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There are WAYYYYYY too many bowl games. Teams that go 6-6 should NOT be in bowl games.
Posted on 12/05/2006 7:33:22 AM PST by sean327
This year’s college football bowl pairings were released Sunday, and the last-place teams from the biggest conferences will be crying all the way to the bank. The top teams from the small conferences will be crying poverty.
In NCAA Division I football, profits are higher for doormats from the six "major" conferences--Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Southeastern--than for champions from the five smaller conferences.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Let the fur fly boys. I love to stir the pot this time of year. This should make for some great arguments.
Then of course we'd have the possibility of a team winning the national championship without winning their conference. Although that scenario doesn't seem to bother anyone when it comes to basketball.
How else could it be done? A true playoff has to include ALL 11 CONFERENCES. The BCS system is a crock, it doesn't give us a true Champion, it gives us a beauty contest winner.
In basketball that probably happens more times than not. Nobody seemed to like the idea that the best two teams in college football just may be from the same conference.
For a couple of reasons:
1) The mid-level teams from a major conference are still better, in general, than top teams from weak conferences, their records are a result from having played much tougher opponents. (And no "doormats" qualify for bowl bids anyway.)
2) No one cares about the Boise States of the world. No one really wants to watch them, and how are you going to attract advertising and sponsorship $$$ for teams no one wants to watch?
You're preaching to the converted. It'd be nice someday to see a team handed a trophy that reads "NCAA DIVISION I FOOTBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS".
Nor does anyone have a problem when a non division winner wins the Super Bowl or the World Series.
The NFL has champs that are wildcards. MLB has champs that are wildcards. And the NHL...don't get me started.
Beat me by a few seconds.
they would watch them if they did it by playoff's.
The line that "Michigan had their chance" really was effective. That flipped more votes from Michigan to USC then to Florida than anything else. The only positive thing I see from the voting is that when OSU slaughters Florida, it will settle things. But the #1 and #2 team are not playing for the championship like the BCS intended. The rematch would have been a much better game. Although the USC-Michigan game should be good.
It doesn't bother the NASCAR Chase for the Championship either, where the winner doesn't have to win any of the races.
That is just odd...
Well the NHL and NBA have killed themselves by making their regular seasons almost irrelevant.
Agreed. I don't think many of the voters actually felt Florida was a better team than Michigan. That and the screams from the SEC would have been deafening.
Ohio State vs Michigan would have created a situation where Ohio State would have to win two out of two against Michigan while Michigan would only need to win one out of two for the national championship....essentially punishing Ohio state for winning the conference game.
We need a playoff for the championship!!!!!!!!!
Heck even before the chase was initiated you didn't need to win any either.
OSU and Michigan are going to get beaten badly because they haven't played a game for at least two weeks longer than their opponents. They get beat in the bowl games every year because of this and will continue to get beat every year. The NCAA National Champions are The Buckeyes and Michigan is #2. The bowl games are so far removed from the regular season, they are meaningless, other than bringing in more money to the system.
That would not be fair to Michigan if that system was in effect now.
A championship is the championship. Did Pittsburg have to defeat the Colts twice last year in the playoffs to advance? OK, bad example, with that horrible interception call, I guess they kind of did.
On the positive side, a 16 team play-off would better determine a national champ and bring increased revenues from viewership. On the negative side, it would require up to three additional games played beyond regular season - bowl game now. Injuries and time away from classes/study (as if that matters) would increase.
The 11 conference winners would be:
The at-large teams would be:<>
Looking in from the outside would be Arkansas (12), West Virginia (13), and Rutgers (16).
Assuming playoff seeding by current BCS ranks, the first round matchups would be:
So, 2... maybe 3... good games in the first round. We'll assume for the sake of argument that the higher seeds win across the board, except for Auburn. Round 2:
Not a bad set of matchups... perhaps the top-8 should have just been in the playoff to begin with rather than the yawner of a first round we saw for the most part. Also, with two Big-10 vs. SEC matchups, we'd get a chance to see which conference was really better. Florida would have to go through three straight Big 10 teams to win the whole thing...
LOL, why not let Division II schools in. Under that system, Middle Tennessee State is 7-5 and a CONFERENCE CHAMP! Those Conference Champ Blue Raiders lost to Oaklahoma by 59-0! Your Conference Champ only rule would eliminate 5 of the top 10 teams in the country.
Top 8 is the best we could hope for. Except they would probably limit it to two schools from the same conference like they do now, so Wisconsin is screwed. Maybe the Badgers would finally be convinced to schedule one decent outside conference game.
Unfortunately money is the root of the problem. Professional sports has prostituted itself to the point that they have become cheap whores. Get as many teams into the playoff race as possible .... the sucker fans will keep shelling out their money. Regular seasons are nothing more than an extension of spring training/exhibition seasons.
The bowl games stand in the way of a national playoff system but we still watch them.
Seeing the way UCLA handled USC, I'd predict the Rose Bowl will be over very early.
The Big 10 won both it's BCS bowl games last year, plus the biggest non BCS bowl game when Wisconsin beat Auburn in the Capitol One Bowl. The Big 10 lost all the minor bowls which were played with a much shorter rest period. Your layoff theory was 0-7 last year.
"On the positive side, a 16 team play-off would better determine a national champ and bring increased revenues from viewership. On the negative side, it would require up to three additional games played beyond regular season - bowl game now. Injuries and time away from classes/study (as if that matters) would increase."
The negative side of the argument doesn't fly, the NCAA could implement a 10 game regular season, and hold the playoff during the tradition Bowl time. A 10 game season would give the 2 teams that play in the championship 13 games. They play 13 games now if they go to a bowl. If the playoff is scheduled during the traditional bowl weeks no class will be missed, the kids will be on winter break.
But that would offer a bigger negative for all the schools; less games = less revenue. What do they play now? 12? That would be two less games for all schools.
Michigan like UCLA has a very good pass rush. USC has very dangerous recievers, but yeah, if Michigan can stop the USC passing attack with a good pash rush, USC is probably in for a long day.
Hockey is the worst offender with the NBA coming in a close second. The NFL isn't OK (but some 9-7 teams do sneak in) and you can't really complain about MLB.
The problem is the 32 Bowl games bring in a lot of money. The BCS championship hasn't killed the other Bowls, but it has cheapened them just a bit. Really, both Michigan and USC are disappointed going to 'only' the Rose Bowl. I think they fear a playoff system will cheapen the other bowls more.
What about the year before?
Would that be the maybe 2% of Div 1 football players that actually attend classes, or am I over estimating. ;~))
In 2004-2005 Rose Bowl, Vince Young lead Texas in a comeback against Michigan and won 38-37. Probably a case of the better team winning. But Iowa did defeat LSU in the Capitol One Bowl. Wisconsin beat Georgia in the Outback Bowl. Minnisota beat Alabama in the Music City Bowl. And the Buckeyes manhandled Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl. Purdue lost to Arizona State in the Sun Bowl. The Big Ten has done fairly well lately in Bowl games, especially the top of the conference. The Big Ten does not have the depth of the SEC.
Why not have separate National Championships for the different divisions? They do it in High School..
I don't know.
There isn't a designation between D-1A and D-1AA anymore.
I don't think they could do it and beyond that I don't think the little guys would want to skip the paydays they get by going to Ohio State or Michigan to get their teeth kicked in.
You are probably right, it just seems to me that on the State level, teams are classified by school enrollment. I understand how a smaller school can compete in Basketball, but football requires a much larger pool of talent, or at some schools, criminals. ;^)
That will just shift the argument from "who is #2" to "who is #16". Even with the 65 team field in March Madness, there is still controversy over who is #65.
I'm not hating on your idea, but subjective rankings cannot be used or the problem will be just as bad. Also, a team like Notre Dame complicates things since it can't be a conference champion.
I would think that going with the 6 BCS conference champions and the rest of the 10 would be ranked according to a very good computer ranking system that has been shown to be very accurate when ran against historical data. Some of the computer polls are just bizarre now.
Either that, or they adopt a somewhat simpler RPI system like the NCAA basketball uses.
In any event, the system for determining the 10 at large teams should be well known and well defined so that every team can adjust it's schedules accordingly.
I have to confess that I love to watch college football BUT it still bugs me that the NFL gets a subsidized farm system.
You know, that may be the best conspiracy theory I've ever heard.
By allowing ONLY conference champions, you ensure that all teams play to their best abilities every week. Win it, and you're in it. Lose it, you go to a bowl.
Why did they give $30M to Edge?
Bowl games are not taken seriously by coaches so bowl game results are completely meaningless unless the it is high stakes game or both teams are trying to make a statement.
In the vast majority of bowl games, the games are a reward for the players and they spend their time exploring the town and attending banquets and parties.
The coaches love bowl games because it gives their team an extra month of practice. With the much tighter restictions on spring practice, this time can be crucial.
This time isn't used by the coaches to thoroughly scout the opposing team but to get underclassmen, especially freshman ready for the NEXT season. The game is pretty much an after thought and most teams go into it with base packages.
The priority isn't to prepare graduating seniors for the bowl game opponent but to prepare underclassmen for the next season.
Tubberville certainly doesn't scout and prepare his team against Wisconsin in a bowl game to the same level that he would against Florida in the regular season.
Now, if it is the NC championship game things are different and some coaches do take the bowl game a little more seriously than others
I don't mind the BCS rankings. Just grab the top 16 from that and do the seeding. Now, those results would be good games!
(chuckle) You poor fool. You merely have to realize that Edgerrin James' is Bill Bidwell's love child THEN IT ALL BECOMES CLEAR!!!
Never heard of a coach not taking bowl games seriously. Careers are made on bowl games. People remember bowl games for many many years.
Watch ESPN two weekends from now.
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