Don't Get Too Excited About This CFB "Playoff" Just Yet

Sort of

The topic many college football writers and bloggers will be talking about this week is the now-approved, so-called four team college football playoff to replace the 1-vs-2 BCS situation currently in place.

Let me start by saying the BCS system, while much-maligned, basically did what it was outlined to do back when it was brought to college football in the late 1990s. The goal was to make sure that 1 played 2 in a big-time bowl game. That was it. It wasn't intended to solve all problems with the college football championship boondoggle. Sometimes it didn't quite please everyone, and there were several years where it could have been a complete mess had a couple of teams not obligingly rolled over late in the season. But for the most part, it pitted 1 versus 2, which is neat on that given night.... but which doesn't really feel like any other playoff in any sport.

You might insert the obivous joke here -- "Why is a Purdue site owner writing about college football playoffs? Pssshaw! Purdue won't be in there!" But maybe that makes me that much more qualified, since I'm unbiased and, usually, unaffected.

ESPN is happy in their coverage of this new "playoff" because they're supposed to be. Remember, ESPN isn't independent any more than the GM of the NY Yankees is independent. ESPN has a vested interest in people being excited by this playoff, so they've got writers talking about it being "celebrated" and giving "kudos." I'd say not so fast, because this isn't really what anyone has been pining for. Is it better? Sure, I suppose it's a step forward, but it's really only a playoff in the most basic sense and it's not even going to be based on obvious, on-the-field stuff. The four participants are going to be chosen....by a committee.

The thinking here isn't hard to see -- let's call it a committee and everyone will accept it since the NCAA basketball tournament is so popular. But that's got 68 teams, and every year people criticize the committee for something. Now their margin for error is far slimmer. Make a mistake here, and people are just as pissed off as when an undefeated Boise plays an undefeated TCU so that at least one of them will have to go away. Or when an undefeated Auburn team in 2004 doesn't get a shot at the title.

I also don't think people are thinking about the in-the-moment differences. As the season winds down right now, we know who is in contention for the top 2 spots and who isn't. Then there are usually a few long shots who could sneak in if the chips fall right. With the new system, even if a team is unbeaten and is #4 in whatever ranking system we're using at that point, they won't know for sure that they're in.... they'll have to then sit around like fringe teams do on selection Sunday in March. While that's fine for fringe teams that barely deserve consideration, it's not fine for an undefeated college football team in November.

And what rankings will we be referring to? I'm all for not having rankings until mid-October. Let the teams play and do the first voting/calculating on October 15. No more preseason nonsense that gives some teams a downhill grade to start with and others an insurmountable uphill climb. Play 'em out, and then when you have a real idea of who's who, then rank them.

I'm also fine with using some iteration of the BCS rankings...combine computer polls, human polls, etc., an algorithm to include a factor for just dag-nab, awersome the SEC is, ya'll, and then spit 'em out. But to have everyone play to the finish line and then have a committee decide? A committee that will most certainly have sketchy ties to those who run the BCS bowls? It all but guarantees corruption and more lying to college football fans. Just like the previous asinine lies about how a playoff would "ruin" the "tradition" of the Mineke Car Care Bowl or the majesty of the Pinstripe Bowl when two 6-6 teams duke it out. Or that a playoff brings unnecessary expense to fans or interferes with all those exams that these very serious students are taking....between Christmas and New Year's Day, one presumes.

Anyway, the point is, we've been fed blatant lie after blatant lie and I just want to put it out there that I only think it's going to get worse. When an 11-1 LSU team is 5th in the nation and Utah is 12-0 and 4th and the committee decides that LSU should go, we're going to be right back where we were.

And no, I'm not one of those people who says "Well, just like the tournament, wherever you cut it off, the next team will whine." Yes, I know that, but I don't care about that issue. If you don't make it, tough. If the rules/qualifications are clear from the beginning, then you can't bitch when you fall just short. However, the rules on how to qualify for this new, wonderful, unicorn-filled, utopian playoff system are very much not clear. It's the same crap -- everyone play hard and maybe you'll get rewarded.

Only now, instead of knowing that you absolutely must finish #1 or #2, you don't know what you have to do. Win a conference title but finish #5? Go undefeated but be in a certain conference? Pay off the committee? Who knows?

The ESPN article lists the following as things the committee will consider:

The committee will consider win-loss record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and whether a team is a conference champion.

Wow. So W-L record is easy. Strength of schedule is hard. Are we talking a computerized, defined, hard-to-argue strength of schedule? Or those Doug Gottleib-type graphics where someone like him (think Mark May) decides what's a good win and a bad loss?

Head-to-head results? Uh, what? Like if the #5 team has beaten the #4 team, the #5 team gets selected? That's weird and if that's indeed what that means, it doesn't sound like it's too likely to happen often. Or do they mean the committee will look at opponents that teams being considered have in common? Who knows?

And, of course, there is the perceived importance of winning your conference title. I suspect this is here just to keep conference commissioners happy as well as those who think it's stupid for Alabama to be in the position to win a national title when they didn't even win their division within the SEC, much less the conference. (Yes, I know they were great -- but they lost on the field to a team that shouldn't have had to play them again.)

So there you have it! It's all so simple! A committee will make a decision.... and so all those sycophants currently chirping -- "Finally, it will be decided on the field!" -- are actually wrong. It'll be decided on the field after who gets to go onto the field are hand-picked.

Yeah, sounds like heaven.

The BCS Is A Cartel

I meant to mention this a couple of weeks ago when it came out, but I'm slow, as you all know. Dan Wetzel and  Austin Murphy collaborated on perhaps the best article I've seen in SI in a very long time. Unfortunately, everywhere I click to link you to it, I get a "bad gateway" error message. Perhaps the BCS cartel has firebombed SI's server.

If you get a chance to read the article, wherein Wetzel and Murphy detail why the current system is such a screw job. You may be surprised to learn it's not just a screw-job to the fans. It's also a money-losing proposition to almost every school. One of their examples was an OSU appearance in a BCS game -- a money-gainer, to be sure, right? Wrong.

For a summary of some of their points, go to Rock Chalk Talk here or visit your dentist's office and read a hard copy of SI. You'll find yourself getting really, really angry. Even if you like the bowl system, you'll be pissed at the way the schools get screwed over.

And then once you've done that, check out this great column from Murphy, where he details some of the pissy/nonsensical responses he's gotten from those in power with the BCS.

Calling it a cartel is awesome, because that's what it is. The argument that it would lessen the regular season just isn't true. Just as the wild card doesn't lessen the baseball season, a small playoff (8 or 16 teams) would only keep more fan bases involved and excited. An upset in your rivalry game could mean getting into the playoff mix. A loss by a #4 or #5 team over Thanksgiving could suddenly drop them out of the mix. Point is, there would still be excitement for a lot more teams.

Alabama, for example, lost two games earlier this season. And for them, winning a national title is the goal... so their season was essentially over. How is that exciting? Because they may get to ruin Auburn's season? Whoop-dee-do.

As you know, I could go on about this forever, but I'll let you read the much, much, much better works by Murphy and Wetzel.

Counterpoint: The BSCS

We presented you with a scenario that involves conference champions (well, some of them, anyway) yesterday. Of course, we know there's "no perfect solution," as the BCS sycophants repeatedly tell us

So I go back to the solution I proposed in December 2007, the arrogantly titled Boiled Sports Championship Series.

To recap, I simply proposed that since everyone thinks the rankings are so critical and, as currently constituted, make the regular season so incredible, that's fine -- we'll keep the rankings. The top six in the BCS go into the playoff -- the rest of the schools out there continue to be invited to play in the meaningless bowls they currently play in. Yes, it'll still be fun for a 6-6 team that eeked in (like we all hoped the Boilers would have). No, it won't diminish these bowls.

We'll also provide first-round byes for the number 1 and 2 teams in the playoff -- thus further ensuring that the regular season means every bit as much as it currently does. So here's what you have... the top six in the BCS are as follows:

1. Alabama
2. Texas
3. Cincinnati
4. TCU
5. Florida
6. Boise State

Yes, Oregon, Ohio State and G-Tech and Iowa miss out. So what? They miss out in the current system, too, and I don't think you can make much of an argument that any of those programs deserve to be in the discussion. They all had their shots at a special season and they all found ways to botch it. The Top 6 did not.

As I said, 'bama and Texas get byes into the semi-finals.

Cinci (3) plays Boise (6) in the Sugar Bowl the weekend of 12/26.

TCU (4) plays Florida (5) in the Fiesta Bowl the weekend of 12/26.

Let's just say for argument that Boise beats Cinci and TCU beats Florida.

The weekend of 1/2/10, Alabama (1) plays (6) Boise State in the Orange Bowl while Texas (2) plays TCU (4) in the Rose Bowl.

And then the following weekend, 1/9/10 (right around when the current national title game is played), the finals occur between the winners of those two semi-final games.

Can you honestly tell me this wouldn't be a better scenario than what we currently have? Is it perfectly fair? Of course not. But who said the goal had to be perfection? I think this would be damn close to "perfection" based on the excitement it would generate.

I tend to agree that 16 teams are far too many. I don't care if BYU (14 in BCS) or West Virginia (16) think they could hang -- it doesn't matter. They aren't close to the top. Nobody would cry about injustice if three-loss teams don't make it.

Yes, I realize this doesn't factor in conference championships -- who cares? Why should that matter? Unless we realign all of college football with 6 or 8 major conferences, there's no way to level the playing field. There are going to be strong conferences and there are going to be weak conferences. So let's just use the rankings system to determine the seeding and then let those guys play it out.

Just take a look at the BCS rankings! This scenario pits the six teams that are clearly the most deserving. Five unbeatens and 1-loss Florida. Everyone after 6 has major flaws on the resume.

Point is, no matter what scenario you like, almost anything is better than the current setup. For those who care about parades and tradition -- why can't those peripheral traditions continue? You rotate who hosts the semi-finals and national title game every year and each bowl remains happy. You're adding 1-2 games to the season for these teams, at most.

It's fun to dream, isn't it? Because that's what this all is -- dreaming.

BCS Continues Wearing Opponents Down

In a fairly quiet story on Weds night, the Mountain West Conference signed an agreement that they would behave and go along with the BCS for at least the next four years.

This is significant because if we're ever going to get a better system -- one that isn't a national punchline by the end of an otherwise terrific sport's season -- conferences need to fight the good fight. Even if they're the Mountain West. Fighting for an equitable system by teams and universities is what is needed. Not the rambling and ranting by fans and media types. That does no good. Actual schools need to stand up to this nonsense. And the Moutain West kind of was, but eventually wore down. I at least enjoyed the quote:

"... The Mountain West believes it has no choice at this time but to sign the agreements. If a conference wishes to compete at the highest levels of college football, and the only postseason system in place for that is the BCS, no one conference can afford to drop out and penalize its football programs and student-athletes."

In other words, "we think this royally sucks, but we don't see a victory in sight and we'd rather not punish our student-athletes."

None of the "big time" conferences were interested in fighting it because, hey, they were all somewhat fairly represented. You win a major BCS conference and you're likely in a BCS bowl game and if you're lucky and the stars align just right (and Penn State loses to Iowa), you've got a shot at a national title. That sort of thing.

Oh, and you schools stand to make gobs and gobs of money. Because, as usual, that's what it's all about. Which is what continues to be infuriating about the BCS -- a logical, sound, reasonable, manageable playoff of some kind (really, almost any kind of playoff) would rake in just as large gobs of money, if not more.

But this is college athletics, where common sense never wins out and the silly notion of old traditions do.... at least when they're convenient traditions.

College Football Playoff News (You Think I Didn't Like Delaney Before?)

It's been documented here that I'm not a fan of Big Ten dictator...errrrr, commissioner, Jim Delaney. Delaney has had his foot in his mouth more in the last year than any other person in a similar post across the NCAA sports landscape. Plus, our conference's officiating (in football AND basketball), that has been among the nation's worst is still weathering a storm that Delaney allowed to happen. All that said, he may be coming up on the biggest embarrassment of his mistake-riddled tenure at the BT.

Both he and Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen have made it clear that their "grand ole conferences" are both opposed to any form of a playoff in college football. Now, the other BCS conferences might have enough weight to finally get a system approved that utilizes two of the four major bowls as a semi-final in such a tournament...and the biggest part of the story is that the other conferences are sick of hearing Delaney's rhetoric (as am I) and might just not make it mandatory for all of the conferences to participate. If there is a college football playoff and the BT and Pac-10 decide to keep the integrity of the Rose Bowl by not getting involved in such a tournament, I will completely be on board for Purdue's new coach, current AD and others petitioning to leave the oldest collegiate sports conference...or, demanding that Delaney be ousted so someone with less of a Napoleonic complex take the helm of what used to be the best conference in America.

I've said it before, Delaney is a fool...but he's really foolish if he thinks his posturing and chest-beating is going to keep D-I playoff football from ever occurring. ESPN's big bowl contract might keep any of the heads from speaking in favor of a playoff (on camera), and Delaney and Hansen might not want it, but the fans, players and majority of the coaches want it. It will eventually happen...The question becomes "Does the conference have the foresight to have a leader who is humble enough to be a part of the change?" If not, we might see the Big-10 moniker be numerically incorrect yet again...this time because of defections.

Lastly, does he really believe that Ohio State can't compete v. the SEC because of the Big Ten's academic standards (check out the link above again, if you missed it)? His statement smacks of the hubris and elitism that has propelled my hatred for UND...furthermore, it makes me more of a proponent of Delaney's departure atop the Big Ten. You'd think his wingtips would have already gagged Jim to the point that gaffes like this couldn't occur.