Don't Hatch A Rematch

There is a problem with the Bowl Championship Series, but it’s not the one you probably think.

College football doesn’t need a playoff. A traditional playoff system – an eight-team or even four-team bracket – brings nothing in the way of advantages over the current system and probably would make things considerably worse.

Don’t tell me the traditional architecture for playoffs is the only – or even most – accurate way to determine a champion. The St. Louis Cardinals just won the World Series under that system despite having fewer wins in the regular season than any other team that made the playoffs. They finished six games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in their own division. In fact, wild card teams have won half of the last 10 championships.

Yes, people would watch the “playoff” games, but people are going to watch the bowls as well. And college administrators are right. The present system gives 68 teams a shot at playing in the postseason. Does anyone argue all 68 teams ought to get a second chance at the national championship? No. Plus, ask the coaches. Teams that advance to bowls get three extra weeks of practices. See how many want to cut the number of teams that receive that privilege from 68 to eight.

Besides, bowl teams and their fans get an enjoyable week in a far-off city, a few doo-dads from the bowl committee and a chance to finish the season against an opponent of comparable accomplishment. We all love the NCAA basketball tournament, but does it really help the 16 seeds to get in for one game, only to get crushed by a No.1 seed in the first round every single year?

No, the problem with the BCS this year is the prospect of a rematch. Full disclosure: I’m an LSU fan. I was born in Louisiana, went to a system school, have attended games there since I was a young child and have rooted for the Tigers every day of my life. I want that out there, even though it has little to do with the point I’m trying to make.

That’s because, if LSU wins its last two games, it is in – and nobody will argue. If the Tigers don’t win out, it’s their own fault if they miss the big dance.

As of today, the top prospect would be Alabama – provided Alabama beats Auburn in the Iron Bowl on Saturday. But LSU already has beaten Alabama, 9-6, in as epic and thrilling a game as you’ll ever see.

I don’t think a traditional playoff system works for college football for a variety of reasons. How do you choose eight deserving teams out of 119 that have played wildly diverse schedules? Not all 12-0s are created equal. Boise State and TCU and this year’s unbeaten darling, Houston, play teams week-in-and-week-out that have perhaps one or two future pros. The LSU-Alabama game probably had 35-40 future pros. The mid-majors simply are not playing the same game.

Plus, the beauty of the present system is that every game among contenders is a playoff game. Stanford was eliminated by its loss to Oregon. Oregon was eliminated by its loss to LSU – in Week 1 of the season. USC beat Oregon, but it was eliminated because of its status as a continuing criminal enterprise. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

But similarly, Alabama has been eliminated. It had its shot at what most now must agree is the top team in the land. If Arkansas loses to LSU, it has even less claim on another chance – having lost previously to Alabama.

If all the present seeds hold serve, LSU should advance. Its most deserving opponent – as things stand now -- would be Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech will have won a division championship, a conference championship if it can prevail in the ACC title game, and will have lost only once – to a then-Top 10 opponent at the top of its game.

No team in the Big 12, Pac 12 or Big Ten can claim a better resume. And the Big 12 has a higher burden of proof since it no longer has a conference championship game. The problem with the BCS is that, at present, its points system would give the second berth in its title game to Alabama. I’m not sure how to fix that except to bar rematches.

College football does not have a traditional playoff system, which doesn’t bother me one bit. It chooses champions in a way more similar to auto racing than basketball, and that is OK.

But it does have an elimination system, and that system requires that no team, under any circumstances, gets a rematch. Sorry, Alabama, but you had your chance. It’s time others have theirs.

Would you rather have the sports writer's bias?

YES!!!! A voting sportswriter's or broadcaster's bias (if it exists) is based on what they see on an actual football field and informed by years of work experience observing and reporting on football. Quite often, the sportswriter and (especially) the broadcaster is a former football player.

The computer geeks' bias is based on a bogus spreadheet and algorhythm and any other special secret sauce they throw into their formulae. The geeks do not watch any actual games and do not report on the play on the field, but instead input only the data they feel is statistically significant to their rankings. These geeks never, ever played tackle football. And probably not 2-hand touch or flag football. But I bet they are wizards at Madden 2011!

Bias obviously exists, but please note that the AP poll is not used in the computation of the BCS rankings. The sportswriters pulled their participation in 2004 after the University of Texas lobbied Big XII coaches to manipulate their votes to pull ahead of Cal-Berkley in BCS polling. Prior to the pre-bowl vote, some computer geek Texas supporter calculated that just 8 voting coaches needed to flip-flop Cal & Texas in the polls to give Texas & the Big XII (and not Cal) a big BCS bowl payout.

The Harris Poll replaced the AP poll in BCS computations in 2005. Harris Interactive is a marketing research firm who annually assembles a market based regionally-balanced slate of 115 voters comprised of former players, coaches, administrators and media.

Both the Harris Poll and the AP Poll enjoy the superiority of direct observation and actual game knowledge over the computer geeks. Beyond that, the biases of any one Harris voter (115 total votes) or any one AP voter (60 votes) are mitigated by the votes of other voters spread across the entire country. The 115 Harris voters combine for 33% of the BCS composite. But there are just 6 computer geeks who participate in the computer polls 33% share of the BCS composite. In addition, each team's high and low computer geek score is thrown out. Therefore, the bias of any computer geek is 29 TIMES WORSE than any Harris voter and 15 TIMES WORSE than that of any one sportswriter!

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USC is now #10 in the Associated Press!!!!

And that's probably where they would be ranked in the other polls if those polls did not exclude teams that are on NCAA probation. The AP poll has no such restriction.

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Michigan State is #11 in the AP even thought [sic] they were blown out by an unranked Notre Dame team (yeah, 3 loss ND has squeaked back up to 22, but were not ranked when they trounced Michigan State).

I actually think Michigan State should be ranked higher than #11. While I share in your disdain for Notre Dame, the fact is that Michigan State has lost just 2 games (both at difficult away stadiums) - to then #14 Nebraska & to bitter rival Notre Dame, who you grudgingly acknowledge is again ranked.

Contrast AP's #11 Michigan St. with AP's #12 Oklahoma. Oklahoma lost on the road to #25 Baylor (who had never previously beaten a ranked opponent) and lost at HOME to 5-6 Texas Tech - a game that had been a blow out until a late Sooner rally. Yet, the computer geeks still rank Oklahoma at #6 & Michigan St. at #17.

There is no real justification for Oklahoma's high computer ranking. They have just one win versus a currently ranked opponent (at home vs. Kansas St.). AP, Harris & USA Today (Coaches) all now recognize that Florida St. and Texas actually have mediocre teams and reflect those unimpressive Oklahoma victories in their polling. However, the computer geeks all build Florida State's and Texas' early season residual value into their half-baked formulae.

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They computers are not perfect, but they do a lot better job than the bias North East, Mid-West and West coast sports writers who don't know anything about modern college football. i.e. the South East!

OK, this is getting too easy. In addition to the facts and logic listed above that utterly destroy your belief that the computer rankings hold ANY validity, I will simply point out that the writers and coaches do not view ACC or SEC football with any less value than the computer geeks.

Every single BCS ranked team in the SEC and ACC have Harris & USA Today rankings that are within one or 2 places of the average computer geek ranking. The AP poll (including bowl-banned Southern Cal which moves some teams back a spot) gives a little less love, especially to ACC teams.

I personally think that SEC teams are slightly overrated (especially Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina & Auburn), but that opinion is not shared nor reflected in ANY of the polls - AP, Harris, Coaches, computer geek or BCS. If anything, an examination of the CURRENT computer geek and BCS rankings reveal a slight bias FOR the ACC, a slight bias FOR non-AQ schools like Boise St. & Houston, a huge bias FOR Big XII teams and a gargantuan bias AGAINST B1G teams.

The funniest thing I see in all of this is:

The Big Least is nowhere to be found in any of the rankings. The BCS should be embarrassed that this pretend football conference is guaranteed a BCS bowl berth.

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