I said to myself, self let's see if Jon is right about Boise deserving a shot at the Title.
OU(average by OU standards) 45 Tulsa 0Bosie St 28 Tulsa 21
CollegeFootballNews.com ranks all 120 major college teams. Here is the breakdown for BoiseThey play this year, 7 teams that are ranked between 100 and 120. Their overall average for their 12 team schedule? 90.6. Let me say that again 90.6. So let's blow off their regular season schedule and Tulsa comparison and talk Bowl games.
Last 5 years? 1 win 4 losses. Dominating? Their only win was by 1 point in overtime. Not a great resume' for Boise.
Let's compare vs. oh say Texas. Their average schedule rank is 58.6. They are 4-1 in thier last 5 bowls. Not fair to compare the Big 12 to the WAC? OK. Let's go to that Joke of a conference The Big East. Cincinnati. Their average schedule rank? 58.5. 58.5. Let's look at that again Texas 58.6 - Cincy 58.5 - Boise 90.6. Oh by the way, Cincy 4-1 in their last 5 bowls.
Boise is a joke. They don't belong in the top 10. They don't belong in the BCS. They don't belong in the National Title conversation. I give them credit they beat the best the pac-10 has to offer in the first game of the year, when that team was clearly not playing their best running back.
The BCS works in this case. It Keeps posers like Boise out of the Title game. Thank you BCS!
Chris,
All very intriguing, but utterly meaningless. If ANY team, regardless of strength of schedule (which is dictated TO the school, not determined BY the school), finishes the season undefeated, it is a ridiculous statement to say that "every game counts" or that there is a true national champion out there. I think, secretly, you know this. The fact that SIX other teams finished with records similar to or better than LSU's championship winning 12-2 tells me that every game counts only IF the judges say so, but those judges are pretty fickle. That year several BCS conference champions were denied a chance a the title because they simply weren't ranked high enough.
The FCS division of NCAA football is little better than ice dancing when it comes to crowning a champion. Teams are ranked before the season begins based on educated human OPINION, not performance on the field. Its a beauty contest, pure and simple. Teams are judged before they ever face an opponent. If a great team happens to appear from an unexpected quarter (i.e., the Big 12 north, or the WAC), they face the imposing obstacle of impressing the judges who deemed them unworthy before the season began. If the system "works," then how did Michigan ('97), Tulane ('98), Marshall ('99), Auburn ('04), Utah ('04), Boise State ('06), and Utah AGAIN ('08) all finish unbeaten without a championship? The answer is simple, the "champion" is crowned by vote. The trophy goes to the team VOTED by the judges (coaches, reporters, etc.) to be the best in the country. Just like ice dancing.
I know, I know, computers. What about the computer rankings, you ask? Don't those eliminate the human element? Once again, no. The computers do the same thing the other voters do, they rank teams who have never faced one another on the field based on their subjective programming and spit out a list of who's-better-than-who. Once again, it's a beauty contest.
Equally sad is the "common opponent" argument you routinely fall back on. Although, I do appreciate that you always bring it back to Oklahoma... The first problem with "common opponent" is that teams change all the time, developing for better or worse due to coaching, injuries, etc, at different paces all the time. Who cares if OU punished a team that another school barely squeeked by. At the end of the day, a win is a win. The second and more serious issue is that it undercuts sportsmanship. Common Opponent is a margin of victory comparison. If you're going to use margin of victory as a component to measure a team's worthiness or ranking, you offer incentive to coaches to run up the score on their opponents. (Incidentally, that is the single reason why margin of victory was removed from the BCS formula in the first place!) SO, if no respectable coach will use common opponent, why do you? Sportsmanship matters, which is why common opponent doesn't. No one cares how much stronger OU or Boise State or anyone looked against Tulsa. All that matters is DID THEY WIN?
And while we're at it, let's address the so-called "popularity" argument. If the system is so bad, why is college football so popular? Simply put, it isn't. The overwhelming majority of fans out there screaming their heads off around the country are not fans of NCAA FCS football, they are fans of their local university team. Being from Oklahoma (where football and Jesus are neck and neck in popularity), I know this will be hard for you to understand, but most people could care less about what's going on elsewhere in the country football-wise. I bleed green and yellow, and will gladly watch Oregon play at 1am if I have to because its a west coast game, but that's only because I'm from there. The Ducks are MY team. And that's pretty typical. Honestly, I don't know anyone who watches college football if the game doesn't feature their local favorite or alma mater. As for bowl games, its pretty much the same. I might watch the majors, I might not. I'm not going out of my way to watch anything without Oregon in it. That's for sure. The so-called "BCS championship game?" Yes, I'll watch it, but only because I want to be able to talk about it intelligently with friends. Last year I missed it completely. No big deal. If Oregon canned their football program, would I watch some other teams play? Nope. Do I spend any time watching teams here in the Midwest, like Oklahoma and Missouri, since Oregon isn't often on? Nope. And I don't really miss it.
Compare that with the NFL. The Super Bowl. Ahhh... Football at its finest. Or any other level of the college game, where the champion receives a plaque from the NCAA and knows that NO ONE can dispute their claim. And no one does. Last year in the NFL the Patriots went 11-5 and missed the playoffs. Did anyone cry foul? Of course not! The system works. Last year in the FCS, D-II and D-III the NCAA crowned champions who won their titles on the field. Did anyone cry foul? Of course not! But then there's the Football Bowl Series, where "every game matters" (unless you're from a non-BCS conference, then none of the games matter), but somehow almost every year there's an argument over who should be in the championship game and half the time someone goes undefeated but isn't allowed to play for the crown. Hmm...
Don't get me wrong here, football is an amazing sport, but football is only football. That is, whether its FBS or high school or the NFL, football is football, but the FBS is still the worst system for determining a champions that exists in the game today. Of course it's still popular, its football for crying out loud! That doesn't mean the system works. If anything that proves the greatness of a sport that can survive in spite of its inadequacies. Or perhaps because of the strength of its other
In conclusion, as long as polls exist to determine the national championship game, controversy will continue. It's a lame system. Period. In fact, and there's nothing personal here Chris, but outside of you and Bill Hancock, I don't know a coach, player or fan who appreciates the FCS as a championship format. And frankly, I pity the fool who has to try to defend it. Wait, I take that back. Bill Hancock is no fool. He is, however, highly paid to take a fool's position. What's your excuse?
In 1994, Penn State was moved from 1 to 2 in the national rankings because they put scrubs in during the fourth quarter of a blowout game against Indiana and gave up a couple of garbage time TDs that made the final score look closer than the game actually was. They still won by 6 points, but people who didn't watch the game who saw the score were tempted to believe that PSU actually struggled to win. They went on to finish 12-0 and were voted second in the AP and USA Today polls. Ouch. Had they run up the score some more they'd have won a championship. It was that finish that spurred the Bowl Coalition, which in its failure spawned the Bowl Alliance, which gave way to the current system. The fact that they changed it all signifies that the system didn't work well for producing a satisfactory champion. That they've changed it repeatedly since and 50% of "fans" still want a playoff indicates the further failure of that system.
Having said all that, however, I must admit that there is a playoff-free solution that I'm frankly surprised no one has touted thus far: INTEGRITY. If the BCS would simply admit that all they want to do is guarantee the most money they can for their member schools, and that that money will be used to produce better scholars and athletes--CITIZENS--for the United States, I think they'd hear a lot less whining. All they need to do is tell the truth; that they aren't interested in the fairness or purity of the game as they are about financing the future of the students at their member schools. THAT would sell. People would believe, they would recognize the value of sacrificing the need to crown a true champion in favor of creating a generation of champions that will carry America into the future. Who could argue with that?!
