Tag: Dallas Morning News

Pro-BCS’er Jason Whitlock knows best

November 24, 2008 /

We took a poll last year and 90% of our readers said that the BCS should be trashed in favor of a playoff system. It takes guts (or something) to stand up against that kind of popular opinion, and Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock is the latest to take up the mantle, using President-elect Barack Obama’s pro-playoff stance as a starting point.

Like I did with similar arguments from Tim Cowlishaw and John Walters, let me respond to Whitlock point-by-point…

I realize I’m one of just a handful of American men unpleased by Obama using the weight of the presidency to pressure college presidents to disband the BCS. He knows this, too. It’s probably pretty much all he really knows about big-time college football. Fans — Republican, Democrat and Libertarian — are dissatisfied with the current system. There’s virtually no risk in bashing the BCS.

Why is that? I’m not one to argue that the majority is always right, but when 90% of the populace agrees on something, we should probably go ahead and give it a try.

President-elect Obama doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, and he diminishes his high office and invites other politicians to join him by foolishly entering a debate that has life only because “Joe the Sports Writer/Broadcaster” can’t wrap his brain around sports issues of substance.

Now Whitlock claims that anyone that is pro-playoff “can’t wrap his brain around sports issues of substance.” Mind you, he hasn’t yet made an actual point, but he is already declaring that anyone who doesn’t agree with him just simply isn’t as smart as he is.

Yeah, by lending his name to this non-issue, Obama has pleased every Bubba in America and pretty much ensured that big-time college football will continue an escalation toward professionalism and exploitation of “amateur” athletes.

Okay, here’s the big windup…

Let me quickly repeat the argument I introduced in the mid-1990s:

Division I-A college football has the greatest regular season in all team sports, and a playoff system would ruin that distinction. For decades, coaches and players focused on winning conference championships and were quite satisfied with a “mythical” national championship decided by poll voters. The advent of ESPN and sports-talk radio created the fallacy that the lack of a playoff system scars athletes, fans, women and children, contributes to global terrorism and delays Santa Claus’ delivery run on Christmas Eve.

There’s nothing wrong with college football on the field. It is America’s healthiest sport in terms of consistent entertainment value. This is not even remotely debatable.

So Whitlock’s argument is that the college football regular season is perfect as is, and that it was sports-talk radio that created a “fallacy” that the sport needs a playoff. Assuming this is correct, sports-talk radio was successful in convincing 90% of college football fans that the current system – the very system they were supposedly “fans” of – was broken. Wow, sports-talk radio must be really powerful. How often do 90% of Americans agree on anything?

He also declares that it is “not remotely debatable” to say that any other sport is as consistently entertaining as college football. I know a few million NFL fans that would beg to differ.

There’s a lot wrong with college athletics. Many football and basketball players are funneled through the system without receiving much of an education. Coaches and administrators are paid salaries that invite questionable ethics. Too many athletes arrive on campus completely unprepared to be educated and solely interested in the development of their bodies. The use of performance-enhancing drugs is out of control within most athletic departments.

These and other issues are worthy of discussion at the presidential level.

Who’s No. 1? How to set up an eight-team playoff format?

Leave that to the idiots.

This is a classic debate tool. Distract from the real issue by making points that almost everyone can agree with and then act like you’ve won the argument. Just because there are other issues to deal with in collegiate athletics, it doesn’t mean that Obama shouldn’t help to facilitate something that 90% of college football fans want to see.

He didn’t say why a playoff would ruin the regular season, he just stated that it would, as if it were a fact.

I guess that’s just one of those “sports issues of substance” that we mere mortals just can’t wrap our brains around. Jason Whitlock says he knows best, and therefore he must.

College Football, NFL

Slicing and dicing John Walters’ pro-BCS argument

November 18, 2008 /

NBCSports.com John Walters chimes in with a lame argument in favor of the BCS. Walters is a little different from the other BCS-apologists out there in that he framed his pitch as an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama, who recently reiterated his support for a college football playoff. Whenever I read these pro-BCS arguments, I feel compelled to pick them apart point by point (like I did with Tim Cowlishaw two weeks ago).

I will begin with my most ardent point (we’ll call it Item 1): The beauty of the alchemy of the unknown. College football offers unforeseen plot twists and turns each Saturday. It is a fragile yet fertile ecosystem, something that man could not knowingly create yet, now that it exists in its present form, he can appreciate. To attempt to “fix it” would no less befoul the college gridiron landscape than would unregulated drilling in Alaska.

So instituting a playoff would automatically ruin the “alchemy of the unknown”? What does that mean? Even with a playoff, college football will still offer unforeseen plot twists and turns each Saturday, just like the NFL does each Sunday.

It’s always funny when commentators wax poetic about the uniqueness of the college football championship format. They mention qualities (that would not suddenly go away with a playoff) as reasons to keep a bad system.

In your proposed universe, Mr. President-Elect, you only say you want an eight-team playoff. I humbly submit that conference champions must be a part of that, or you will never get buy-in. You’re not THAT powerful.

I don’t really care if the conference champions get an automatic bid, but let’s say they do. That eats up six of the eight playoff spots. There are still two spots for at-large bids, like undefeated teams from non-power conferences or the next best team in a power conference. How does this lower the impact of the regular season? If anything the competitiveness will be increased because all of those teams in the #6-#15 range will know that they have a legitimate shot to make the playoffs.

Even better, there could be a rule that conference champions will get an automatic berth, but only if they have fewer than four losses. This protects the conference champs, but if they have proven they aren’t elite, then they don’t get a berth. The power conferences might agree to this rule because they could just as easily benefit from it (by getting a second or third team in during a particularly strong season) as they could be hurt by it.

The intrigue of a team remaining perfect…of games that one month earlier no one could have foreseen as having an impact (I refer you to the landmark case of Pittsburgh v. West Virginia, 2007), would be forfeited under your plan.

Why would it be any less intriguing for a team to remain perfect? Does Walters only find it interesting because an undefeated team might get the shot to play in the BCS Championship Game? Isn’t there something intrinsically wrong with a system where a power conference team must go undefeated to have a shot to play for the title?

Simply put, the games between Labor Day and Thanksgiving would lose nearly all their juice — or have you noticed that college basketball is a back-burner sport from November through February?

Okay, now Walters is following the mindless drones that trip over themselves trying to put down college basketball’s regular season. Why aren’t they using a much better comparison – like the NFL? Isn’t that a closer estimation to what a college football playoff would mean for its regular season? After all, NFL teams play 16 games, while college basketball teams sometimes play 30 games. Which is the better comparison? They use college basketball as an example because using the NFL – the country’s most popular sport – would be counterproductive to their argument.

Item 2: Just because something is different does not mean that it is flawed (a truism to which you of all Americans must subscribe). Thanksgiving is the only federal holiday that falls on a Thursday, but would anyone want to tweak Thanksgiving? Pass an executive order mandating that Virginia stop referring to itself as a commonwealth? Edit Pulp Fiction so that it runs chronologically?

Pulp Fiction, by the way, is the very analogue of college football’s playoff as presently constituted: non-chronological, maddening, filled with heroes, villains and inexplicable moments (Why is Mr. Wolf wearing a tuxedo and attending a cocktail party at 8:30 a.m.?), and yet ultimately brilliant. Satisfying. A masterpiece.

While it’s true that “just because something is different does not mean that it is flawed,” it also doesn’t mean that it’s not flawed. Walters throws out a few examples to try to prove his point, but all he does is prove the exception to the rule. Sure, “Pulp Fiction” was a good movie, but how often does a movie like that work? And is he really comparing the BCS system to a Quentin Tarantino movie?!?

March Madness is at best half the tournament the BCS is. To win the NCAA basketball championship, a team must win six consecutive games, a run that almost every Division I team (with the possible exceptions of Oregon State and Northwestern) is capable of. To even advance to the BCS championship game a team must win twelve straight or twelve of thirteen. Which is more difficult?

Walters is missing something here – during March Madness team must win six consecutive games against the best competition in the country. That’s a little different than just having to win six consecutive games, which is a feat unto itself. He then states that college football teams must win twelve straight or twelve of thirteen to appear in the BCS Championship Game. Of course, winning this many games is an impressive feat as well, but the problem is that there are sometimes six or seven teams that have accomplished the exact same thing. What about them?

I will close with this, Mr. President-Elect. Just as “Drill, baby, drill” advocates fail to appreciate the grandeur of the millions of years of natural beauty they would be destroying in exchange for a few decades’ worth of oil, playoff advocates fail to appreciate that a postseason playoff would undermine the magic of the regular season.

A postseason playoff would undermine the magic of the regular season. BCS apologists keep repeating this position, so it must be true, right? Wrong. A playoff would be more inclusive which would only serve to increase the net competitiveness and excitement in college football. The rivalry games aren’t suddenly going to lose their meaning. Sure, there might be a game here or there that will become a little less important because both teams have a little breathing room to make the playoffs, but in that case we’re talking about two of the best teams in the land – does anyone think that a game between two top teams will suddenly lose its importance? And what about the multitude of games that suddenly become more important because they involve teams ranked in the aforementioned #6-#15 range that will be fighting tooth and nail for a playoff berth? Are BCS apologists simply ignoring the increased importance and competitiveness of those games?

College Football, NFL

BCS-apologist Tim Cowlishaw speaks nonsense

November 7, 2008 /

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!

College Football, Fantasy Football

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