"Bowling Blind"-Part Deux

Oh, here we go again...

Bowl Championship Series

For Part Two of this week's "Bowling Blind", I had to come up with something to kick off my entry that would sum up my thoughts on the BCS system as it enters yet another late season controversy that yields outright hatred for the system. I tried coming up with how the computers, which are humans actually, to get their "Revenge of the Dorks" moment in the sky by possibly instituting the worst possible scenario for the National Championship game just as revenge for not having any athletic talent whatsoever. I also looked into the BCS for the human pollsters who just are blind to the rejecting traditional norms and flat out voting the teams who simply do not lose because the pollsters really have the power of the pen to save the BCS as much as they have the power to ruin the BCS by looking into the name on the uniform. As it turns out, I could not come up with something snappy or witty until I opened up the newspaper this morning and looked under my daily horoscope-a thing for which I never, EVER subscribe to but thought the message it gave me today was worth my thoughts:

Gemini

"Someone you run into today (hopefully not literally) will annoy you in a big way. Whatever they say or do you will disagree with as a matter of principle, or so you would like to believe. Could it be you just don't like their face or the way that they talk."

That horoscope seems rather fitting, but I am launching this as a pre-emptive strike on anyone who might disagree with me on principle with what I am about to say regarding the BCS, but I get paid an absolute fortune to voice my opinions (my annual salary for writing blogs: zero dollars...First Amendment: Priceless).

For the record, I do not like the "face" of the BCS or the way they "talk" because everytime you see what it has done to college football, you scratch your head. They have given fans, media members, and coaches across the country headaches, earaches, stomachaches, and any other aches you can summate and each time they try to modify the system, it gets worse. The whole thing is a mess right from rankings to its points system, even down to its hideous logo (I mean, did you see that stupid thing starting my blog today??? Who still thought FedEx still delivered things especially when all the commercials you see are about UPS? And really...palm trees? To a New Yorker? Are you kidding me?).

What could Brown have done to the BCS? My guess is more than Jeff Sagarin.


For historical references, the BCS was created in 1998 to "determine the national champion for college football while maintaining and enhancing the bowl system that's nearly 100 years old". That statement is literally plastered on bscfootball.org as the BCS has become the the sport's showcase. Showcase for what, exactly? Last year's barn burner classic Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Hawaii...? 41-10 Bulldogs. Ok, how about last year's Rose Bowl-the Granddaddy of the them all-between USC and Illinois, that was a Big 10-Pac 10 rivalry game and your final was...? Trojans 49-Illini 17. Umm...ok. What about the Fiesta Bowl? West Virgina 48-Oklahoma 28. Eh, das ist nicht sehr gut, mein herr. Even last year's national championship was a bore fest as LSU beat The Ohio State University by 14.

Every year, the BCS seems to breed inept matchups for fans and doesn't give the neutral or casual fans the matchup they want. When you think about what the BCS has done for us in the last decade, just go back to 2005, which was the BCS apex and will never be matched again. Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State vs. Notre Dame, Sugar Bowl: West Virginia vs. Georgia, Orange Bowl: Florida State vs. Penn State, and the National Championship was the Rose Bowl Game: Texas vs. USC. To say that these games all were not in the 4-5 star range is to be a fool. Ohio State-ND was a two big time traditional school teams going at it. Brady Quinn and Troy Smith, Charlie Weis and Jim Tressel. West Virginia-Georgia was a drama filled game with the Georgia Dome the site after Hurricane Katrina. Florida State-Penn State was a triple overtime classic with the Nittnay Lions pulling off the victory.

Then USC-Texas...the greatest college football game I have ever seen played. A legit 1 vs. 2 matchup between the only undefeated teams in football, Vince Young coming back to Pasadena after his historic Rose Bowl performance against Michigan in what was the best game of the 2004 BCS games. The unstoppable USC machine with Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, looking for an historic 3 peat national championship in their backyard in their showcase bowl game. It was filled with storylines and drama left and right, and the game on the field did not disappoint: Young drives home the winning touchdown late in the 4th for Texas 41-USC 38. Texas twice stopping USC on 4th and shorts in the game that got them the ball back with Young running the zone read better than any college quarterback has EVER run it before. Leinart having a day where he threw for 365 yards, most ever in a championship game, and throwing for 29-40 that night (Young incredible as it sounds, was 30 for 40 in the game-the best duel in championship game history). Reggie Bush going for almost 300 all-purpose yards in the game and was on the sideline for USC's 4th and 2 late in the game where LenDale White was stopped short by Texas starting the great game winning drive by Young. If you never had seen a football game before or after this, I am happy for you because you will never see that type of game again considering the storylines coming into the game and the affects of the major players afterward in their pro careers (Leinart, Young, Bush, and White). It was the BCS at their finest and you know how it happened...? It happened because the BCS did not touch the game.

It couldn't have been touched because everyone knew that Texas and USC were the two best teams in the country that year and any alterations to that would have been disastrous, which leads us to 2008. This season, football has easily 5 superpower teams in Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and USC. Two are from the SEC, the best conference in college football (Florida and Alabama) and two are from the Big 12, the second best conference in college football (Texas and Oklahoma). The wild card belongs to USC, the potential Pac 10 champion and many people's pick as the most talented team in the country. The Trojans, however are killed by the fact that they play in the Pac 10 and it is far weaker than the Big 12 or SEC and they have one loss this season. Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma also have one loss and Alabama is undefeated. Both the SEC and the Big 12 have championship games, the Pac 10 does not so USC only has UCLA on their schedule to show the country how great they are and make no mistake about it, the Trojan defense is special to watch. This is truly Pete Carroll's dream team that plays this type of lock down D in winning games. USC will need help to get into a national championship.

Ok, let's run this down effectively. Florida and Alabama will play for the SEC championship this weekend and the winner effectively speaking, deserves a national title bid. The Big 12 championship is...? Oklahoma and Missouri...yes folks, Oklahoma will face (and surely crush) Mizzou in the title game and one would think their national title bid is in the cards. There is one problem...Oklahoma lost to Texas this year and they play in the Big 12 South (Missouri is the Big 12 North champion). This is where the mess begins for the BCS: you have a team in Texas that will not play for their conference championship, yet can sneak into the national championship picture if Oklahoma loses (only a man smoking stuff out of Jamaica would think that Missouri deserves a national title bid if they beat OU because they are not on the same planet as the Sooners). But if you are a purist of college football, doesn't that concern you that Texas will backdoor in without playing it on the field? Wouldn't that concern you that the Pac 10 champion USC will not get a chance to play for a national championship ahead of Texas? Especially when USC is everyone's trendy pick for their slam dunk defense, could you imagine a classic offense vs. defense dream game between Florida and Tim Tebow and USC's suffocating interior D? Well, you won't get it and why won't you get it...?

You won't get it because of the B...ig 12 conference committee.


In an archaic system with modern computers and maybe biased human pollsters, the Big 12 decided to use the most asinine tiebreaker they could use to determine tie for conference records: what team is higher in the BCS. Say what you will about the BCS (and if you have not fallen asleep yet, you will read more about it) but this mess, for once does not fall into their lap and you can thank the bigwigs with their oil rigs down south for this one. The Big 12 South has had 4 great teams all season in Texas, Oklahoma, the high powered Texas Tech Red Raiders who are ranked 7th in the BCS, and Mike Gundy's (He's a man of course...now he's 41) Oklahoma State that are ranked 14th in the BCS.

(If you love Coach Gundy, you will enjoy this Coors Light commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-lBP0Adb5g)

Texas on a neutral field in Dallas beat Oklahama 45-35 in a fantastic game to set themselves up for the BCS title picture but lost to Texas Tech 39-33 with one second left on the road. Texas Tech then moved up to number 2 in the BCS after their win then got hammered by OU on the road 65-21 to set up a 3 way tie in the Big 12 South. Oklahoma last weekend won a shootout over Gundy's Okie State 61-41 that in the computer's minds was enough to vault the Sooners over the Longhorns and get them into the Big 12 title game.

Where is the fairness in all of this, you say? Each team had one loss against each other and by all standards, this was an impossible situation to handle in that you were going to anger one team and possibly two teams. That is where the word tradition came to hurt Texas Tech in this 3 way mess. They were the team without the "history" to have any staying power among the other two teams and ostensibly suffered for it by dropping down to number 7 in the BCS. It also did not help Texas that Tech got humiliated by Oklahoma so much in that they slipped in the rankings. Case in point, had Oklahoma only beaten Tech by 7 or 10 points, it would have made Tech as a far tougher opponent which would have made the Texas loss on the road to them even better in the computer's minds, possibly giving them the duke over Oklahoma this weekend. Sounds strange to even say this but the word "history" hurt Texas too in this because the team they lost to failed to have the resume that if they lost they could avoid getting left out of the BCS title picture. Sounds even stranger to even say this but Oklahoma benefited from the word "history" in their loss to Texas. They lost to a team with a great tradition and that coupled with a neutral site loss to Texas made their loss look more credible in the computer's minds making them the Big 12 South champion.

In the end, the BCS did absolutely nothing wrong in thier decision making when it came to Oklahoma over Texas, they really had no choice but to let it play out on the field and in the minds of humans and computers. This is not to say the BCS is an infallible system: it is to a high extent because it fails to involve a playoff system for fans and maybe for head coaches so that they can relax. This is where you can make the honest case that the BCS system has its plusses and is better off than a playoff.

A) The mere fact that the Red River Rivalry game is still being talked about as the reason as to why Texas is not in the BCS title hunt is what makes the rivalry games so great. Thanks to the BCS, I have gained a new appreciation for the regular season games as well as the rivalry games. Two examples of this happened last year with the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pittsburgh and the SoCal Rivalry game between USC and UCLA. West Virginia had the inside track to be in the BCS title game by beating Pitt at home no less and gagged on it the day after Thanksgiving. The next day USC knew that a win would more than likely set themselves into a title game against the SEC champion, which was LSU. They had UCLA, a major underdog, playing them on the road at the Rose Bowl and of all things, UCLA stunned the Trojans in the SoCal Rivalry to vault a less than dominant Ohio State into the title game. Remember, both USC and WVU were their conference champions and in a playoff system would have still been heavy favorites to win a national title. Their losses in the rivalry games ended up costing them dearly and they never had a chance to make amends for it.

B) Where does one draw the line for a playoff? Say you have an 8 team playoff for the national championship and utilize the bowl games on New Year's Day as your semifinal games, culminating with the highest remaining seeded team playing in the Rose Bowl Game. Sounds like a perfect system but if you carefully observe this year's BCS standings there are three major issues:

1) In the top 8 you have the SEC champ, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 10 champion in there but you do not have the ACC or Big East champ-the other two major BCS conference champions-involved in the top 8 of the BCS. A major flaw if you only have 4 of the 6 BCS conference champions involved for which the conference's power we'll get to shortly.

2) Where does the line draw between the 8th and 9th ranked teams? Think critically for a moment about the point differential between the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in the BCS in Texas and Oklahoma. It is 0.0128, which is miniscule as to what team is in the national title game if the bowls started today. What is the point differential between 8th ranked Penn State and 9th ranked Boise State? It is O.0339. Ok, slightly higher for the 8-9 debate but less than a tenth of a point for both situations determining who gets involved in the national title game. The end result is that you will end up angering someone anyway that thinks they have a chance.

3) Here is the major kicker however this season if you were to take PSU at the 8th ranked team: Boise State is undefeated this season and is 9th. In a playoff system, don't all undefeated teams deserve a chance to get beaten? They have played the regular season as meaningful as you can possibly play it and they do not get a chance to vie for a national title? That would stand to be the real tragedy. And what about Ball State? They too are undefeated and are ranked twelvth in the BCS system. Where does the line draw? How can you humanly have a playoff without all the undefeated teams in college football? The answer is you can't do that because the smaller schools with perfect records have it held against them that they are not in the Big Six. That leads me nicely into...

C) The conference's power is overwhelming in the long run. Just make this quick take on the Big 10 champ Penn State. Had they run the table and gone undefeated as well as Alabama and one of the Big 12 South schools, you would have 3 undefeated conference champions. Everyone in their sound and right minds would tell you that of the conferences, the big 10 is the third best of the 3 and you can make the case that Alabama and the Big 12 champ were the two logical title game teams. Could you imagine the uproar the higher ups in the Big 10 would have, especially if Joe Paterno, at 80 years young, had an undefeated team and was not in the national championship game? While it's a fair political argument to make, it is a bad sporting argument to make, thanks to the 'eyeball test'. If you have watched enough games this season, your eyeballs would tell you that Penn State would not be able to score on Alabama or stop Oklahoma defensively. The sexy matchup would be the defensive Crimson Tide against the Sooner offense, which might go down as the greatest offense in the history of college football this season. In essence, the BCS would have played itself out correctly and there would be no need for a playoff.

D) In the end, we as fans love the BCS because we can debate and that is the great thing about sports: who is better? It is a flawed system but so are the conferences' dependency on the BCS for ratings, money, recruitment, and overall power in college football. It works both ways in the world of football and that is something no one can deny.

In a Utopian society, we'd see a Florida-USC championship game but games aren't won on overall talent, nor or they won on paper or in voting or in computers. They are won on the field between white lines with a leather oval shaped ball played by 22 men, 11 on each side through all sorts of weather, climates, and field surfaces. Alabama to this point is the only team that has deserved the honor of playing for a national title in that they have not lost a game yet. Just don't lose to Florida or Utah, Boise State, and Ball State are gunna start a peasant uproar. In a Utopian society, those 3 teams get to lose a game before being out of the hunt but because they don't play in front of 80,000 fans per week, have billions of dollars riding on TV deals, merchandising, and additional revenue, and are playing in mountain ranges at 1 in the morning Eastern Standard Time they are considered second class citizens in a sport where the BCS does not mess things up: the Big 12 messed it up, the SEC messed it up, the Big 10 and their compromised wads of money want to mess it up. They followed the money to protect their spots among the elite programs in college football. A true eptiome of Bowling Blind.