BCS-apologist Tim Cowlishaw speaks nonsense
In his recent column, “BCS system, not playoffs, is best for college football,” Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Cowlishaw is the latest to side with the BCS-apologist crowd.
Let’s take his points one by one…
The overriding point playoff supporters miss is that a playoff changes everything. There’s nothing neat and tidy about an eight-team playoff.
Damn right it changes everything, and that’s a very, very good thing. No one said that an eight-team playoff would be neat and tidy. It just needs to be neater and tidier than the current system, and that’s not hard to do.
If you take the six big conference winners and use some sort of formula or committee similar to the NCAA basketball tournaments to select the two at-large spots, how does that work? Does the team perceived to be the best of the nonBCS schools automatically get a selection?
If so, that leaves only one at-large berth to a runner-up.
Cowlishaw invokes the NCAA basketball tournament, then flies off on a BCS school tangent. I don’t know that each BCS conference has to be represented, but if such a rule were to exist, what’s wrong with only one or two runner-ups getting bids? Second place finishers in BCS conferences had their chance to make the playoffs and they couldn’t even win their own conference. Having one or two at-large bids for runners-up is actually a good thing, because it will “keep hope alive” for those teams that lose early or fall behind in the conference race. You take the one or two best runners-up, and you’ve got your field of eight.
One common argument from BCS-apologists is that there is no perfect way to create that eight-team field. There will always be arguments why the #9, #10 or #11 teams should have made it. March Madness is set up in the same way, and while there is always some debate on Selection Sunday, it dies down quickly because everyone knows that those teams that didn’t make the field don’t have a legitimate argument that they are the best team in the nation. Yeah, maybe they should have made it over Team X or Team Y, but did they really have a shot to win the title? Of course not. The same goes for football, where the chances are slim that the ninth-, tenth- or eleventh-best team in the nation really has a legit shot to win three games against the best teams in the land.
To avoid these kinds of questions, you have to go to a 16-team tournament and at that point, the regular season has lost its unique quality. If that many teams are postseason bound, then you completely alter the emotions that spilled out of Texas and Texas Tech fans in the final dramatic plays late Saturday night.
I still can’t get my head around this whole “the regular season will become less important/dramatic” argument. If there are more spots available for the postseason that means there will be more teams in a position to vie for those spots which means that the intensity and drama (on the whole) will increase, not decrease. Even if we assume that the drama surrounding the Texas/Texas Tech rivalry would be diminished with an 8- or 16-team playoff – and that’s a big assumption – what about the increase in drama surrounding the other 10 or 15 teams that have a shot to make the playoffs? What’s the net effect on the sport? Sure, you can throw out one example of a game that will have less importance, but what about the seven or eight other games that become more important because there’s a more inclusive playoff system in place?
College football is different from every other sport in that it doesn’t always provide a bow on a neatly tied package at the end of the year.
I will gladly sacrifice that in order to maintain the integrity of autumn Saturday afternoons and nights. Those are nothing less than the best days in sport.
He’s assuming that a playoff would ruin “the integrity” of the regular season. Look at the NFL, is the regular season a bore? No, every week is important yet the playoffs are inclusive enough that heading down the home stretch, there are a number of teams that are still in the hunt. This increases the interest and the drama.
And then there’s the “neatly tied package” comment. There’s a reason that every other major sport ends in a playoff…
IT’S THE BEST WAY TO DECIDE A CHAMPION!
If a team isn’t good enough to win its own conference, it doesn’t belong in the playoffs for a national championship.
You have to go to 16. If you did 8, and 6 automatic BCS bids, thats not good as the big east or acc team might be 9-3, and you have 4 1 loss SEC and Big 12 teams,
Like this year, Miami might win the acc with 3 losses, yet might be ranked #20, and you have UF,USC,and 15 other teams with 1 loss. SO, you need 16, then you can do the 6 bcs conference, and top 10 at large teams. That would seem to work better——PLus, with 3 games needed to win to make it to the Final, those can be played in December, and it would give December some luster. WE NEED A PLAYOFF
I don’t think a guaranteed bid for each BCS conference is necessary. Just take the eight best teams in the country. If a conference doesn’t have a team that’s good enough, then they don’t have a team that’s good enough. Them’s the breaks.
What a clown. Don’t want to be left out of the eight-team field? Then don’t suck. Win enough games to be one of the best three or four teams. Otherwise pipe down and play football.
The BCS is terrible.
I’m open to all the suggestons. The key if you go 8 teams deep you’ll have a champion that has earned it. #9 will be pissed, but few will shed tears for them.
If we had a playoff there would be so many games that would still mean something in thecoming weeks.
I don’t think you can do it( 16 team playoff), can’t do what BB does 6 games in 19/20 day, or bseball plays most after college out for summer. My 2 cents… create SIX (6) BCS bowls ( creates 12 slots).. all ccompleted NLT jan 2, then a final BCS Poll, including the Computer Geek portion and come up with top 4. 1-4,2-3 would play week now championship is around 8/9 jan. Then winners following week, weekends occupied by NFL playoffs. Of coures 2 teams will gripe, but it is a step to possible 8 team in few years only adding one more week to the 4 team. And it wouldn’t mess with all traditional bowls. Have Fiesta, Rose, Sugar, Orange, add 2 more i.e. Cotton, Superdome, St. Louis Dome. Have 12 openings so 6 teams used and several one loss too and at least one non Big six and possible 2 if they start playing more or better big six. But probably run into next semester. but only for 2 teams. 12 team conference are tooo big, don’t play everyone, conf’s should all be 8,9 or 10 then all could play each other in conf. Just a thought…… Notre Dame and Penn St. could go into Big east ? make a good 10 team conference.
I think a four- or eight-team playoff is the way to start. Expand if necessary.
Maybe. Four or eight teams seems like too few, but if it’s a matter of getting the suits to finally agree to something, it’s better than nothing.
I really do think a sixteen-team tournament would work, while still (and this is vital) preserving the bowls in their current state. They don’t need to be used as neutral sites for the theoretical tournament games. I have in mind the idea that the teams which lose in the tournament would then be available to the upper-tier bowl games for selection there.
It’s possible to have both a tournament and the bowl system as it exists today; I seem to be the only person who thinks so.
The BCS system is completely flawed…and Cowlishaw is completely wrong. The “BSCS” system has gotten the Championship game right twice in the last couple of years (Miami v. OSU and USC v. Texas). I would rather discuss which teams should should be in or out of playoffs rather than who should be in the Championship.
Do we have that discussion when it comes to the NCAA men’s b-ball game.
NO WAY JOSE!!!!