Clearing up the BC... mesS

by Suckatsports

This year more than any other the BCS will be ridiculed, and at the same time leaned on to pick the two best teams to play for the national championship. As it stands now, if the two top teams (Missouri and WVU) win out, they'll meet to battle for the championship, in likely one of the least watched contests. Do they not deserve to play in the game purely because it won't gross as much, compared to a big name? Not at all, they've both won games at the right time to make this a possibility for themselves, and if it were not for OSU directly benefiting from a loss for either of these teams, I'd be totally for it.

Missouri has to beat a quality opponent in the Big 12 championship game in Oklahoma - a team that has already beaten them once. How hard is it to beat a team twice in a season? We're going to find out. Arguably, Missouri is a better team now, and Oklahoma is equally worse now as opposed to their first meeting. Missouri will earn a spot in the game if they can beat Oklahoma.

West Virginia on the other hand has skated on all the ridicule about poor schedules, lack of quality wins, and presence of bad losses that all the other teams in the top 10 have endured. Let's get this straight, I'm not saying Ohio State should be ahead of WVU, I'm just saying that in the same light WVU should be ridiculed equally as much for their puffy schedule. They lack a quality win this year, and once the year is done will have only played only two ranked teams, going 1-1 in those games ( win: Cincinnati, loss: USF). OSU's schedule? Equally bad. But we've heard from the mainstream media, and the blogs about how OSU doesn't deserve to play for the NC because of it. Where's similar disdain for WVU's place in the championship game? The mere mention that they have to earn a spot by beating UConn (ranked 20th at the time, uranked now) and Pitt (unspeakably horrible) is laughable.

Complaints from the SEC, need not apply. LSU played a difficult schedule, no doubt about it, but they came up on the short end of results to arguably the two worst opponents, both now unranked, and one at home. It's an easy formula, really, beat an unranked one dimensional team at home and you get to play for the championship. Is Arkansas a good team? Yeah, they're alright, but how much can you say for a team that takes out their quarterback on a crucial play?

We thought that the human polls were too emotionally volatile, so we invited an impartial computer to pick the best two teams, a system made specifically for a cluster fuck year like this one. Just because they pick teams different from the humans, what's to say that it isn't the right choice? Top two teams win, and they're in. If either or both stumble, it blasts the door wide open for Ohio State and/or Georgia, in that order. At this point, how much does it differ from a playoff. Single elimination.

This post is cross-published from We Suck at Sports.

CoreyisarealboyMajor Leaguer

735 days ago

Score 0

I will be surprised to see the BCS last into the next decade.

Permalink | Reply

SuckatsportsVarsity

735 days ago

Score 1

They have a contract, but I'm not sure it's long enough to last into the next decade. Other than that money talks, so if they feel this brings the most money, it'll stay.

Permalink

1MountaineerWaterboy

735 days ago

Score 0

It's funny how the fans of bigtime schools applaud the BCS when their schools make the top 2 teams list but when a BigEast school gets their its a sham.... don't get me wrong I've been screaming for a playoff system for years, a valid one too, eight teams or more. A playoff system will change the look of college football you will see alot of teams get their and win because they are always overlooked or looked down on. I personally believe WV deserves this shot they played their games and won them when they needed, and has a very strong offense and deffense. And people will watch, you might not, but people will. As to BigEast teams being weak against other conferences, well we won 6 out of 6 bowls last year WV defeated Ga Tech last year and Ga. the year before in the Sugar Bowl. I dont agree with the way the BCS does their choosing. But I believe WV can beat anyone in the nation on any givin day, more often than any other team in the nation. GOOOOOOOOOOO MOUNTAINEERS!!!!!!!!!!!

Permalink | Reply

SuckatsportsVarsity

735 days ago

Score 0

Oh, I think they can. Their offense is as dangerous as any in the nation, and they've done what they've needed to do, by winning (almost) all their games. I'd have no problem with WVU in the NC game. But if those letters said OSU (and they almost do, because they're right behind), you'd hear a lot more clamoring about a weak schedule and crappy opponents like you have all year. WVU = equally crappy opponents. Not that they don't deserve to be play for the NC when they beat Pitt, but where's the outrage about their equally cupcake schedule?

Permalink

The PipDiv-I Stud

735 days ago

Score 2

Everyone cries about the BCS are usually, "My team didn't get in! It's not fair!" One of my issues with a playoff is who gets in. Does a 3-loss Tennesee deserve a chance to play for the title if they beat LSU on saturday? No f'ing way! I don't want a 3 loss team "upsetting" a 1-loss team in the title game after a playoff. That would ruin the National Championship for me. Let's take that one step further: the winner of the SEC does not deserve a title shot! If LSU wanted to play for the title, all they had to do was beat arkansas! They couldn't, so they are eliminated. It's an upset, just like a tournament, but without rewarding arkansas needlessly. Same thing with Oklahoma, all they had to do was beat Texas Tech. Maybe they should have used those refs from austin. A playoff will make things worse and the "Rich" will only get "richer". Schools like Oklahoma and LSU, and USC will get more chances to succeed, and 2 losses won't end their chances. Win the division, win the conference will be all that matters. This will result in sandbagging games like LSU v Arkansas because it will have been made irrelevant. LSU can rest their starters, and focus on beating Tennesee. Instead they had to show up and play that game because it mattered.

So the BCS is "unfair" and it favors the big name schools, so lets put in a system that gives the big name schools meaningless games that they can lose without hurting their season.

The problem is there is a very limited number of games that can be played, so in a regular season we aren't going to have enough results to really have an idea of who is better than who. There will always need to be some ranking system to pick the at-large teams for any tournament or playoff. So the ranking issue will always exist, the question then becomes do we put an extra emphasis on winning your Conference? I say that is an idea that is worse than the BCS.

Ther is NO clean and simple way to fix this without making those kids play 20 games a season. I'd rather a team like OSU get left out than reward a team with 3 losses.

Permalink | Reply

Tyrone BriggsHall of Famer

735 days ago

Score 0

A well articulated comment Pip. Seriously, nice job. But how is it that IA can have a playoff system (which has been done for years without a hitch) and not Division I?

Permalink

The PipDiv-I Stud

735 days ago

Score 0

Because the 1aa crowd doesn't have as much $$$ invovled. And people don't mind if a 3 or 4 loss team wins their title.

Do you think there is enough money from the right places to let Hawaii (or the WAC champion) get a shot to play for the NC in a tournament? Would the SEC or Big-10 let that happen? Not without a bigger check than they are already getting. I'm not saying it's right, but college football has too much money wrapped up in special interests to make things as clean as people thing a playoff will be.

That and I don't want any regular season game to become meaningless! How many people who watch March Madness watch a single game regular season game? More than half! Do we want football to become like that? No one watches, no one cares until december? This year justifies the BCS more than any other!! Every week something exciting happened! Things changed! People talked! People debated, and I like that. I don't want football to be clean and easy. That would make it less interesting. Illinois ruined OSU's season! That is special! Why take that away from those kids?

Permalink