Sunday, December 5th, 2004

Ban The BCS and Dump The Bowls

Of course, I’m pissed about Cal not making the Rose Bowl. But every year it’s the same argument–what teams did and didn’t deserve to play, why they did, and then how do we fix this mathematical formula to get it more right. (A digression: since when should teams be punished for having the ethics and dignity not to run up the score? Cal and Auburn both could have done that last night and didn’t–and the numbers punish em for it. Don’t get me started.)

No one agrees that the system works. But all this annual outcry and subsequent “tweaking” of the system won’t help. The thing no one admits is that the BCS is a flawed system because it’s a compromise. Why not do away with the bowls and have a tournament? That would be real competition. But the reason we don’t have one and never will is that the Bowls and their corporate sponsors are the tail wagging this dog.

I bet most coaches wouldn’t mind a playoff system–certainly it could not be as big as the basketball tournament because you can’t have a football team adding 5 more games to their season–but it would be much fairer than living at the whims of 150 or so voters, ridiculously flawed algebra, a bunch of wealthy fairweather-fan bowl hustlers, and their corporate puppeteers. Sure there will be more arguing about who deserved to be in the tourney, just as there is with the basketball tourney every year, but there will be no doubt who the top team is at the end.

posted by Jeff Chang @ 3:11 pm | 0 Comments

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