceiling” (again, all else equal) than ones that lose to #4 and beat #6.
by SpartanDan on Dec 5, 2008 2:19 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
AP, etc.
This is a corollary to the stated reason for why the AP pulled out of the BCS: they want to report news, not make it.
That may have been their stated reason, but the real reason was exactly the opposite. A champion got crowned that didn’t follow their collective opinion so they took their ball and went home.
Your flex idea is interesting. I have had a similar though regarding the Big 12 CCG – it should only be played in years when the winner of the North and the winner of the South haven’t already played each other. If 2 teams play each other head-to-head twice, why should 1 win decide a champion?
by Horncasting on Dec 3, 2008 5:10 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
I think you have the years wrong
As I recall, the AP withdrew not after 2003 (the split championship year) but rather after 2004, when there was a lot of consternation not only about which two of three unbeatens should have been in the championship game but also who between Cal and Texas should have been going to the Rose Bowl. Didn’t that idiot in Alabama who had been voting us low (#9?) most of the season finally say “no mas” and rank us higher just to stop the flood of hate mail he was getting from Texas each week?
I think the AP not only didn’t want to make news but also didn’t want to subject its voters to the increased lobbying in the era of easy email communication.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 5:37 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
a better ranking system
You make a good point about the strengths and shortcomings of the human and computer elements in the polls. Humans are short sighted and tend to take the “what have you done for me lately approach” and some Harris and Coaches’ poll voters sound completely oblivious to what is going on in reality. On the flip side, computers don’t pick up on nuances, particularly when injuries occur or when teams start to look flat out dominant.
The problem with the ranking system as it currently stands is that these two things net against each other, instead of building on each other. We need a system that uses computers to reinforce the opinions of voters, and not the other way around. In other words, we need an RPI type system for college football. My suggestion would be as follows
1. Computers are solely reponsible for ranking Strength of Schedule.
2. SOS computed for all Div 1 teams and teams are ranked according to SOS score weekly from hardest to easiest. Raw scores would be converted into %, so that the team with the toughest schedule gets a 1.000 score and on down the list.
3. Harris voters rank the teams independant of the computer results weekly and point totals are assigned just as they are now.
4. Finally, each team’s Harris Poll point total is multiplied by its SOS computer score to create a composite score. Composite scores are then ranked weekly.
A ranking system like this would then allow the human polls to be complimented by the computers. Humans would consider what happens on the field and the relative impression of a team week-to-week, while the computers would be responsible for putting that human score into the context of the 12 week regular season. Addtionally, because the polls and the computers are not averaged against each other as they are now, you would not have the additional bias created by humans who elevate a team in the polls in order to overcome lower computer rankings.
This concept is similar to what “judged” sports have with a level of difficultly. This system would be intended to (a) create a hollistic approach to SOS ranking, and (b) rank teams based on their performance against the difficultly of their schedule as assessed by voters.
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 5:13 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Rejoinder
Some points I have made elsewhere that probably belong here:
1. For a playoff winner to be seen as a legitimate champion, then a certain percentage of the field needs to qualify. Look at every other sport — somewhere between a quarter and a third of the teams go into the playoff. Even with that silly ‘play-in’ game, there is no doubt that the NCAA basketball champion is somewhere in the top 65 teams. The problem for NCAA football is there are too many teams and too few games. For a comparable ratio, you would need to hold a six round playoff and there is no way for that to be scheduled.
2. The Big 12 blew it big time in not following the lead of the other major conferences and instead opted to continue to rely on the BCS rank as a tie-breaker, even after it became apparent what might result. I figure this was pure politics — they did not want to be seen as repudiating the BCS. It’s a bit self-serving for us to look back and say the Big 12 ought to use the head-to-head result between the top two of the three teams as the tie breaker, since it still leaves open how the top two are to be determined. And it would be absurd to bring the BCS back in again at that point. The top four tiebreakers pretty much exhaust all the common-sense methods for resolving the matter. You are left with things like score differentials and who went most recently. And the Big 12 lacks an impartial arbitrator. So what’s left? Coin flip?
3. It does not matter how many computer systems you employ, because you are assuming that the biases will all even out and there is no reason to think that is the case. You just have more rating factors with smaller coefficients. More importantly, none of these have ever been validated by comparing their results against an objectively correct set of rankings, because those do not exist. The best they can do is show they can match the human rankings, which kinda defeats the whole point of using computers.
4. This is not to say that the human rankings are not also a disaster. Ignorance, bias, and simple errors are enough to shade results enough to undermine their accuracy. And we have this arbitrary way of translating individual rankings into a composite rating that would make a statistician scream.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you're a mile away AND you have their shoes.
by Caradoc on Dec 3, 2008 5:14 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Disagree about # of teams for a legitimate champion
I think 4 the majority of the time and 8 at most would be plenty. Getting beyond that and you are filling it with teams that quite frankly don’t deserve at shot at it.
Look at 2005. UT navigated an very tough schedule. At the end should they really have to play a #15, a #7, etc. Would a #15 or a #7 seed team have really deserved a chance at them? If so, doesn’t that just completely cheapen the regular season?
by Horncasting on Dec 3, 2008 5:21 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
So why doesn't basketball just start with the Final Four?
After all the season is longer and nobody loses out because of a single game.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you're a mile away AND you have their shoes.
by Caradoc on Dec 3, 2008 10:17 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
College football and college basketball are different animals
And nobody cares about the regular season in basketball nearly as much as they do football.
by Horncasting on Dec 4, 2008 9:15 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Well, they actually used to.
The reason they don’t anymore is that long ago the NCAA decided to give up on the postseason basketball tournament as a way to determine the team who had the best season and went instead for a completely different season focused exclusively on entertainment. And they sure did a good job of making it entertaining, I’ll give them that.
Think about the big 12 basketball season. There are two conference champions, the regular season and the conference tournament champion. Which one do you think better measures how good your team is? The one that accumulates wins and losses over months and months and ranks teams accordingly? Or the one where you have to win 3 or 4 games in a week? If you said the latter, then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on the nature of sports championships generally, but if you chose the former, then you can understand what I’m getting at here. A postseason tournament can be incredibly entertaining, but it rewards different things than a regular season championship does and if the postseason tournament champion is viewed as more important than the regular season, then the regular season really doesn’t matter a whole lot other than for seeding purposes, does it?
The point of the Flex System is to have an exciting conclusion to the season in the form of a playoff rather than a poll, but to also restrict entry into that playoff to teams that have a legitimate claim to have had the best season, which honors the regular season.
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:16 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Flex appeal
Don’t get me wrong. I think the flex is a great idea. But isn’t it inconsistent to complain about the playoff system and then reward the teams having the best season with a playoff? Maybe what you really want is the NIT like back in the olden days (post season, top teams). And how about a separate honor for “best team” awarded after the tourney?
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you're a mile away AND you have their shoes.
by Caradoc on Dec 4, 2008 1:19 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
This is all addressed in the Flex System articles.
But briefly, the goal of a large playoff in which lots of teams who clearly don’t have a claim to have had the best season overall are involved is very different than the goal of a smaller playoff which includes only teams which have a claim to have had the best season. The latter type (which includes the inflexible BCS and the more nimble Flex System) aims to say, “This number of teams has a claim to have had the best season and each could thus potentially be considered the national champion based on the regular season. Because we want to crown an individual national champion though, we need some way to differentiate between these teams. The most exciting way to do this is by allowing them to play each other and we’ll declare the winner the national champion.” This is very different from saying, “we’re going to throw a bunch of teams, some elite and some just good, into a tournament after the regular season and whoever wins is national champion.”
A potential option is declaring a “national champion” after the regular season each year and then having a tournament after that, the winner of which is declared “NCAA tournament champion.” The problem I have is with any tournament that includes teams that don’t have a claim to have had the best overall regular season and then purports to crown the winner of that tournament the one true national champion. That’s the reason for the apparent discrepancy in what I’m saying.
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 2:43 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Very good write-up
A couple of critiques:
The national championship is no longer mythical, irrational claims by bloggers notwithstanding. There are rules set forth before the season regarding who gets into a playoff to determine the national champion and whoever wins that playoff is declared national champion of division 1 college football. This is not mythical.
I disagree strongly. So long as there is no official NCAA D-! tournament, the championship remains mythical. To be technical, the BCS isn’t set up so much as to crown a national champion as it is to ensure that, to the greatest extent possible, #1 has an opportunity to meet #2 in a bowl game. More often than not, the BCS formula matches public (AP, coaches) perception as to who the top two teams are. On occasion (2003 and, quite possibly, this season, with two different paths to get there), it does not.
Without official NCAA sanctioning, the BCS champion is as mythical as the champion of the coaches’ poll in the pre-BCS era, and if the AP differs, that team may, with a straight face, claim a national championship as well. Don’t think we won’t be doing it in the “stay ahead of OU in the AP” scenario. And don’t think that Florida wouldn’t to it either — completely legitimately — if we win the BCS because Florida doesn’t pass us this weekend but goes on to be the end-of-season AP #1.
How do you get rid of that? You don’t release any BCS rankings before the last one! You don’t release the polls that are included in the BCS formula until late in the season!
Won’t work. It’s already been tried, to a certain extent, by the Harris Poll, which isn’t released until October is. Problem is, everyone under the sun has their own rankings, and even if there are some differences at the beginning, public perception, reinforced by what everyone else is already saying public, tends to come towards the same conclusion. So, even if the Harris and coaches’ poll aren’t ever released until the end of the season, everyone will know who’s ranked where in the AP, ESPN Power Poll, etc., and will be strongly influenced by those polls.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 5:20 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
And I will always believe...
any winner of a tournament to a “mythical” champion, as tournaments generally disregard the 4 months of competition that precedes them.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 5:24 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Agree, the urgency of the regular season is what makes college football special.
All tournaments do is reward the team that gets hot or gets the breaks at the end.
by Horncasting on Dec 3, 2008 5:26 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I don't think any season in the 1980s ended...
…without someone saying that “if there were a playoff, Florida State would win, since they’re the hottest team right now.”
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 5:27 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No, I meant 1980s...
…but to be more precise, probably mid 80s through 93 or so.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 5:31 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
they were top four in the final poll every year from 87 through 2000
that makes more sense than the years you suggest.
by andy_wooster on Dec 3, 2008 9:27 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
that is only half true
Aside from pure round-robin tournaments, all tournaments that follow a regular season have a minimum acceptable threshold for inclusion into the tournament. There’s nothing wrong with that.
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 5:28 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I see something wrong with it
Suppose one team is 13-0 coming into the championship game, and a hot, streaking team gets in at 9-4. If the latter team wins, they are 10-4 while the former is 13-1.
I agree with BZ that the “champion” (if such a concept isn’t ENTIRELY inane) should be the team that had the best season in the given year, which couldn’t possibly be true in that instance.
To further the sense of injustice, imagine now that the game was a rematch, and that the 13-0 team had already beaten the 9-4 team earlier in the season, making their records 1-1 against each other. It is entirely arbitrary to declare the team with more losses as the champion, and to claim they are the team of the year.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 5:34 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Champions
Sports are decided by what happens on the field or what happens in a head to head. Competition is how we determine who is better. I challenge you to name me a sport that awards a championship based solely on a “body of work”.
Create a selective playoff process that would include around 10% of the teams in D1 and then let them duke it out to see who the best team is. Did anyone complain last year when the Giants beat the Patriots? How can anyone argue against the results on the field?! Didn’t 45-35 teach anyone anything?!?!
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 5:39 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Let's see
Every single global soccer league (which is enough for me)
Auto Racing
Golf
Tennis
Every sport that existed before 1940
etc. etc.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 5:44 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
A crucial distinction
I think all the examples you cite allow for head-to-head competition in the regular season. European soccer leagues play a home-and-home round robin during which every team in the league gets to play every other team twice, once at home and once on the road. It is fairer, in that situation, to allow for a champion to be crowned without having an end-of-year playoff.
Same for NASCAR, etc. Everyone competed against everyone else during the year.
The NFL is too large to permit the same without having a 62-week season.
In college football, the leagues that are too large to permit an in-season round-robin also resort to a one-game playoff to determine their champions to ensure that a team cannot go undefeated but not win the championship. The (only?) league that differs is the Big 10, and it is absurd that, say, Penn State and Wisconsin can both go 12-0 and Penn State can be named champ and Wisconsin never had a chance to knock them off.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 6:14 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I do understand those distinctions
and realize its unlikely the NCAA would ever adopt any such round-robin policy (without serious overhaul toward a diced-up, divisional system of relegation – which would be awesome, by the way).
My point is that tournaments are a late 20th Century trend that everyone now takes for granted. We’ve chosen to involve more teams than we can handle for a round-robin, or for us to look simply at body of work. My problem is that instead of re-evaluating what we think a “champion” is, we’ve decided to overhaul the entire sport. To my mind, the sport is more important than the concept of a “champion.” A playoff would be, to me, an attempt to get two wrongs to make a right.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 6:26 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
ok
Soccer – many leagues have two legs – round robin tournament as well as a regular season and from there the top club teams on most continents participate in a champion’s league predicated on a tournament style system. i’m from Argentina so its in my blood.
Auto Racing – Good point, but its a completely different animal all together. Everyone goes head to head with everyone else simultaneously over an entire season. NASCAR has some sort of playoff, but honestly I don’t count Auto Racing as a sport so its disqualified.
Golf – Fed Ex cup is supposed to decide the top golfer after the regular season. Fed Ex cup is a playoff. All golfers are going head to head every weekend too. Before the Fed Ex cup, ranking at the end of the year were completely meaningless — saying who the “top golfer” was had no bearing on who won the masters or the british open.
Tennis – Ranking at the end of the year is completely meaningless too. No one gets a prize or wins a “championship” for being the top tennis player. In singles there is a Master’s series cup which is a playoff. Davis Cup is a year long team tennis tournament.
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 6:25 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
My point is more simple than that
I know the NCAA cannot adopt the rules used by most of those other sports.
I’m saying that most people are taking the concept of a playoff champion for granted. It is a fairly new concept for the sports that do use it, and still hasn’t been adopted at all by many sports.
I don’t think that choosing a “champion” (a malleable term at best) should supercede the evolution of the game on the field.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 6:31 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
And by the way
I love Soccer, but the World Cup gets under my skin for similar reasons. Brazil and Argentina are the best teams nearly every year, but rarely actually win it.
The Champion’s League tournament in Europe is a bit better, because they play two legs to each knock-out round, but still, tournaments always leave a bad taste in my mouth.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 6:36 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
And by the way
I complained when the Giants beat the Patriots. In fact, I have used that example in several posts here.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 5:48 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
As did I...
… The Packers and Patriots both won in New York, and the Cowboys won both regular season meetings. Another example of why the BCS gets it right more than any other postseason system.
by Sweed4Heisman on Dec 3, 2008 6:06 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I could not disagree more
Are you saying that NC State was not deserving of their win over UH in 1983? They were a 6 seed if I remember correctly. Now, if we are judging just who has had the best regular season…then Bama is your champion. Case closed. No need to play CCG so Florida can possibly knock them off so you will have 6 teams with one loss and Utah and Boise. You tell me who deserves to be named champion after this debacle. Every one loss team would claim they could beat Utah or Boise (But ya didn’t did you NoU—still in my top 5 games of all time).
The BCS does not get it right…it is arbitrary, manipulative, subjective, and biased. For sure FL will receive the proper votes since they all know the calculations to prevent them from staying behind TX. That is a guarantee. Simply because they do not want a rematch for the national title…after all, they might be 1-1 against each other on two neutral fields…nothing solved there.
by Mulliganville on Dec 3, 2008 11:08 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I'm saying that a 6 game run at the end of a 30 game season...
…should not tell us who the champion of a particular season is. The champion of a season in any sport should be the team that has the best overall season. NC State was obviously good enough to reel off enough consecutive wins to be the champion of the tournament and therefore they are deserving of being the tournament champions. But as a 6 seed, there were roughly 20 other teams that had better seasons going into the tournament. My stance is that a team that had such a mediocre season shouldn’t have a chance to play for the right to be called “national champion”.
More times than not, the BCS gives us the two most deserving teams at the end of each season, that’s why I like it best.
by Sweed4Heisman on Dec 4, 2008 8:42 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Apropo of nothing...
…is there any way for a poster to edit a comment once it’s up?
I’m sick of my own typos (“until October is.” What the hell is that?) staring me in the face after I hit “post”.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 3, 2008 5:26 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
agreed - I never catch my their and there screw-ups until I hit "post"
by BMG on Dec 3, 2008 5:31 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Nope. The idea is a conversation that can't be edited after the fact.
That’s why we have a “preview” button.
by billyzane on Dec 3, 2008 6:31 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
So what you're saying is...
…that back when the NIT was a bigger postseason basketball tournament than the NCAA and all the best teams went to the NIT, the winner of that tournament was a mythical national champion (because it didn’t have official NCAA sanction) and the winner of the NCAA tourney (the one with none of the best teams) was the actual national champion?
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:19 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
More precisely...
…in that scenario, the winner of the NCAA tournament would have been the official NCAA champion, and the winner of the NIT would have been, in fact, a “mythical” national champion. That does raise an interesting question: back in that era of college hoops, are there two different teams that claim national championships in the same year back when the NIT was bigger and more prestigious but a different team won the NCAAs?
Looking at 1941, for example, Wisconsin won the NCAA tournament. Wisconsin seems to claim that championship today as a legit national championship.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 4, 2008 9:35 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
So what you’re saying is that if the BCS decides to completely change course and have a 16-team playoff to which every conference and independent team in the nation signed on to participate in, then the winner of that would still be a mythical national champion just because the NCAA decided to take a hands-off approach?
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:41 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Yes
But keep in mind:
(1) We’re getting into semantics here. My definition of a MNC is essentially any team, in the absence of an official NCAA playoff, which ends the season recognized as the #1 team in the country by a credible source. As of today, those two credible sources are the coaches’ poll (as dictated by the BCS) and the AP. But a MNC is still a national champ. And if an official playoff were to be implemented in a few years, we wouldn’t look back at 2005 and think that Texas wasn’t any less legitimate a national champion than those gutsy kids from Texas State who parlay a 7-5 record and a Sun Belt championship into a Cinderella run for the ages in the official 2020 NCAA 1-A 16-team football playoffs.
(2) As I know you know, your example is completely hypothetical because I think the only way university presidents would agree to such a four-game extension to the season would be through the implementation of an official NCAA playoff.
(3) But to anticipate a question, if that Texas State example did occur through a 16-team tournament not officially sanctioned by the NCAA, they would still be “just” a MNC. (But a national champion nonetheless! They get to raise a banner at the Bobcat Dome!) And if AP voters decided to vote USC #1 at the end of that tourney, just because, then they’d get a MNC too.
by Hopkins Horn on Dec 4, 2008 10:13 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Billy you're brilliant!
Really well done. I think you should be president-elect.
GO 'HORNS GO!
CPF
by patriks10 on Dec 3, 2008 5:23 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
As I stated Last Year...And the Year Before...And The Year Before!
After five years of researching this issue, I am convinced this is part of the United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations, Rothschild agenda of weakening a society based on a divide and conquer / constructive confusion strategy.
This first weekend in December, unlike the first week in blogtober (tongue in cheek intended), is full of constant chaos and incestuous whining every year. Every year we toss the blame around at the feet of the coaches, computers, Harris Poll members, media speculators or the bowl empire monopolists. Rarely is it tossed at the feet of the actual culprits who created the concept of the BCS in the first place.
If you have bothered to research the current bailout predicament within the economy, you would astutely and quickly realize that JP Morgan, the Rockefeller dynasty and the Warberg clan (with infamous ties to Kuhn & Loeb) were behind the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. This same interlocking group of families is grossly profiting from the constant bailouts from our federal government, because they are the controlling monopolists who have created and controlled the American economy since its inception.
By 1917, this heavy weight conglomerate of Eastern Establishment families as well as additional middle weight Eastern Establishment families (Russells, Perkins, Herrimans, Bush’s, Ford’s, Carnegie’s and others of similar ilk), financed the Bolshevick Revolution, the precursor to what is now commonly known as Russian Communism.
The Communist regime is built upon the concept of Monarchy, Oligarchy and Monopoly. It is centered around a mass of slave or common labor, which is controlled by wealthy elites who aim to create a monopolistic economy rather than a free market economy. Unions are despised because Russian Communism has no concern for the welfare (financial, social, spiritual or health) of the common worker. They would just as easily profit from prison slave labor as common sweatshop conditions that are notorious in third world countries.
By 1925, these same interlocking group of heavy weight and middle weight families were busy financing Adolf Hitler and national socialism. According to Jim Marrs, national socialism is the concept of corporate rule, where the Corporations control the state via lobbying agents who bribe congress to enact laws that will benefit the corporatocracy, (as John Perkins calls it "Confessions of an Economic Hitman or The Secret History of the American Empire"). JP Morgan, Citibank, GE, Ford, General Motors, Brown-Brothers Herriman and many other corporate entities profited immensely from the Rise of the Third Reich.
Although the mainstream historical media pointed the blame at the feet of Adolf Hitler for national socialism, or corporate rule if you will, the multinational conglomerates listed above were truly responsible for the rise and fall of Hitler. We defeated Hitler in WWII, but national socialism, and Russian Communism are the favored economic structure of the wealthy elites who control this country, and they survived the war quite nicely since Hitler took the wrath of blame.
IG Farben and Fritz Thysen’s steel empire split into over 600 multinational corporations around the globe before the close of the war, and were aided and abetted by our national security organizations who shrouded this in secrecy. IG Farben, responsible for Zyclon B (gassing in the Holocaust) and Napalm is one of the most evil empires in the world. At the conclusion of WWII, the US government and the UN split this organization into four separate entities…Bayer, Monsanto, and BASF.
The same wealthy elites who control all arms of the media, the university educational system, the bowl empire and anything else where the economic paradigm is measured in the billions is the same wealthy elites who financed National Socialism and Russian Communism.
The group of interconnected multinational corporations, with major origins and ties to the Eastern Establishment families essentially runs the BCS and the bowl empire and they control public thought and opinion due to the fact that Americans are addicted to the Tube. Whatever we hear on the HDTV, is the word of law…it must be true we heard it on TV.
College football is simply a vehicle for these multinational Eastern Establishment families to carry on and execute their goal of a one world government. That is their aim, this is their mission. The BCS controversy is nothing but a mind control operation designed to weaken America, specifically the middle class, and they use the same strategy that the Rothschild empire has always used. Funding two sides of an opposing issue, while sitting back and watching the two entities destroy each other.
Here comes Obama and the government (controlled by the same shadow government I just desribed) with the regulations to fix the BCS. This was the same strategy that gave us the central banking mechanism known as the Federal Reserve and the IRS. This is very much by design. They create a problem by financing both sides of an issue, watch the two sides destroy each other and then rush to the rescue with government regulations, of which they profit immensely. This is essentially how the military industrial complex came into being. This strategy is as old as time itself.
College football mimics the British system of Monarchy, Oligarchy and Monopoly. The elite teams in college football (TOSU, USC, OU, Texas, Florida, Florida State, Tennessee, Michigan, Nebraska, Alabama, Georgia and LSU) act as the central banks, and these elite schools are controlled by University Presidents who are linked with the CIA, Council on Foreign Relations, Big Oil and Multinational "NAZI" corporations. They are either directly linked with the organizations themselves or controlled by Board of Regent members who are on the boards of these entities. See Jim Marrs "Rise of the 4th Reich."
When people begin to recognize this and stop supporting a system that is grossly un-American (if you haven’t figured it out, the university foundations have been busy since the turn of the 20th century trying to think-tank their way through getting the American public to mesh with national socialism and Russian communism), but then again, we really haven’t been a republic bound by the constitution since Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, so the BCS is largely the American concept of today…National Socialism and Russian Communism meshed together.
I know much of this is above the realm of rational critical thinking by most of you, because you simply will not look outside the box enough to draw your own conclusion that the similarity between the business model of the BCS is directly parallel to the concept of the Rothschild & Rhodes Empire dedicated to bringing British Imperialism back in control of the world.
I just thought you should know what the BCS is really about.
If you question this, research the ties that the university presidents (and more importantly the Board of Regent members) from all of the schools who have won BCS championships have with the CIA, Council on Foreign Relations, Big Oil and Multinational NAZI Corporations. The list is long and distinguished, with literally centuries of connections.
Either stop whining about this system, because it is purposefully designed to be unfair and to the benefit of the universities who support the evil agents listed above, or stop supporting this system and demand change.
Demand change by not going to the events, stop watching the games on TV, or refrain from reading the propaganda press that emphasizes nothing but the SEC and the Big-12, home to the Big Oil, Multinational Nazi Corporation, CIA and Military Industrial Complex, which has even further connections to the Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan and Rhodes Imperialism Complex.
Lets look at the four universities who have benefited the most and been involved in the majority of the BCS controversies.
TOSU: Home state of Morgan and Rockefeller, home state of the central banking complex, home state of fraudulent voting scams dating centuries back in time and home state to the University that is designed to be the leading research institution in America. The most politicized and corruptly controlled state in America. Period, hands down, not even a close second to any other state.
OU: David Boren, President, former Director of the CIA with major connections to the Oklahoma bombing, 911 controversy and the BCS / Harris Poll conglomerate. Did I mention Big Oil and the CIA go hand in hand around the globe, impoverishing other nations loans that can’t be repaid, and inslaving populations to work in sweatshop conditions so we can wear $200 Nikes, $150 sunglasses, $120 blue jeans and $100 Polo shirts?
Texas: UTIMCO, Deep connections to the Bush/Cheney CIA and Military Industrial Complex. Did I mention ENRON and World Com conspiracies, or the first University Inc. conglomerate in America?
LSU: Deep connections to the Rothschild (SHELL OIL) and Rockefeller Standard Oil. Deep connections to NASA and other multinational NAZI corporations (BASF, Monsanto & Bayer).
The OU-Texas pick by the BCS is completely logical. The CIA is the henchmen who perform the dirty work that these multinational corporations need to continue their profit over people scams around the world. Without the CIA the one world conspiracy wouldn’t have found its wings. Big Oil (Texas) needs the CIA (Oklahoma) to churn their profits. CIA comes first in the BCS university setting.
BCSBusters - A Regular Season Bracketed Playoff Truly Making Everygame a Playoff In College Football.
by bcsbusters on Dec 3, 2008 6:09 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
This children is why you need to stay away from the crack.
Perhaps the most recognizable mascot in sports, and certainly the toughest looking, Bevo is a fixture
by run Bevo run on Dec 4, 2008 11:57 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
sounds like
a book report on one of Jim Marr’s books, with some dribble about the BCS. A few more references to Russian Communism might have given your post more weight dude. Just sayin’…
by DaGoose on Dec 4, 2008 2:18 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Ok, so here's what we got so far
the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the Saucer People [nods to Bart], under the supervision of the Reverse Vampires [nods to Lisa, who rolls her eyes] are forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish
plot to eliminate the meal of dinner!
We’re through the looking glass, here, people…
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 4, 2008 2:22 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
That was awesome
I am going to assume that this is a nuanced critique of the people claiming some kind of media conspiracy against their team and not just some nut job.
by Wells on Dec 5, 2008 9:36 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Well
That just about says it all.
by Longhorn in Canada on Dec 3, 2008 6:49 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
an objection
Your argument seems to hinge on “fairness”, with the idea that only the teams with a legitimate claim to the best season should enter a playoff. But why should fairness necessarily be our guide here? This isn’t politics (your gratuitous Obama references notwithstanding), it’s sport. The purpose of sport is entertainment. Does anyone here really have a gripe with NCAA basketball because the team that wins the NCAA tournament isn’t necessarily the best over the course of the 30 game regular season? I doubt it, because the tournament is a quadrillion times more entertaining then even the best regular season action. It’s my unscientific opinion that the NCAA tournament generates more fan interest than does the football bowl season, and football is an infinitely better (and more popular) sport than basketball.
That’s why I support an 8 or 16 team playoff system. It would be the most entertaining system, and would provide more than enough excitement to make up for whatever diminishment the “every game is (not) a playoff” regular season suffers as a result.
Also, I see this notion being thrown around that a playoff would reward the “hottest” team rather than the “best” team. Much of the time this is an unnecessary distinction. College football teams are composed of 18-23 year olds with significant room to grow as football players. What’s more, each team generally experiences significant roster turnover from year to year. Players can and do improve over the course of a season. Injuries aside, the team playing the best football at the end of the year probably isn’t just getting “hot” at the right time; it’s more likely a case that their young talent has improved with experience and the team has coalesced and they really are the best team.
I will however accept this argument as refuting the legitimacy of the NY Giants’ Super Bowl win this past February.
by andy_wooster on Dec 3, 2008 9:53 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Not concerned with fairness
so much as the quality of the game. If 9-4 mediocrity can be historically celebrated, then the nature of the game, its sporting culture, and the quality of strategy, competition, and drama will all suffer.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 10:21 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
How many 9-4 teams are even going to make, let alone win, an 8 team tournament? And would this affect the quality of the strategy and competition on the field?
by andy_wooster on Dec 5, 2008 11:47 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I meant to type
And how would this affect the quality
by andy_wooster on Dec 6, 2008 12:07 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
As I already stated
a playoff more or less turns the regular season to a stage of posturing and experimenting analogous to that of the NFL preseason. Every legitimate contender will probably make the cut, and so they will spend most of the season doing only whatever is necessary to stay within the top 8 or 16. This means no more “Games of the Century of the Week,” because none of them will matter much.
So we’ll all basically be watching NFL pre-Season from September through November, and then an over-hyped 3-week playoff (which is marketed to douche-bags who don’t otherwise give a damn) in the Winter. No thanks.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 6, 2008 12:48 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Exactly
So we’ll all basically be watching NFL pre-Season from September through November, and then an over-hyped 3-week playoff (which is marketed to douche-bags who don’t otherwise give a damn) in the Winter. No thanks.
Playoffs are an excuse for half-ass fans to not watch the regular season.
by Sweed4Heisman on Dec 6, 2008 9:27 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Sports are not simply about entertainment...
at least they didn’t used to be.
Sport, among other things, is a celebration of physical accomplishment, athletic genius, and leadership abilities. It tests human development and inspires fitness in a population. It is a measurement of all the qualities that were once valuable in hunting or at war – qualities we are still instinctually inclined to respect and honor, but have little practical place in our day-to-day lives. Sport utilizes and channels loyalty and civic pride, and allows for people to affirm their connection with the population that immediately surrounds them. It encourages discipline and strength in its participants, and provides drama for its spectators, drama that is closer and more tangible than the fiction they find in books and on television.
Sport is not simply entertainment. To claim as such is to confirm my deepest fears about the direction of college football and this culture in general. It is precisely that attitude that has made the NFL and the NBA as unwatchable, to me, as professional wrestling.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 3, 2008 10:23 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Here here.
TV manages the entertainment enhancement. I have posted before of the transition from media being mere witness in the early broadcasting days to the sophisticated and often controlling producer they are now.
Football and ‘football as product’ are basically two different things. We could not have reached this situation with the BCS without media – nor would the rift over the Big 12 CCG now be so widespread.
We want football, the actual game, to retain its integrity and I don’t know if that is possible with it being subsumed by ‘football as product.’
I also see the insidious elements of the unwatchable creeping in, when, in fact, just straight football can be incredibly entertaining. Salesmanship seems to substitute for serious analysis during the game; cliches rule and depth of knowledge and insight, like great humor, are all too rare in game broadcasts. Most game casts are an endurance for me in terms of the announcers. It’s a glaring edge of mediocrity.
by whills on Dec 3, 2008 11:34 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
In the not-too-distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be Rollerball. -NT
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you're a mile away AND you have their shoes.
by Caradoc on Dec 4, 2008 9:02 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Physical accomplishment, athletic “genius” (????), leadership abilities, etc., all of that happens on the playing field and is completely untouched by whatever the NCAA bureaucrats decide to institute as the framework of the league. Given that reality, why not make the game as entertaining as possible?
by andy_wooster on Dec 5, 2008 11:56 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
And I throw your very question back at you.
Physical accomplishment, athletic genius, and alpha displays of leadership ARE entertaining. Why do we need external stimulus to draw in the lowest common denominator of a thoughtless, consumer-culture? Strobe lights, pop stars, and colorful corporate campaigns don’t appeal especially to sports fans so much as they appeal to the the base majority of the mainstream American culture.
My view is that playoff proponents are inviting a new marketing demographic (casual observers) which will pragmatically outnumber the fans who actually care about the on-field action. Once the networks begin to sell the product to that demographic, the product changes.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 6, 2008 12:36 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Well this sort of fell flat, huh?
oes anyone here really have a gripe with NCAA basketball because the team that wins the NCAA tournament isn’t necessarily the best over the course of the 30 game regular season? I doubt it, because the tournament is a quadrillion times more entertaining then even the best regular season action.
Um, yes. I do. As does BrooklynHorn. Also Sweed4Heisman. Shall I go on? Look, if you win 6 straight games in a tournament, then you’re the champions of that tournament. No one is doubting that. But why should that also make you the champions of the sport for an entire year? I’ve never heard an adequate explanation for that. Yeah, the NCAA tournament is exciting and fun to watch and attracts people who aren’t die-hard fans but why the hell should we have to pander to non-fans in deciding how to crown a champion? That doesn’t make any damn sense! You should pick the best system for crowning a champion and then make that system as exciting as possible without compromising its integrity in terms of picking a champion.
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:31 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
"pandering to non-fans"?
Give me a break. If you watch the tournament on TV or attend the games, you’re a fan. The system is actually “pandering” to 99% of college basketball fans. How about easing up on the holier-than-thou-fan attitude?
by andy_wooster on Dec 5, 2008 11:45 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No
its a fact.
The vast majority of the ratings the tournament gets is a result of casual fans tuning in to watch the grand finale. College basketball does not have such a prolific following that the natural fan-base of the sport can generate such a large television audience.
Are you going to tell me that the 1 billion people who watch the Super Bowl are all steady and informed NFL enthusiasts? Give ME a break.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 5, 2008 11:52 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
wtf
The vast majority of the ratings the tournament gets is a result of casual fans tuning in to watch the grand finale
You’re actually arguing in support of my point. “Casual fans” are still fans, not “non-fans” as Billyzane said. I never said they were diehards, but they’re still fans. Look, the fact is that not everyone can be or cares to be a diehard but that doesn’t mean that they don’t like or care about the sport. You anti-tournament types are probably outnumbered by a very wide margin amongst college basketball fans. Why should the sport pander to a tiny fraction of the fanbase in deciding how to crown a champion? As Billyzane would say, That doesn’t make any damn sense!
by andy_wooster on Dec 6, 2008 12:05 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
No
I was speaking of casual sports fans. Not casual college basketball fans.
They most certainly are not college basketball fans. They are NCAA tournament enthusiasts who care little for the 4 months of hard work that pretty much dissipates from human remembrance each year in March.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 6, 2008 12:25 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
also
in this hypothetical flex system, how many teams would you include this year? Right now there are 3 undefeated teams from non-BCS conferences, plus undefeated Alabama, plus 6 more one-loss BCS teams. This is a year where I would think we would need at least 8 teams in a playoff if we’re concerned about fairness.
by andy_wooster on Dec 3, 2008 10:01 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
SemiOT: If and when Ball State gets ignored, Letterman is going to get a running joke.
“What kind of system is this?” He’s already done pieces on them up til now.
It’s not so much is that he jokes about it, it’s that he can turn the BCS into a standing joke.
I agree that this year is a bumper crop and the farthest from the BCS ideal with so many qualifiers.
by whills on Dec 3, 2008 11:40 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Well, for one thing the season isn't over yet, so we don't know.
For another, I provided you helpful links to the system for deciding.
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:32 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Is there more information about Auburn
attempting to hire Muschamp now that they fired Tuberville?
Sancto Tedford
by monolake on Dec 3, 2008 10:19 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
If OU wins the MNC then you'll be convinced the BCS got it right?
I don’t agree with this. What happens if Texas convincingly destroys the team they play in the Fiesta Bowl (for instance OSU)? Sure OSU is no Florida or Alabama, but I’ll still be left wondering if Texas and OU are the two best teams in America. Then I’ll be wondering why they aren’t playing each other for the MNC. Then I’ll be thinking wait, Texas already beat OU on a neutral field. I wouldn’t mind playing them again. We’ll torch their defense, and they’ll torch our defense BUT our defense will come up with the stops when we need em and our special teams will carry us (oh wait, sounds likes the game on Oct 11.). OU blowing out whichever team they play in the MNC and us blowing out whichever team we play in our BCS bowl will only say that OU and Texas are the two best teams…and frankly, I’d tell you Texas is. OU has the best offense, Texas has a really good offense and Texas has the much better defense.
"Football's so important in Texas. On the West Coast, it's a social. On the East Coast, it's a culture. Here, it's a religion."
-- Major Applewhite
by Sunkist on Dec 4, 2008 8:31 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
I've been trying to get this point across....
That was NOT the BCS’s fault. If the Big 12 had done their tiebreaker right, then Texas would be in Kansas City and a win would send Texas to the national championship game against the winner of the SEC. And I think you could do a lot worse than that. My Flex System would likely include a couple more teams than those two (because if you actually read the article, you’d know that I have issues with the number of teams the BCS lets in some years so I don’t always think they get it right….), but the point remains that if the Big 12 had done their tiebreaker like everyone else, yes, the BCS would have done it’s job pretty well this year.
by billyzane on Dec 4, 2008 9:37 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I'm not blaming the BCS entirely
I realize that the Big 12’s tiebreaker rule is the reason Texas is not in the Big 12 championship game. The Big 12 is relying on the BCS standings to sort out our the tiebreaker which is totally wrong.
Anyways, because the Big 12 screwed up, I also think that the BCS screwed up. And I say this because whichever team lands in the Big 12 championship (this year OU when it should have been Texas) will automatically get the chance to play in the MNC with a victory. We’ll likely see a shift in votes to OU if/when they win on Saturday. And they should vote that way because a conference champion should get to play in the MNC. But this year, shouldn’t Texas have gotten that shot? Even if you think OU is better, Texas deserved to be in the Big 12 championship and with a victory they would have gotten the shot to play for the MNC. This is how fickle the system is and yes I’m also talking about the BCS. The Coaches Poll needs to be removed. They change their minds too often and most coaches have their loyalties and crap like that. It’s a crap system.
I like your flex system idea. Every year the number of worthy teams changes. This year, especially if Alabama loses, you have Alabama, Florida, Texas, OU, PSU, USC, Utah, Texas Tech, Ball State, and Boise State all worthy of a title shot. While my opinions on each team varies, I think those are the deserving teams.
Anyways, the Big 12 screwed up which screws up the BCS…and OU beating the SEC champ soundly will not convince me that the BCS got it right because if Texas was playing Mizzou this weekend and won, they’d be playing in the MNC.
So the BCS has to rely on the conferences to get their champions right because it’s most likely that conference championships will face each other in the MNC.
"Football's so important in Texas. On the West Coast, it's a social. On the East Coast, it's a culture. Here, it's a religion."
-- Major Applewhite
by Sunkist on Dec 4, 2008 10:01 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
I'm not blaming the BCS completey...
I realize that the Big 12’s tiebreaker rule is the reason Texas is not in the Big 12 championship game. The Big 12 is relying on the BCS standings to sort out our the tiebreaker which is totally wrong.
Anyways, because the Big 12 screwed up, I also think that the BCS screwed up. And I say this because whichever team lands in the Big 12 championship (this year OU when it should have been Texas) will automatically get the chance to play in the MNC with a victory. We’ll likely see a shift in votes to OU if/when they win on Saturday. And they should vote that way because a conference champion should get to play in the MNC. But this year, shouldn’t Texas have gotten that shot? Even if you think OU is better, Texas deserved to be in the Big 12 championship and with a victory they would have gotten the shot to play for the MNC. This is how fickle the system is and yes I’m also talking about the BCS. The Coaches Poll needs to be removed. They change their minds too often and most coaches have their loyalties and crap like that. It’s a crap system.
I like your flex system idea. Every year the number of worthy teams changes. This year, especially if Alabama loses, you have Alabama, Florida, Texas, OU, PSU, USC, Utah, Texas Tech, Ball State, and Boise State all worthy of a title shot. While my opinions on each team varies, I think those are the deserving teams.
Anyways, the Big 12 screwed up which screws up the BCS…and OU beating the SEC champ soundly will not convince me that the BCS got it right because if Texas was playing Mizzou this weekend and won, they’d be playing in the MNC.
So the BCS has to rely on the conferences to get their champions right because it’s most likely that conference championships will face each other in the MNC.
"Football's so important in Texas. On the West Coast, it's a social. On the East Coast, it's a culture. Here, it's a religion."
-- Major Applewhite
by Sunkist on Dec 4, 2008 10:01 AM CST reply actions 0 recs
Long Rambling Response on the State of the BCS/Big 12 Football Play-offs Compared to NCAA Tournament, Yet Somehow Unable to Incorporate Rothschild Conspiracy
I didn’t mean for this to be so long. I hope it is relatively coherent. Feel free to skip over parts that bore you. If anyone actually reads this let alone has a question or comment, I will try and respond later tonight or tommorrow. This is a very interesting site and I found the comments fascinating on this post.
BillyZane-First of all Nixon was playing politics when he “crowned” Texas Nat. Champs in 1969. He lost Texas by less than 1.5% and lost PA by more than 3% in 1968. He thought it would play better in the South “endorsing” Texas, and he would gain some in neighboring states which he hoped to win if Wallace didn’t run in again in 1972 with little negative consequences in the Eastern states where football is not as much a fabric of the culture.
Secondly, Penn St. took the Sugar Bowl because it was the most lucrative flexible bowl of the Big 4 bowls (Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Cotton). Rose paid the most but it was set with the Big 10 and Pac 8 teams. Money spoke just as eloquently then as it does today. The consensus from what I have read is that Texas was the better team, but that was before my time and I am not sure how valid that opinion was. I suspect it is most likely the correct one.
Next you keep stating that the Big 12 messed up in using the BCS as an arbitrator for deciding the Big 12 South representative. You state “the point remains that if the Big 12 had done their tiebreaker like everyone else, yes, the BCS would have done it’s job pretty well this year.” After you state, “The BCS is set up to do one thing and one thing only and the Big 12 decided to use it to do something completely different, and that’s the fault of the Big 12, not the BCS.” So either the BCS is to be used to settle conference tiebreakers or it is not, because that is how everyone else does it.
The tied team with the highest ranking in the Bowl Championship Series Standings following the last weekend of regular-season games shall be the divisional representative in the SEC Championship Game, unless the second of the tied teams is ranked within five-or-fewer places of the highest ranked tied team. In this case, the head-to-head results of the top two ranked tied teams shall determine the representative in the SEC Championship Game.
http://www.secsports.com/index.php?s=&change_well_id=2&url_article_id=46
The tied team with the highest ranking in the Bowl Championship Series Standings following the conclusion of regular season games shall be the divisional representative in the ACC Championship Game, unless the second of the tied teams is ranked within five-or-fewer places of the highest ranked tied team. In this case, the head-to-head results of the top two ranked tied teams shall determine the representative in the ACC Championship Game.
http://www.theacc.com/sports/m-footbl/fbtiebreaker.html
You don’t seem to have a problem with using the BCS, only when it impacts Texas negatively. The Big 12’s use of the BCS seems fairer in that it is taking the higher team and not arbitrarily setting a cut off point. What makes 5 or fewer places so magical? Texas Tech should then be back in the mix under this consideration since they are currently 7th.
“Think about the big 12 basketball season. There are two conference champions, the regular season and the conference tournament champion. Which one do you think better measures how good your team is? The one that accumulates wins and losses over months and months and ranks teams accordingly? Or the one where you have to win 3 or 4 games in a week? If you said the latter, then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on the nature of sports championships generally, but if you chose the former, then you can understand what I’m getting at here. A postseason tournament can be incredibly entertaining, but it rewards different things than a regular season championship does and if the postseason tournament champion is viewed as more important than the regular season, then the regular season really doesn’t matter a whole lot other than for seeding purposes, does it?”
I have actually, quite a bit this week, and I think this is flat out wrong.
ALL-TIME BIG 12 STANDINGS
Regular Season Conference Games Only
Team Won Lost Pct. Championships
Kansas 158 34 .823 8 (’97, ’98, ’02, ’03, ‘05, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08)
Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship Records
Team Won Lost Pct. Titles
Kansas 25 6 .806 6 (’97, ’98, ’99, ‘06, ‘07, ‘08)
http://www.big12sports.com//pdf1/136015.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=10410
Good luck trying to read it.
Considering you can have conference Co-champs during the regular season which KU did in some of those seasons (05, 06, and 08), KU won 5 outright championships and 3 Co-championships during the conference season and won 6 conference Post-season tourneys. Considering the won lost record is within less than .02 percentage points, I think the two different criteria are an equivalent representation of KU’s dominance in the league. Remember, in the tournament KU is not getting to play the worst teams, due to byes, that they would play in during regular conference play which most likely lowers their tournament W/L %. HornBrain or whoever does the delta posts on the BCS would know if these numbers are statistically out of the ordinary, but to my untrained eye they look pretty similar.
I realize that some years KU won one of the championships but not the other which I think was your main point and I have no problem with it, but in 5 of those years won a regular season championship or co-championship and then went onto win the tournament championship. That seems to be a pretty stable record that the best teams are getting rewarded consistently in both seasons.
Let’s look at last year.
72-69/45-35
72-69 seems just as just as valid as 45-35. If basketball was like Football, KU would not have played for the National Championship last year after their loss in Austin. KU would have been 8-2 as would have Texas and Kansas St. KU would have been the Texas Tech of the three as it had lost to Texas and KSU on the road, with no wins over those teams. If the season had ended later in the season like Feb 25th. Texas would have been the outright “BCS” champion with a record of 11-2 with wins over KU and K State. Even when KU finished the season as co-champs, Texas would have gotten the nod over KU due to their win in Austin.
At this time I joined BON, to congratulate you on your co-championship with KU. However, quite a few posters wanted to claim the Texas was the real champ since they won their game against KU. I tried to point out that game was at Austin and KU didn’t get a rematch, which was discredited. I just stated KU did what they had to do to get the Co-championship as did Texas, they both equally deserved. We would see come the tournament in KC and the NCAA following which was the better team.
So, if we had gone on one data point Texas was the better team having won at home. If we added the score of the Big 12 Championship game, perhaps KU was the better team having won a semi-home (advantage KU) game by 10 pts. If we then included the results of the NCAA tournament when Texas lost to a Memphis team at a semi-neutral (slight advantage to Texas) site by 18 and KU won a neutral game against the same Memphis team in overtime, most likely KU was the better team.
Now admittedly basketball is a much easier sport to evaluate, because teams get to play approx. 3 times as many games, so the “experts” evaluation of the top teams, should be better. However, is it? Under the BCS scenario, KU would not have played for the “MNC” as it was ranked 4th by both polls and depending on which computer systems were used ranked anywhere from #1-7, so they probably would have been #3 or #4 most likely under the computer equation. UNC and Memphis would have been playing for the “MNC” and one of them did not deserve the chance, which is how the BCS works out much more often than people trying to defend the status quo will ever admit.
Which is why I get flummoxed when people like BrooklynHorn, billyzane or others try to defend the system in limiting players’ and teams’ chances as the proper or the “right” thing to do. No, it is not. It seems elitist in the worst sense, not due to merit or worth but almost birthright. I am not shocked; I see the same with KU fans in regards to basketball. I think the big boys like KU should be forced to play at Wichita and other mid-majors venues. I think more teams should make the tournament from the smaller conferences than the Big 6 conferences. Always at the expense of the Big 10, ACC, or SEC, but not the Big 12, so I am a bit of a hypocrite on that point.
I have never thought one game between two schools as being the absolute factor that one team was better than the other, because it is only one game. For example, I played college football at William and Mary and my freshman year we beat Delaware at Delaware by a touchdown. We were in the top 10 the entire year in Div I-AA (we beat UVA at UVA). We were selected for the playoffs and got a home game against that same Delaware team in the first rd. It was over halfway through the second quarter. They dominated us and went on to win 51-17. There were a ton of problems for us as the game was over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend so we didn’t have good fan support as the students went home for the holiday. I also felt like we were a bit overconfident going into the game and our injuries were really start to destroy our team as almost all of our offensive backs and receivers were 50-75% healthy. Did we have the better season? Yes. We’re we the better team? I like to think so, but we definitely weren’t that last game, and perhaps we never were, even though we won the first game.
From another experience standpoint, in high school I was the back-up point guard. My sophomore season, if I played more than 3 minutes it was rare as the two starting guards played most of the game. After the halfway point, the point guard got injured and I finally started and we went from 9th in a ten team conference to sixth in the final standings and made the conference finals in the post-season tournament. We were one of the better teams in the league, if I was starting. We were almost the worst if I wasn’t. The coach could not figure out that the original point guard although he had a much better offensive game than I did was not a better fit for the team. Even though I could not shoot, I could steal the ball 3-4 times a game and get 8-12 pts on uncontested (mostly) lay-ups and free throws. My defense was vastly superior, because I bothered to guard my man. I also didn’t try force shots like the previous pt. guard and tried to get the ball to the open man, because I wasn’t hung up on scoring, I liked winning more.
North Carolina St. was a bit of a fluke but they beat some of the best teams that year on their way to the championship. They also had injury problems with most of their players until the end of the season when they went on a hot streak and won their last 8-9 games in a row to win the NCAA championship. They had one player that played more than 10 years in the NBA on that team, and few others that played in the NBA. If they were healthy all year they probably would have been considered a top 5-10 team, and would have a few less losses. You have to remember they lost to #1 seed UVA-Ralph Sampson twice and # 2 seed UNC-Michael Jordan/Sam Perkins once, #1 seed Louisville once, #2 seed Missouri once, #4 seed Memphis St., #8 seed Maryland twice, and NIT bound Notre Dame and Wake Forest (both those teams would have been seeded around 10-12 if they took 65 back then). Most of the OOC losses were road games. During the regular season they were an unlucky team that played a brutal schedule with too many injuries. They were finally lucky when they got healthy by the end of the season but they were an excellent team.
Look at Davidson from last year. They played at "neutral"sites UCLA, UNC, and Duke and lost all those games. They also lost on the road to NC St., Western Michigan, and Charlotte. They may not have gotten into the tournament unless they won their conference tournament (if I remember the bubble correctly from last year). Yet when they got a true neutral floor (actually underdogs tend to have the advantage in the NCAA tournament as the fans of the teams not playing, side with the little guy), they won two games against top ten teams and almost upset the eventual NCAA champ.
This is a long way of stating teams change. Good coaches figure out what is working and what is not or sometimes just luck into a better situation. Evaluating teams that play most of their games significant games on the road against teams that play them at home is dicey at best. Which is why I have no problem with playoffs and sizable number of teams? If the “8th best” team wins, how do we know for sure they weren’t always the best team or they are now because they have the right starting rotation, defensive scheme, etc with such a limited sample of games?
Ideally, I would like to see a playoff system with 16 teams, but having played long seasons, I know first hand that the team you have in late November is nothing like you have in early October. It works in the lower divisions of College Football, but the question of the best team in football is different in one certain aspect than in basketball in that there are so many more injuries that impact the quality of a team as the season progresses. So, that is why Flex system if it would expand to take all one loss and undefeated teams for a season like this year, maybe the most feasible, at least to experiment. I think if it worked out then trying 16 teams would be the next step. I think cutting back to 11 game regular seasons and getting rid of conf. championship games would be a good compromise in limiting the number of games players have to play. Then the national champion and runner-up would only play one game more than the Big 12/ACC/SEC champion will play this year.
My biggest dilemma with the 16 team format is that I think injuries would have much more of an impact in football than they do in the basketball tournament. However, I think the ranking or ratings of teams is so suspect in college football that I would rather go with the risk of too many teams and ending up with an “undeserving” champion. I would go with 32 but I don’t think that would be nearly as viable either financially or politically.
I didn’t mean to ramble on but short takes on some of the topics brought out in comments.
English Premier League-every team plays every other team home and away. Only problem is with what PB was stating about “Consistency” of schedule or something like that, in discussing Texas having to play 4 top 10-15 teams week after week. I think both baseball and EPL are fine the way they are, because they have a much larger sample of games. It also isn’t who played who and where, advantages and disadvantages probably even out in the long run. However, sometimes they don’t that is why there is a post-season. It is meant to give other teams a chances that might have been unlucky (scheduling, injuries, karma, etc.) during the regular season. I don’t think many that want to limit the amount of championship teams in college football seem to understand that is one of the reasons for the existence of the post-season.
“Look, if you win 6 straight games in a tournament, then you’re the champions of that tournament. No one is doubting that. But why should that also make you the champions of the sport for an entire year?”
How is that any different than the Super Bowl (win 3 or 4 games in a row), or even the World Series win 3 5-7 game series and be claimed champion. How many times have teams won 20 or more games in the same league lost in the playoffs to a team in another division playing almost the same schedule? Or 18-0 team loses to 14-6 team that they beat at their place a month ago? Professional leagues should give a regular season crown to the best team, but they don’t. This is the way it has always been in the US.
Early NCAA tournament-Wisconsin and Stanford were probably the best teams in the country when they won. The NIT was not getting the best teams in 1939-1950, but some of them. It probably had the better quality of teams overall from 1939-1943, but not after that as the NCAA champion beat the NIT champ (they played a game after the tournaments) every year from that point forward until they discontinued the match-up. In 1944, Utah lost in the first rd of the NIT, and replaced a team in the NCAA that was stuck in a snow storm. They ended up winning the NCAA tournament and beating St. John’s the NIT champ when the two champions played their game.
by sleepyhawk on Dec 4, 2008 6:24 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
Longest. Post. Ever.
I’d lie and say I read this whole thing, but my left eye started to bleed after paragraph 16. How long did that take to come up with, write and edit?
by Tech92 on Dec 4, 2008 8:28 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
A Couple of Hours
I started getting side tracked looking at NC State’s 1983 schedule and other stuff that was even more tangential to the topic. After about two hours I saved it in case I hit post or preview and it was erased.
Two esoteric things I wanted to mention were two Bill James Sabermetric studies from the early 1980s. Bill James is some type of baseball analyst/consultant for the Boston Red Sox now, but back in the 1980s and 1990s he did a ton interesting computer simulations. For one, he did some extreme number of Joe Dimagio simulations. Basically, if Joe DiMaggio played for 1,000 or 10,000 (I can’t remember how big the sample was, it was one or the other) seasons what were the odds he would .450, hit 50 homers etc., if his prime years were used as the basis. Basically if Joe DiMaggio could hit in a typical prime year (1939-1941 age 25-27, he hit .381-.352), what would happen if he played in a better era for hitters and was ridiculously lucky all season. Or if he played in an era worse than the dead ball era or the 1960’s when hitting was much more difficult and he was snake bit. Basically, he couldn’t hit for much more than .420-.425, because although the late 1930s-1940s wasn’t the greatest era for hitters it wasn’t that far removed from that era. However, he could hit as low as .163, which wouldn’t have happened even in this hypothetical situation as a player he would have been benched or benched himself, due to his pride in his game. James point was that it was much easier for a great player to have a bad season, even a season we couldn’t imagine, than a sublime season. It also might be due just to changing conditions and horrible luck. The luck would even out but it would not come all at once, like over the next season, but over the course of 2-3 seasons . I think this happens to teams sometimes. We think they are not as good as they should be or better than they really are, but it might just be luck not evening out. Pomeroy has been trying to track this with his college basketball rankings from year to year. I think it also means our certainity that team X is the best or better than team Y is more suspect than we ever want to admit. Certainly, the media will never allow this consideration.
Secondly, he did some type of study on what was the most effective amount of games for a series between two teams to determine the best team for baseball or any other sport, 3/5/7/9, etc. He went to like 100+ games series. He found around 53 game series were about as stastically effective as 100+ games series. Basically it wasn’t worth the effort for the extra games for the higher level of statistical confidence the results would provide. For practical purposes (under 15 games) he found 9 to be the most efficient. Again not enough improvement for the added games past this point, much more than going past 53, but not enough to offset dragging the season into even colder weather, competition from other sports, etc.. The World Series stumbled onto this approach just by trial and error a few times before 1922 but abandoned it for the more traditional 7 games series, that is still employed. I think the change was caused by the Black Sox scandal (not sure). I think the certainty level the best team would win a 7 game series was only like 80%. I could be wrong on the exact numbers, but it seemed really low to someone like myself who had never really thought about the question in the first place.
by sleepyhawk on Dec 4, 2008 11:13 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
My stance is less about elitism in the athletic department
and more about preserving a FEEL, and a culture to the game of college football.
I fully comprehend that the current system indirectly discriminates against smaller athletic departments, or schools that don’t have a history of perennial success. I also am sure that a playoff will shift the idea/culture/nostalgia of college football from an Autumn pass-time exercised in the early days of the school year to a WInter entertainment festival played on mostly empty campuses (due to the holidays and finals).
To me, the former is the far lesser evil of the two. I don’t care that it isn’t fair. I have the luxury of brushing aside the fairness issue, because I don’t care all that much about the concept of a “National Champion.” The way the [somewhat characitured] framing of this debate has evolved in my mind is that I care more about the hundreds of games played in Autumn, while everyone else seems to care more about a couple of games played in January.
If I had my way, we would go back to the old bowl system, entirely. Back then, the National Title was something analogous to the USA-Today High School National Championship. That title is silly, and exists only as an abstraction. But its still nice to put on a banner in your school’s gymnasium. And that’s what the AP National Champion used to be, it was just a pat on the back to the school that the media thought had the best season.
And now people have taken that relatively insignificant concept (or if not insignificant, it was at least a concept not integral to the style and culture of the game on the field or off), and made it the basis for the evolution of the ENTIRE sport of college football.
Excuse me, but that’s idiocy; it reflects a supreme ignorance of the history of the sport. And while playoff proponents rabidly argue their way toward destroying 100 years of evolved sport, few are stopping to consider why they want a National Champion in the first place.
My sentiments on this debate can best be summarized by asking the question, “why should hundreds of games played by hundreds of teams be ENTIRELY about the one team who is crowned "champion.”
It shouldn’t. But for some reason, only about 5% of us realize that.
by BrooklynHorn on Dec 4, 2008 11:27 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
Amen
I also am sure that a playoff will shift the idea/culture/nostalgia of college football from an Autumn pass-time exercised in the early days of the school year to a WInter entertainment festival played on mostly empty campuses (due to the holidays and finals).
This is why I love college football and why I came to Texas. I am as nerdy as it gets when it comes to the pageantry of college football, and that’s why I love the sport as much as I do. No other sport comes close to matching the passion, intensity, and pride that we get to show and see every single week. Sure the band would still play “The Eyes of Texas” and we’d still hate OU and A&M, but it simply wouldn’t be the same. I would not have come all the way from Pennsylvania if I was going to get a watered down college football experience. I came to as-tradition-rich-as-it-gets Texas so that I could see what college football was all about. There are about a million schools that are cheaper and closer to home than UT, but I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself without seeing the game that I love first-hand. Would I transfer if a playoff system were implemented next year? I highly doubt it, but I would feel that my final 2 years here would be tainted and cheapened.
BrooklynHorn is entirely correct when talking about the importance placed on national championships. Was I disappointed when Harrell completed the pass to Crabtree, and when the BCS standings were announced Sunday? Will I be disappointed after OU puts 80 on Missouri tomorrow? Of course I was and of course I will be. We all were and will be because Texas won’t be playing for all the marbles. But I can say with about 99% certainty, that never again will I feel the complete and utter elation that I felt in the Cotton Bowl on October 11th. Taking in the scene, I couldn’t help but get goosebumps. The tradition of both schools, the tradition of the rivalry, the colors split at the 50, the ancient (but newly renovated) Cotton Bowl, the corndogs, and the quality of the game made for a day that I will never forget. Would it stil suck to lose and feel great to win the RRS if we had a playoff? Sure it would, but I’ve now felt both ends of the emotional spectrum while walking out of the Cotton Bowl, and neither end would be nearly as extreme if the game didn’t mean so much.
I keep telling myself to enjoy this system while it lasts, because I think a playoff is inevitable at some point (maybe only to stop the bitching and moaning). I just hope that more people realize how precious college football is before it’s too late and the game we love is eternally tainted.
by Sweed4Heisman on Dec 5, 2008 9:03 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs
AMEN - CUBED
Could not possibly agree more with those sentiments and the ones expressed by Sweed bellow. (Its nice to know this sort of quality thinking goes on in the outer buroughs [I kid, I kid]). I too came to Texas in meaningful part (it obviously happens to be a great school) to imbibe this experience, and in spite of the painful mediocraty of the program at the time and the realization of how far we were from approaching our potential, derived almost infinite immense pleasure and satisfaction from taking my little part in Texas football and college football in general.
Even aside from my affinity for Texas I love(d?) the tradition and distinctive nature of the game that makes it, for me at least, so much more compelling than any other sport, very much including the NFL. And it was September, and October, even the anticipation of August that were the most edifying rather than the depressing wind down of the season in November. This was very much the case not only with Texas (we were not frequently in the MNC discussion at the time) but even in respect of other schools that were competing for those honors. Sure we had some intersting FSU, Florida, Nebraska conversations but even these were somehow much more enjoyable early rather than late in the season.
Moreover, I did enjoy bowl season. It was pretty much limited to quality teams with somewhat meaningful achievements and New Years day with the treaditional bowls and usually great matchups was possibly my favorite day of the year.
The last 10 years of the BCS have pretty much eviscerated the Bowl System in general and the “BCS Bowls” specifically. The glut of games, many of the them indescribably boring, named after sometimes ananymous corporations and after the new year spread over seemingly months has taken almost the entire pleasure out of it.
The obsession with a “formal” rather than a “mythical” national title has also undermined the pleasure offered by the sport. To be sure the resurgance of texas to (almost) its appropriate place in the college football hierarchy has to a large extent made up for the degradation of the sport induced by the BCS and new Bowl system. However excited we may be about the future of Texas football, a playoff system, particularly of the more extensive kind, would no doubt excacerbate and accelarate that degradation from the uniqueness and appeal of the sprot.
marshalld
by duras on Dec 6, 2008 1:12 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs
If a playoff system...
… we must have than BZs proposal seems, BY FAR, the best proposal available in that it would preserve as much meaning as possible for the season and would keep that undeserving rifraff out while allow for a resolution of real and interesting controversies. The problem is that it takes too much account of the traditions of the game and is far too nuanced to hold any appeal to the powers that be, from the Big 12 offices to, probably, the White House. The fact that the PE would use his platform for advocating for a playoff seems to show that however much enthusiasm he may have for the sport he doesn’t have the same sort of feeling for its distinctivness that Brooklyn, Sweed, myself and others do.
To be fair, some of the most devoted and sophisticated fans of the the game, Doc Saturday among them, are playoff supporters, but my fear is that it is not they that will foist the playoff monstrosity on us when it comes.
marshalld
by duras on Dec 6, 2008 1:21 PM CST reply actions 0 recs
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