The BCS’s hold on college football must come to an end. It’s time to recognize it for what it is, once and for all – a failed and biased system which destroys its own credibility and fails to crown a champion in the way that we demand from every other major sport or league that we follow. Alabama may indeed be a worthy champion after defeating LSU 21-0 on Monday night, but in truth, we’ll never know.
Here are 7 reasons why the BCS is BS. It’s time to take a stand against this outrageous, shortsighted and monarchical system.
1. Championship Uncertainty
By all accounts, Alabama looks to be the nation’s best college football program. That’s fantastic. But there’s still a huge level of uncertainty. Oklahoma State deserved a chance to be in the championship game as much as the Crimson Tide did, if not more. LSU could still try to argue they deserve a share of the title. Nobody knows what would have happened if the teams actually had to play it out against one another, because the BCS bypasses the entire concept of a legitimate tournament to decide a champion.
Look at what happened in the 2011 World Series, with the St. Louis Cardinals squeaking into the postseason and then going on a magical run to win the title. Look at the string of Wild Card teams to have won the Super Bowl in recent years. Look at the lack of overall number 1 seeds who end up surviving March Madness.
Appearing to be the best, and being the best by virtue of defeating everyone else who deserves a chance, are vastly different things.
2. Bowl Season is Awful
Bowl games have been taking place since the middle of December. It’s a four week period that’s been dragged out and overstuffed to the point of insanity. Does anybody really, honestly care about which 7-5 or 8-6 team squares off in the Little Caesars Bowl? The Belk Bowl? the Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl? Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl? Beef ‘o’ Brady’s Bowl? R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl?
This is the traditional, majestic bowl season that we must preserve in order to make college football special and worthwhile?
3. Too Much Time Elapses
The BCS Championship game takes place an absurdly long time after the regular college football season has been completed. This year, LSU hadn’t played since December 3rd, a period of more than five weeks of inactivity. Alabama didn’t play since November 26th, more than six weeks prior to the championship game.
It’s ridiculous to conclude a season after teams have been on the shelf for that long. In the NFL, teams wonder if a two-week period of inactivity due to first round Bye is more helpful than harmful, and whether or not the week off between the conference championships and the Super Bowl is too long.
4. Bowl Game Cronyism
The BCS games aren’t even compelled to put the top programs into their bowls. With automatic berths for big conferences, regardless of ranking, and favoritism based on geographic considerations and traveling fan bases, team like Virginia Tech, Michigan, Clemson and West Virginia shared the BCS spotlight, while higher ranked Boise State and Kansas State teams were shut out for literally no good reason.
5. Regular Season Isn’t Any Better
The BCS-heads would argue that the format makes the regular season more special, and that every game counts. A playoff system would therefore ruin the regular season. I’m sorry, but does anyone view the NFL regular season to be a pointless exercise because there’s a postseason, or do record numbers of viewers continue to fanatically tune in each and every week with always growing rights fees worth billions of dollars per year?
Furthermore, every game doesn’t count in the college football regular season, because regardless of outcomes, a computer points system declares a championship game match-up. Oklahoma State beating Oklahoma didn’t “count”, because they still didn’t get to play for the title. LSU defeating Alabama in the season didn’t “count”, because the rematch took place regardless. Entire Boise State seasons haven’t “counted”, considering they go undefeated and get shut out of the national title picture.
6. Playoffs Would Make More Money
One of the most ludicrous aspects of the BCS is that the powers that be are holding onto a system which fails to maximize the revenue that they could be earning. A playoff format for college football would generate far more money than the current bowl system and BCS title game. Depending on the projection and plan you want to believe or put into action, it could produce about $500 million more revenue per season, or more.
7. Playoffs Wouldn’t Take More Time or Add More Games
Another classic BCS pseudo-argument is that a college football playoffs system would take too much time, and it would make teams play too many games. Well, LSU already played 14 games this season, as did nine other schools in 2011, and the season didn’t wrap up until January 9th of the following year anyway.
If you capped off the regular season at 11 games, a team played an additional conference championship game, and a maximum of three games in the postseason with an 8-team format, that means just one or two schools each season would play up to 15 games.
That 15 game season would only happen if and when a school made it to its conference championship and to the national title game in the same season, and as mentioned, would only occur for a maximum of two schools per year. The other top programs would still end up playing what they play now, between 12 and 14 games each season.
The BCS is BS, and it can’t be ignored any longer.
Sources: ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Bloomberg
Jake Emen is a lifelong football and sports fan. He also runs the boxing news website ProBoxing-Fans.com. You can find more of his writing at the site, or you can follow ProBoxing-Fans.com on Twitter, @ProBoxingFans.