Easterbrook vs. the BCS

[Brian_Koontz]

@Bob_Cherub

If you call Texas an equal to Oklahoma, then OU had no business being in the BCS championship game. You did see Texas get throttled by Washington State, right?

:roll:

On any given week, anything can happen. Oklahoma and LSU play again and maybe Oklahoma wins. Its why in most sports they play serieses of games in the playoffs. I would say that Oklahoma played better earlier in the year and for whatever reason slipped late in the year… maybe they caught the Miami Flu. Neither the computer polls nor the human polls took this into effect as well as they should have.

Both you and Easterbrook seem to be spazzing out about Bowl Game performances. That’s ONE game. A bounce off a heel, a fortunate break, a modified game plan, and things go the other way. A team’s whole season is looked at, although I agree that what matters is how good a team is at the end of the season rather than at the beginning. But LUCK is a substantial factor in any single game which should not be discounted.

Also, there is a lot of parity in college football, much more than existed even 10 years ago. So a “throttling” is no big deal, especially when both teams are good. The Colts are not a LOT better than the Broncos, but they totally crushed them. This week they’ll most likely play more “normal”, and you might say “What happened to the Colts?” What happened to the team that just one week ago looked so dominant? Or they play the Broncos again and maybe the Broncos win. What would Easterbrook say to that?

Randomness, individual weekly disparity, gameplans, individual matchups, etc. Its why the game is played and the outcome is never known in advance.

The best team in the nation is not necessarily the one who wins their bowl game, even, but of course the #1 ranked team at the end of the year is required to win their bowl game.

@Bob_Cherub

If you look at the overall bowl picture, it just showed that USC’s “weak” schedule and OU’s “hard” schedule were a bit misleading. Those “tough” teams that OU beat looked anywhere from horrible to inept to average. Those teams that USC beat (and even lost to) looked much better. Hell, Cal looked unstoppable against Virginia Tech.

A typical seven-game series ends up 4-2. The “losing” team actually wins two games.

I agree (outside of any poll debate) that USC is the best team in the nation at the end of the year. The second best isn’t clear… I’d say Oklahoma outside of their “Miami Flu” or LSU inside it.

Based strictly on Bowl Game performance you and Easterbrook must think that Iowa has a claim at being the #1 ranked team in the nation. Iowa looks like they did against Florida sometimes, and then the next week they look more mortal.

The real truth of that matter is that several teams have a decent (20%+) chance of beating the best team (USC) on any given week. Michigan getting the luck against them to cause a win didn’t happen, but even if it did it wouldn’t change my judgement (although it would change the judgement of both humans and programmers).

I’ve been a proponent of a playoff (preferably 8-team) system since the late '80s, before the BCS was a twinkling in some administrator’s eye. That too is no perfect system, but its stronger than the existing one.

[Jason_Becker]

@awdougherty

And Becker, what are you talking about? You’re posts are covered in incoherent drool. Why would everyone go the way of D1 football? Other leagues have a system that works for them, but college football as a whole is a disorganized mess.

??? Did the sarcasm just pass right over your head or something?

[Ranulf]

@Jason_Becker

The interfereing with the classes is such a tired excuse. Does anybody notice that Div 1-AA, II, and III schools do payoffs just fine? Look at how long the season goes already. By the time the conf champoinships are played its right at the end of the semester for those students already. Don’t here compalints about that do you? Ohh wait I forgot it makes those schools and conferences allot of money cause its about the students ya know? :roll: A small playoff could be worked out during the Christmas break time with no interference.

Bottom line is the BCS is and always will be a complete and utter joke. It exsists right now for one sole reason. Money.

I have a hard time with that excuse as well. Especially when I’ve seen prof’s give people (not always athletes true) so many breaks. A guy who can’t make up an entry level history course midterm until after the final (multiple choice test here…) is sad. Of course, they help make the school money… an ugly catch-22. Uhh, anyway the BCS sucks or something.

[awdougherty]

[quote=“Jason_Becker”]

@awdougherty

And Becker, what are you talking about? You’re posts are covered in incoherent drool. Why would everyone go the way of D1 football? Other leagues have a system that works for them, but college football as a whole is a disorganized mess.

??? Did the sarcasm just pass right over your head or something?[/quote]

I took the sarcasm to attack my co-champions comment as being ridiculous, but it makes no sense. The everyone gets a gold star for effort part does, but the sarcasm from the rest of it takes something I never even implied and uses it to make fun of what I wrote. That’s why I don’t think it makes sense.

[JeffL]

C’mon, EVERY other sport at every level, and football at every other level, has a playoff to determine a champion. The academics issue is a red herring; as someone else pointed out, other sports play during exam weeks (which happen more than once a year.) The ONLY thing preventing a playoff is the good ole boy Bowl system. And it sucks. What’s ironic is you might even help some of the bowls (most are having a hard time financially) if you had the top 8 teams play a playoff series, using the bowls. Yeah, there would be griping as to who should be number 8 and who gets cut off at number 9. but I don’t think it would ever taint the results (after all, the top 4 or 5 teams would always be in.) And it would surely help out the ridiculous scheduling issues, where an Oklahoma or LSU feels like it has to play a number of Akrons, and then kill them 88-0. And it would prevent a team who had one bad game during the season from being eligible from playing for the championship.

Again - no other sport at any level DOESN’T have a playoff, and there’s no good reason Div 1 College football shouldn’t have it.

[Jason_Becker]

“I took the sarcasm to attack my co-champions comment as being ridiculous, but it makes no sense.”

It was a rididiculous statement. Trying to justify co-champions as being ok is what makes no sense and is just frankly dumb. It defeats the whole purpose of competition. There is a reason that every other sport on the entire planet(that I know of) use a playoff system.

[awdougherty]

@Jason_Becker

“I took the sarcasm to attack my co-champions comment as being ridiculous, but it makes no sense.”

It was a ridiculous statement. Trying to justify co-champions as being ok is what makes no sense and is just frankly dumb. It defeats the whole purpose of competition. There is a reason that every other sport on the entire planet(that I know of) use a playoff system.

Co-champions doesn’t strike me as all that dumb considering how the bowl games work and just how many D1 schools there are that can’t ever have the opportunity to play each other, but only when considering it in that context. Co-champions in the NFL would be completely ridiculous and be a flat out dumb statement, in college football at the D1 level given how bad the bowl system has whored itself out for cash… doesn’t strike me as the worst outcome. That worst outcome has already been accomplished by how badly the bowl system has whored itself out.

Personally, I think that until the bowl system is completely revised (which money says will not happen in the forseeable future), there really isn’t going to be a good way to crown a college football champion. If you just take the winners from each group (PAC 10, SCC, etc), you’ll get teams like Bowling Green going instead of Oklahoma even though Oklahoma is obviously the better team. If you take the top eight from the polls, you’re still stuck with the irritating polls which are half the problem to begin with. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a few years ago #10 Washington (I think) had the same record as #2 or #3 Miami and had even beaten Miami. That’s the type of results polls can give you. So unless happenstance makes the top 8 clear cut, the playoffs really become irrelevant as well. It would clearly decide who was the best of that group, but if getting into that group is flawed then that creates its own problems.

I still contend the first part of your sarcasm doesn’t make any sense, but that really doesn’t matter too much.

[Jason_McCullough]

The academics issue is a red herring; as someone else pointed out, other sports play during exam weeks (which happen more than once a year.)

Basketball is just as bad, yes. For 99% of colleges, having a sports team actively costs them money. On the benefits side, you have a tiny minority of players that get a professional career and public entertainment. On the costs side, you have valuable colllege slots taking up by players (in general) with no qualifications or interest in learning, quasi-professional sports programs divert money, and the players are used up and then thrown in the trash bin by the sports machine.

It’s just absurd. But yeah, I guess if we don’t to even bother with the pretense of it being an hobby done in addition to academics, by all means, go for a playoff system.

[graller]

The part that still kills me is how the bowl sponsors can’t see that a playoff would actually help them. You would get 7 games that were played as bowls that would all pull much better ratings then all but the BCS 1 vs 2 would pull. Yes the other bowls would suffer…but frankly who watches those bowl games anyway? If needed you could make up an NIT type tourney for the also rans with 16 teams and get another 15 “bowl” games out of it. You could a bigger college TV contract, more ratings, more advertising…it just seems like a no-brainer.