You have a vote and you determine which team is No. 2 in the BCS standings and will play clear No. 1 LSU in the BCS title game. You have to choose between Team A and Team B.
Team A has the tenth toughest schedule of all FBS team. Team B has the 38th toughest schedule. Throughout the season, Team A defeated five teams who were ranked in the top 25. Team B defeated three such teams.
Team A beat six teams with winning records to Team B’s three.
If you voted for team A, good for you. You got it right. Unfortunately the BCS went with team B.
I know this is SEC country but these are the facts that support the case that the BCS is a fraud. If you go by what matters, there is no way Alabama should be ranked the No. 2 team in the country.
Essentially the two human polls were four to two in favor of Alabama while the computers were four to two for Oklahoma. But the human polls weigh for two thirds of the BCS formula. The BCS was supposedly created to eliminate this.
In all honesty, this has nothing to do with the SEC or the sequel to "Borefest: Clash of the Field Goal Kickers". Maybe Alabama would have been a conference champion in any other conference. Maybe the Crimson Tide are the second-best team in the country. We don’t really know.
What we do know are the supporting facts that are supposed to matter didn’t.
Now, here’s the way to fix it for good. Put the 80 best teams regardless of conference in four super conferences. You can divide them up regionally. Then, subdivide each super conference into two divisions. Every team plays each team in their subdivision and two crossover games against teams from the other conferences. The top team in each subdivision based on division record plays the top team from the opposite subdivision for the conference championship. Those four super conference champions play in a four-team playoff — one versus four, two versus three with the winners to face each other in the national championship game. Sounds simple enough, right?
Some might argue it’s not fair to give just 80 teams the right to play for the national championship. Here’s where it gets interesting.
Instead of the traditional Division I, Division IAA system or as its known now, Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision, and Division II and III, college football would be classified in tiers with national champions in each. The top tie of course is the one which wins the coach’s trophy (the crystal football) and is recognized as the best team in the country. But wait, there’s more.
Under this new system, teams would be able to move up in tiers. That means they can also move down. A team’s classification would be based on performance. Each team gets three years to prove they either belong or don’t belong in a specific tier. So if a team like a Boise State, for instance, started out in tier two and they consistently won at that level, they would be eligible to move up a tier after three years. If a team like Kentucky or Duke had three bad seasons, they would fall and one of those lower tier teams would take their place. Let’s be honest though. The 75th best team in the nation isn’t winning a national championship.
To round out each schedule, every team would play two teams from other conferences in their tier and everyone would play 11 regular-season games. The 12th games would be the four conference championship games and the teams finishing second on back would play a team from the other subdivision based on seeding. Only Four teams would play in the playoffs thus an extra game and bowl games would still apply. Bowls can still invite teams the same way they do now.
It’s clear the BCS doesn’t work. It relies on human input for two thirds of its ranking equation, and as long as people have a say in how the teams are decided in the rankings, you’ll always have bias. It’s impossible to avoid. How else do you explain the gross negligence of the fast stated above. Those are supposed to be the main contributing factors that coaches in the coaches’ poll and voters in the Harris poll look at. Yet the system continues to fail.
The tiered super conference system eliminates the human variable and produces the clear national champion because you get what amounts to an eight-team playoff. Why shouldn’t college football take this idea seriously? Because of lucrative TV contracts? Money? Tradition? Forget all that. If we’re really trying to crown the best team as the national champion, this or some sort of playoff system is the only alternative. Every other form of football has a playoff. Every other college sport has a playoff. Why does college football continue to be the outcast?
If I had the answer, I’d share it with you. Unfortunately I don’t. And so like the rest of you, I’ll sit at home and watch another bogus national championship scenario play out.
