This site is simply wonderful. It's called "Playoff Problem" and it's been launched by the BCS to defend how truly awesome the BCS is. The main crux of the argument, as always, is that 1) there's no way to have a fair, reasonable playoff and that 2) the regular season would be far less meaningful.They pretty much debunk #2 on the main page:
Just try to create an eight-team playoff based on latest rankings (November 23rd). Should a one-loss Georgia Tech (10-1, #7) get in but not a one-loss Pittsburgh (9-1 #9)? Should a two-loss Oregon (9-2, #8) get in but not one-loss Pittsburgh or any of the SEVEN teams with two losses: Ohio State (10-2, #10), Iowa (10-2, #11), Oklahoma State (9-2, #12), Penn State (10-2, #13), BYU (9-2, #19), Utah, (9-2, #19), or Houston (9-2, #23)? If you think the BCS is controversial, try sorting that out.
Wait, so, with all those teams mentioned fighting for one of the eight coveted mythical playoff spots, you're saying the regular season games wouldn't be just as important? I have that right, do I?
A playoff would guarantee bigger problems, more controversy, more disappointed teams and more frustrated fans.
I see. So instead of even trying to do what nearly everyone wants, we just shouldn't even bother.
You know what else a playoff would give us? The chance that one of maybe ten or so teams at the end of November would be in contention to win a national title. Instead of, you know, two teams (SEC champ and Texas).
I'm not going to rehash every argument because we've done it before and it's just not worth the typing. But I do love that their whole site seems to easily argued against:
In every sport, brackets began with a few teams. Then schools felt slighted, and so the brackets grew to accommodate more teams. And grew and grew and grew. It is known as "bracket creep." The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship started with eight teams. It’s now 65, and some college officials want to expand beyond that. The NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision began with a four-team playoff years ago, and now it’s been expanded to 20 teams. Think about what bracket creep would do to college football: it would greatly diminish the importance of the regular season, and would forever change the bowl system.
Yes, god forbid we wind up with an exciting championship like the NCAA men's basketball tournament! That totally would suck!
Also, schools might feel "slighted" if left out of the bracket. True. So let's slight all but two every year -- and all mid-majors all the time -- instead of risking a "slight" to the #9 team in the country. Better to offend those who have a legit argument at #1. Awesome.
And "forever change the bowl system"? You mean, from "meaningless" to "having some bowls mean a whole hell of a lot"? Um, okay. I guess that would be a....bad...change?
They also launched a Twitter feed, if you're into that sort of thing. If you're among the Twitter-inclined, I'd recommend reading their feed from time to time and simply making the easy responses taking down their flimsy arguments.
The BCS is about money, plain and simple, and keeping it among the power conferences. Always has been, always will be. It's never been about determining a champion.
8 comments:
yes. Everything you said.
I wonder how we'd know if a playoff system would "forever change the bowl system".
Because, you know, the bowl system I grew up with was Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton. Those were the New Year's Day bowls, and no one played after that. And you could tell what the bowls were called: their names weren't changed every corporate deal or two.
Sorry. I couldn't help myself. It's just that I can't resist shooting fish in a barrel.
You know, for a long time I was against a playoff because it would f*** up the bowl system and diminish the value of the regular season. But once the bowl system went and f***ed up the bowl system, who gives a crap anymore? Bring on the playoff! You can't diminish in value a regular season in which more than half the teams in the country, teams that schedule 4 cupcakes and limp past the 2 worst teams in their conference, get rewarded with a holiday trip.
I got my undergrad at Illinois State where they played then Div I-AA football.
Playoffs make the regular season that much more important... but what they do in I-AA is vital compared to these guy claim. Each Division's champion gets a bid except for a few like Ivy, Southern (Southern Classic), and Independents. This creates 12 auto, and 4 at-large bids. Of those 4 at larges it is usually 2 or 3 confs fighting for those spots.
That how it should be, the BCS 6 should fight for 2-3 spots.
It's unfortunate because the way I see it, even if Purdue won the big ten, they would not be up for a national championship because they don't bring enough "money" in, according to the BCS. Unless its a SEC, Big 12, or PAC 10 team, no one cares. Does anyone remember how great it was when George mason made their run in the tourney?
iirc, morgan burke has stated in the past that he was against a playoff b/c it would hurt purdue (and any other schools not typically competing for national championships on a yearly basis) -
in a sense that you can still end the season on a high note w/a bowl win. Whereas in a playoff like most other sports, everyone but the champ ends their season w/a loss.
i think that can be a 'pansy' or defeatist attitude, but at the same time i can't entirely disagree w/that sentiment either.
i think that's shared by many other schools also - and where everyone makes that much more $$ than a typical playoff like bball.
imo, i would just go back to the old bowl tie-ins, then add something like a 'plus-one system', playing the bcs's final top 2 teams a week after the Jan.1 bowls.
The @InsidetheBCS twitter feed is hilarious. The feed consists entirely of replies to fans pointing out how dumb they are. That twitter feed should be mentioned in business school classes about how not to interact with customers.
But see, here's the thing about a football playoff: no matter what system you choose, the vast majority of teams aren't going to be in the playoffs anyway. The "end the season with a loss" thing doesn't apply here like it does in basketball, with the conference tournaments leading toward the NCAA tournament.
In a 16-team playoff, you'd have 7 more teams ending their seasons with losses. You're still going to have a lot of teams who can win their final game. In fact, you're probably going to keep many or most of the bowls as they are now, depending on the system, so for a team like Purdue, there isn't a lot that would change. It would still be Notre Dame, then the Big Ten season and the Bucket, and maybe or maybe not a bowl.
Now, teams like TCU, Utah, and Boise State ... right now I'd guess they'd gladly trade a single win for a chance at four and the possibility of a season-ending loss. (Anything short of a 16-team playoff is likely to exclude them, just as the 8-team BCS pool used to, thus the four-win goal.) Hell, in 2000, how cool would it have been to see Purdue making a run for a championship? Yes, it was nice to see them play in the Rose Bowl, but hell, there's no guarantee we'd play a Pac-10 team anyway if we made it there again.
As for the argument about excluding other teams from a fun (yet meaningless), end of the season bowl game, nobody is saying a playoff would do that. You can keep all the shitty existing bowls and let all the 6-6 teams you want play in them to end their season with a trophy like today's Little League. But the top dogs (top 4, top 8, top 16, whatever) get to use the existing top tier bowls as a playoff bracket.
I refer you to our Boiled Sports Championship Series posts. Under our system, the top 6 teams in the BCS get into the playoff, with the top 2 getting a bye (thus making all games still matter in regular season, regardless of how stupid that argument is). If you're a #1 or #2 seed, you play two games to get a national title. If you're #3-#6, you have to win three games. Not exactly out of control.
http://www.boiledsports.com/search/label/Boiled%20Sports%20Championship%20Series
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