quote: What a mess, too bad the bowls and conferences are making too much money off this currently to see whats right in front of their eyes.
Let us dispel the myth that colleges make more money from the bowl system than they would with a playoff.
The BCS bowls will pay out around $100 million to all participants this year. All the other bowls combined add up to about another $100 million. In comparison, the current 11-year contract with CBS to broadcast the March Madness basketball tournament guarantees the NCAA a minimum of six BILLION dollars - that's TV alone, before adding in ticket sales, promos, etc. The TV rights for a Division I-A football tournament would almost certainly go for even more. (Football is a bigger TV draw than basketball. The NFL's TV contract is triple the value of the NBA's, for example.)
Every year they don't have a playoff, the NCAA Division I-A schools leave hundreds of millions of dollars, very likely upwards of a billion dollars on the table.
Posts: 17 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I am not sure if there is a feasible way to determine the true national champion in one year. The players are college students, and therefore can't play a TON of games... plus, the season fo good playing weather isn't that long, expecially in some of the northern states. and... I just added the wave because we're talking about college football Posts: 8 | Registered: Dec 2003
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LSU's defense could shut down Oklahoma's offense as it is lacking a good QB and that weakness could be exploited. ------------------------------------------------- "Lacking a good QB? Maybe the third team is lacking a good QB. OU’s first team has a Heisman contender if you hadn’t noticed. Maybe not as strong a contender as before the K-State game, but you can’t seriously write off the accomplishments of the other 12 games based on one sub-par performance. And he did throw for 300 + yards in that game. Lacking a good running back I will buy. But if Jason White is not a good QB, then there aren’t any good QBs in the country this year."
I'm not writing them off based on one performance, I'm saying that the QB play they get is good enough to help them win, not great enough to be a difference maker. He's simply not at the level of the other more elite QB's in this country (though I'll grant that there aren't many: Manning, Roethlisberger, and Pickett, and maybe Schaub and Greene strike me as the only one's drawing strong interest from the NFL as starter caliber players), he strikes me as a system QB who carries out his coaches plans, minimizes mistakes, and tries not to stretch himself too much. He doesn't strike me as a QB who can take over a game, if Oklahoma needs him too, a QB who can rally the troops to victory when things are falling around him. Btw, the Heisman aspect means nothing to me, any team that is vying for the National Championship will have it's QB named as a Heisman candidate and/or leading contender, it's de rigeure in college football. Is being the QB on a national title contender impressive? Sure, but it doesn't mean your a great QB, in the end it can just mean your a Big Game away from pulling a Testaverde and exposing yourself as merely the placeholder for the QB job for a team that merely needs competance, not excellence, at that position. He didn't show me anything last week in the biggest game of his life. Anyway, perhaps I was a bit too harsh but my point was that Oklahoma has the sort of offense that is balanced, but can be shut down if they're facing a truly elite defense, LSU has that kind of defense so they might be able to pull it off, so does USC, but USC's defense isn't as mentally tough (they pull their foot off the gas during arse-whuppings, not a positive thing to do. When you've got a team down, you squash it and grind it into the dirt, dont necessairly run up the score, but don't ease up either, that's how leads are choked away (like Florida-FSU seven or eight years ago), and that's how players get hurt. Anyway that was my main point. I don't see the same difference makers on Oklahoma's offense that I see on Michigan's and USC's (LSU also is a bit lacking in that. They have a nice offense, an effective one, but they strike me as a team lacking in top drawer, unstoppable players)squads.
"You make a deal with the devils money, sometimes their will be a snake in that bag of money, and it's an absolute travesty that Oklahoma didn't pay the price for that fact." ------------------------------------------------- "I’m interested what price you think Oklahoma should have to pay for making it to the championship game of their league. The real question is why should Oklahoma be penalized for winning 12 games in a row and THEN losing more than USC and LSU should be for losing early in the season. For all it’s problems, and for all the whining about the computer polls, that is one problem with the old system that is closer to being solved. Its not a travesty that OU is going to the Sugar Bowl. It’s a travesty that in the current system, three teams had reasonable claim to only two spots in the title game. In that kind of system, someone is always going to get screwed."
I don't disagree with that. My problem is that Oklahoma not only lost, they got absolutely rolled and they were supposed to be the class of their conference. Oklahoma was definitely the best team over the long haul of the season, but if you're not the winner of your conference, then you can't be in the title game, period. It sucks, but that's the price you pay for agreeing to to have a conference title game after the season is over. The Big 12's teams entered that Devil's Bargain out of greed, and now, in large part due to conference reputation rather than anything else, a Big 12 team is being rewarded for failure and that is a travesty.
USC won it's conference, indeed over the past two seasons the only team that has managed to consistently cause USC trouble is Cal. Additionally, the team that would win the right to play USC in the Conference Title Game the Pac-10 wisely do not have would be Washington State, whom they beat 43-16 less than a month ago. I imagine the result might be less impressive on a neutral site, but I can't see them beating USC.
K-State is a difference case entirely. They were a national title contender when the season opened, and likely would have stayed with one if injuries hadn't felled many of the teams best players two months ago, and all their loses were by 7 or less as well. K-State is also a team that Oklahoma managed to avoid during the regular season, and thus is not comparable to an imagined Washington State-USC rematch where we at least have a record of what happened the first time (and it wasn't remotely close). LSU suffers also in this way, as it managed to avoid Tennessee altoghether, certainly one of the two or three best teams in the conference, and Florida, who spanked them in the regular season, lost a chance for a title game appearance do to a tiebreaker, a two fold friendly result for that team.
I still believe Oklahoma is the class of the country, one of the best defenses (except last weekend) in the country, and a consistently productive offense, which is more than can be said for USC (who has a great defense that seems to lack intensity at times) and LSU which is exceptional on defense, and good on offense, but not at Oklahoma's level in the latter. The problem is that Oklahoma lost, and lost exceptionally badly. LSU lost badly as well, but has gotten steadily better since and USC lost, but only did so in triple overtime to a team that gave K-State infinitely more trouble than Oklahoma did, and did so when K-State was a title contender, rather than a team just hoping to get a more favorable bow payoff (Cal had 378 yards through the air, and 4 TD's against 1 pick. Only the running game failed to get started and that's because Tedford hadn't realized what he had in Echemando yet). Cal is no patsy. They aren't a great team yet, but for anyone who wants to toss them in with the likes of Iowa State, Northwestern, Kentucky and the like is out of their minds. No team has more rapidly ascended the college football scene in terms of admiration recently than Cal, which had been a moribund program until Tedford arrived to supplant the inept Holmoe.
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Besides, anyone with eyes, knows USC would work anyone in the Pac-10 in a conference title game even if there was one. -------------------------------------------------
"That's what everyone in the country said about Oklahoma and the Big 12 till Saturday night."
Yeah, but in the case of Oklahoma it wasn't exactly legitament. K-State was considered a title contender when the year started. No one had any clue what to expect from Washington State when the year started. K-State played impressive football throughout the year when healthy, and didn't get to match up with Oklahoma during the regular season so those assuming that K-State would be a lamb to the slaughter simply weren't assessing the facts. Beating Oklahoma should have been reasonably perceived as unlikely, but not nearly as unlikely as it would be for Washington State to beat a USC team that USC squashed a mere month ago.
Anyway, this stinks, and I want my bloody playoff . I can only imagine how amazing it could be, particularly if you could get 16 teams, with four at large bids or something like that. Right now the Pac-10 continually get screwed simply because they aren't held in esteem, in no large part because East and Mid-West writers tend to ignore the games since they usually start between 6:30 and 10:30pm on the East Coast and also simply out of a basic east coast bias. This isn't to suggest that the Pac-10 routinely build powerhouses that are national title contenders. They don't. The Pac-10 probably didn't put together more than four or five truly national title contender quality teams between 1980 and 1995, but since around '95 the Pac-10 has been getting better and better, and while this was an off year for the conference as a whole, USC was clearly as good as the very best around the country this year and more than deserved a title game invite.
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Its been awhile since I posted...but it's time for a view from an LSU student and avid LSU football fan since birth. The BCS is a horrid system. Me and many fellow students would prefer a playoff system with the 8 team format(featuring the 6 division champions and a lottery allowing in a second chance to two of the almost champions). USC should be up against LSU, I mean if you cant play for real in the division championship game, you shouldn't have the honor to play for the national title... On a slightly more political side an LSU win against those Sooners attracts more attention and talent to the good ole Tigers. Sorry USC, ya'll are great but the Sooners are a bigger, badder opponent and crushing them will get LSU the respect it deserves and earns. Viva la Saban.
Posts: 113 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lottery? How about two highest ranked teams that didn't get an auto-bid. Although next year the Big East is going to be bordering on mid-major.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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A lottery sounds more fun...you know thy put the team's names in a phone booth air jet thing. Then they throw in a midget and a hot petite brunette and they each grab a name slip. The whole thing is televised and another reason to enjoy football with friends...and drinking games.
Posts: 113 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Graywolfe, I don't see how you can determine that USC is the most deserving team. USC, LSU, and Oklahoma all had one loss. USC's loss was the closest, but they also lost to the worst team. Maybe Cal's not all that bad, but they still had six losses, and if they faced either Florida or Kansas State in a bowl game they would be about a two-touchdown underdog. (They already lost to Kansas State by two touchdowns.)
I'm also not buying the notion that a pervasive bias by the writers against West Coast teams is a major part of the problem. The reason there is a perception that USC is getting screwed this year and that Oregon was screwed a couple years ago is that the AP writers ranked both Pac-10 teams higher than the computers did. The writers' biggest bias is against teams that lose late in the season rather than early in the season.
The bottom line is that you have three teams that played comparable schedules and wound up with the same record. Any system for picking two of the three to play for the "national championship" is inherently arbitrary, and cannot produce a legitimate national championship.
Posts: 17 | Registered: Dec 2003
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It wasn't just the AP writers, it was the coaches too. And Miami got screwed also. Not only were the ranked over FSU in the AP and USA Today/ESPN Polls but they had beaten FSU earlier in the season. Furthermore, USC didn't get screwed out of the #2 spot, they got screwed out of the #1 spot. Now that's screwed up.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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See, I think a late-season loss should count for more. It's one thing to lose a game at the beginning of a season. While you're still all learning to work as a team and forming chemistry, anything can happen. A rookie punt returner can get the jitters and miss a catch. A sophomore receiver can still be a little fuzzy on his routes.
If you lose your last game of the season, there are rarely such excuses. Both teams know what to expect from each other, and are performing like well-oiled machines, and the better one will usually win.
I count a game 4 USC loss to a pretty good Cal team as less important than a last game rout by a good K-State.
But I still think the BSU-TCU Fort Worth Bowl is the championship game. Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
These points are all debatable; there is no right or wrong answer. This is why any system that selects two teams to play in the "championship game" is arbitrary and not a legitimate championship.
An eight-team playoff would take care of the problem when you have a few teams at the top of the rankings with comparable resumes, but would leave many of the other problems with the BCS system in place. In particular, smaller conference teams would be given no opportunity to compete. Somebody like Frisco's Boise State team could go undefeated and still not finish in the top eight.
A 16-team playoff is the way to go. That allows every Division I-A conference champion to compete, along with five at-large teams. Since the at-large teams would almost always come from the major conferences, those big six conferences would share eleven playoff bids and a lot more money than they make now. Select fifteen of the biggest bowl games (all at warm-weather sites) to host the playoff games. Remaining bowl games could still be played, between teams that didn't make the playoffs. Those games would be no less meaningful than they are now. Plus, you could schedule several of them on New Year's Day, along with perhaps the two playoff semifinal games, and maintain the tradition of lots of college football on New Year's Day.
As for Lyra's concern that this would be too many games for college students, that same argument against a playoff was often heard back when everybody played a maximum of eleven games plus a bowl game. Now the maximum has been increased to twelve, and a host of "kickoff classics" and conference championship games have been added to that. Most of this year's bowl teams will have played thirteen games, and several will have played fourteen. An eleven-game schedule plus a 16-team playoff would not increase the burdens on these players. Anyway, the very concept that Division I-A football players are more concerned about their studies than players in Division I-AA or II or III (all of which have playoffs), or athletes in every other NCAA sport for that matter (ditto), is rather ludicrous.
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. I can only imagine how amazing it could be, particularly if you could get 16 teams, with four at large bids or something like that. Right now the Pac-10 continually get screwed simply because they aren't held in esteem, in no large part because East and Mid-West writers tend to ignore the games since they usually start between 6:30 and 10:30pm on the East Coast and also simply out of a basic east coast bias. This isn't to suggest that the Pac-10 routinely build powerhouses that are national title contenders. They don't. The Pac-10 probably didn't put together more than four or five truly national title contender quality teams between 1980 and 1995, but since around '95 the Pac-10 has been getting better and better, and while this was an off year for the conference as a whole, USC was clearly as good as the very best around the country this year and more than deserved a title game invite.![[Party]](graemlins/party.gif)
