What's Worse? (With a poll and stuff)

The problem with the BCS is NOT the match up in the championship game determined by computers and polls. The problem is with the automatic qualifier shit, which is similar to the NFL playoffs. UConn had no business being in a BCS bowl ahead of Mich. St., Boise St., and LSU.

If the BCS poll is legitimate enough to determine the CG participants, it ought to be legitimate enough to determine all the other BCS bowl participants. That said, it’s difficult to develop a fair system with 120 teams, especially in a year when 5 of the top 21 come from a single regional division of one conference (SEC West).

In the 11 years of the BCS, an undefeated team was completely left out of the national championship picture 8 times (only twice were there 3 undefeated teams going into the BCS bowls) but in the near 100 years of NFL football this is the first time a team with a losing record has made the playoffs. Which do you think is the bigger problem?

My idea for a play off and how it would look for this year. Ignore the AQ conferences for a moment and that the top six ranked conference champs and then two wildcard teams.

This year we would get.

1. Auburn (SEC)
2. Oregon (Pac 10)
3. TCU (MWC)
4. Stanford (At large)
5. Wisconsin (Big 10)
6. Ohio St (At large)
7. Oklahoma (Big 12)
8. (ranked 10) Boise St (WAC)

Big East and ACC left out this year and only 1 SEC team. What do you guys thing?

Well, how do you want rank teams? By the vegas odds against each other?

However, it was unfair to those teams that got left out of the BCS bowls because of AQ’s UConn and Va Tech. The BCS would be a fairer system if they would drop the AQ crap for all the conferences.

None of the playoff proposals mentioned here address the inherent unfairness in scheduling 120 teams in regional and traditional conferences. A playoff would not have changed the fact that this year’s Big East and ACC were incredibly weak, as weak as both the WAC and the Mountain West. So while teams in the SEC, PAC 10, and Big 12 were getting pummeled nearly every week, the other teams were playing at a much lower level of competition. The BCS is able to take account of these variables and reward teams accordingly (if they would drop the AQ crap). A playoff gives an unfair advantage to these teams that are good enough to win against anyone but haven’t had to suffer a scheduling gauntlet. The BCS allows consensual judgment about who deserves it and who doesn’t. TCU was a very good team this year and almost made it into the BCS. If Oregon had lost one game, I think they would have gotten the BCS #2 and I think they would have deserved it when you account for all of the variables. But they did not deserve to be in the NCG ahead of Auburn and Oregon, and most people recognized this. And they did not deserve a shot at the NC game just because they won all of their games, no more than a 9th ranked team deserves to be the 8th seed in an 8-team playoff.

In 2008, TCU was undefeated going into the bowl season. They were held out of the BCSNCG solely because of their perceived strength of schedule….notice I say perceived. Here is a list teams who had easier schedules than TCU:

Northwestern
Wisconsin
Michigan
Texas Tech
Kansas State

Any one of these schools would have passed TCU in the rankings had they been undefeated and Texas or Bama faltered. Don’t bullshit me that being in an AQ “big boy” conference automatically makes your schedule harder. Hell, both Texas (38) and Ohio State (50) had schedules much closer to TCU’s (60) than to Bama’s.

My numbers came from Sagarin. Google 2009 ncaa football strength of schedule, if you want to check for yourself.

Do I think TCU would have beat Bama last year? No chance in hell. But I don’t KNOW that, and neither do any of you. A good system system would settle it on the field. What we have now is a glorified dog show.

A no, the coaches do NOT pay attention to all the other teams, nor do I think any of us really want them to. I know the last thing I want coach Saban thinking about the second sunday in October is where teams in the Pac-10 or Big12 should be ranked. Plus, there are what, 60 games per weekend? And how many of them are televised? Yeah, not just unlikely, imfuckingpossible to keep up with if you are trying to coach a Div-1 team. I’ll argue that it is not possible for anyone, considering when the votes have to be in. When you then include the number of times coaches are caught being down right unscrupulous, the coaches’ poll becomes the most worthless part of the whole equation.

The five teams I listed all had schedules WORSE than tcu’s…not a small bit better…actually worse. That is why I said you can’t “necessarily” assume that aq’s schedules are tougher…cause sometimes they aren’t. In the case above, nearly a third of the big ten, and one sixth of the big 12 had easier schedules than tcu. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky, just saying you gotta check the numbers instead of just making assumptions based on conference affiliation. If you’d like, change “not necessarily that much” in my statement above to “not always.” I’d still stand by that statement. And I agree about the playoff, to make EVERYONE prove their worth.

Did you not read the other post? Never has the computer been the deciding factor for number one and number two. Humans have over ruled every time…thus negating the fairness of the computers.

Funny how every other sport on the face of the planet thinks that winning the playoffs means you are the best for that year…even other divisions of college football. Guess they must all be wrong. I guess the best way to determine who the best team in division one sports is is to vote for our favorite. Erm…no, we’re just gonna hafta disagree about that, cause I will never accept voting as a legitimate way to determine a sports champion…part of a seeding process, maybe, but not the crap we have now, and certainly not the even crappier system we had before.

No, the question is: are the teams we anoint each year as National Champion actually the best? Answer: we don’t know. And that is the problem. I don’t know that texas was the second best team in the country last year. And those blowouts over ohio were fun to watch, but they weren’t great games, nor was the pounding usc gave to oklahoma.

Look man, we obviously just disagree about this, and frankly I’m tired of arguing about it. I agree with you that things would be better if they would at least do away with the automatic qualifying. I disagree that voting is an acceptable method of deciding who is the best team in the country. But I gotta let it go. Nice talking with you.