The Bowl Championship Series was created in 1998 in an attempt to decide
a clear cut national champion in college football. The BCS has been at
times more problematic that solution oriented. In 2000, The Miami
Hurricanes and Florida State Seminoles finished the regular season with a
record of 10-1. The ‘Canes defeated The Seminoles that season, yet
Florida State would go on to play in The Orange Bowl for the national
title. The following year, The Nebraska Cornhuskers did not win The Big
12 Championship, but they were selected to play for the national title
over The Oregon Ducks who had won The Pac-10. In 2004, The Oklahoma
Sooners, USC Trojans, and Auburn Tigers all finished the regular season
undefeated with The Tigers being left out of playing for the national
title. The mid 2000s saw teams from non-power conferences get snubbed as
well. The Utah Utes out of The Mountain West Conference went undefeated
twice over a five-year span. Since 2006, The Boise State Broncos first
out of The Western Athletic Conference and now The Mountain West have
only lost six games. Twice The Broncos have gone undefeated without a
chance to play for the national title. In 2010, The TCU Horned Frogs
went undefeated out of The Mountain West but were also denied a chance
to play for the title.
The Utes, Broncos, and Horned Frogs saw the writing on the wall and have
now joined automatic-qualifying conferences. The Utes are in The
Pac-12, The Horned Frogs will join The Big 12 for this upcoming season,
while The Broncos will be joining The Big East in 2013. Instead of teams
having to play the conference shuffle to get a shot at the title, there
is a simple solution. A four-team playoff would do away with the
ongoing saga of teams being left out the national title party.
Some critics are proponents of an eight-team playoff format, but in this
case, four is enough. Every season there is only one or two teams that
have a legitimate beef over not being allowed to play for the national
title. Conference affiliation should not matter and neither should
winning your conference championship. It should be about the four best
teams in the country in The BCS Rankings. In college basketball, The
NCAA Tournament has 68 teams, but on any given day we will see upsets.
The Butler Bulldogs out of The Horizon League made consecutive trips to
The NCAA Championship Game in 2010 and 2011. This would not have
happened in college football due to The Bulldogs conference affiliation.
Last season saw The Alabama Crimson Tide and The LSU Tigers who both
play in The Southeastern Conference vie for The BCS Championship in New
Orleans.
For college football, once the regular season ends, the top four teams
could play in two games the next Saturday that could be called the
national semifinals. The two teams that win would advance to The BCS
Championship in January while the two losing teams would still be put in
BCS bowl games as a consolation. As an example, if USC, Florida State,
Boise State, and Nebraska finished as the top four teams in this order,
the following week would see The Huskers travel to Los Angeles to take
on USC in the #1 versus #4 match-up while Boise State would travel to
Tallahassee for the #2 versus #3 contest. This would bring more
excitement to the college football season while preserving the tradition
of bowl games. Coaches may sometimes worry about teams not seeing live
action for so long between the regular season and their bowl game and
this would cut down on that as well.
School presidents and athletic directors are worried about a playoff
system taking away from the beloved bowl games. There is the tradition
of the bowl games, but also the financial gain by the universities. For
teams that qualify for The Rose Bowl, an estimated $17 million is
distributed to each institution. There would still be money to gain for a
playoff system. The major networks such as FOX, ESPN, and CBS would put
up large amounts of money in an effort to televise the games as they
would garner tremendous interest. It has gone on for too long that the season will end with multiple teams being undefeated and we are left saying what if these teams played each other and it is time for a change. The fans want to see an undisputed
champion, the players deserve it, and more importantly the history of
the game deserves it.
Leave A Comment