Would you boycott watching BCS games?

[Globetrotter]

Would you be willing to boycott watching BCS games until the system is more open and fair? A playoff of some sort. All inclusive.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

No, because it would be a useless endeavor. You wouldn't get nearly enough people to do it to make any kind of a dent in ratings.

[Flipper]

I'll bet that if every person who attended a MAC football game (excluding "money games" at BCS schools) in the past five years decided to boycott the BCS "championship" game, it wouldn't produce enough of a dent in the ratings to matter.

[Globetrotter]

What about the MAC, and all the other non BCS conferences>

[Lord_Byron]

Would you be willing to boycott watching BCS games until the system is more open and fair? A playoff of some sort. All inclusive.

No.

[1987alum]

Well, I'm not nuts about a playoff system. But boycotting BCS games wouldn't be that big of a deal, since I don't watch them much to begin with.

[MarkL]

You know, the whole playoff thing really has too many flaws to make it a reality for an incredible long time. The playoff suggestions on this board mean winners of all 11 conferences being in, and the smallest power of 2, or smallest good playoff number, above 11 is 16. 16 teams means four weeks of games. How exactly can we find a four week period where none of the 16 schools will be in classes? Remember the amount of students involved - a bowl game doesn't just involve 85 scholarship players and a bunch of walk-ons for two different teams playing against each other. It also involves a whole lot of cheerleaders/dance team members, 200 - 250 each in two marching bands, plus the thousands of students that would flock to the games. That's an amazing amount of students missing classes - be it finals if the playoffs start early, or the first two or so Fridays and/or Mondays of classes if they start late. I'm just barely going to scratch the surface on where to hold the games because that's a mess of itself - do you transform a traditional bowl game and make it a national quarter-final and thus potentially hurt ticket sales in lieu of fans who would rather take a risk on their team and buy tickets for a later, more important game?
Yeah, a playoff is fair, but its utterly impractical. No matter how much it hurts to say, I do believe the BCS is the best system available now and in the foreseeable future, so I will continue to watch the games because you do get absolutely amazing games there. How can you beat Kansas/VTech, Boise/Oklahoma, or the surprise Gators blowout over Ohio State? Irreplaceable moments that I will never miss.

[moneymaker02]

i'll only boycott watching it if ohio state is playing another sec school because we already know they'll loose by 21 again

[Globetrotter]

You know, the whole playoff thing really has too many flaws to make it a reality for an incredible long time. The playoff suggestions on this board mean winners of all 11 conferences being in, and the smallest power of 2, or smallest good playoff number, above 11 is 16. 16 teams means four weeks of games. How exactly can we find a four week period where none of the 16 schools will be in classes? Remember the amount of students involved - a bowl game doesn't just involve 85 scholarship players and a bunch of walk-ons for two different teams playing against each other. It also involves a whole lot of cheerleaders/dance team members, 200 - 250 each in two marching bands, plus the thousands of students that would flock to the games. That's an amazing amount of students missing classes - be it finals if the playoffs start early, or the first two or so Fridays and/or Mondays of classes if they start late. I'm just barely going to scratch the surface on where to hold the games because that's a mess of itself - do you transform a traditional bowl game and make it a national quarter-final and thus potentially hurt ticket sales in lieu of fans who would rather take a risk on their team and buy tickets for a later, more important game?
Yeah, a playoff is fair, but its utterly impractical. No matter how much it hurts to say, I do believe the BCS is the best system available now and in the foreseeable future, so I will continue to watch the games because you do get absolutely amazing games there. How can you beat Kansas/VTech, Boise/Oklahoma, or the surprise Gators blowout over Ohio State? Irreplaceable moments that I will never miss.

I dont think your arguments hold water. The Bowls could exist exactly as they are today. With the tournament only involving 16 teams for one week that leaves 8 teams to not go to bowls as they are now if we take all the teams after week 1 and put them into the bowl mix. If we take teams from the second week on thats just four and so on and so forth. There is 1 entire month for many teams between bowls their last game....the majority of the games would fit nicely in those weekends. Fans, bands, dance teams and walk ons would not complain as they are a part of history. Your words about loss of ticket sales could not be more unfounded. A playoff would draw fans the way the superbowl and the ncaa tourney does...to be a part of the event. The BCS needs gone ASAP. It is better then what we had but it is entirely unfair for nearly half of the teams in the sport. Your games that you describe as absolutely amazing I would agree. Those games don't suddenly go away with a tournament. Imagine if that amazing game meant that you get to go on and potentially win another and another. All of a sudden you have 15 games with players going on.

Dont forget that the season is extended for only 2 teams for 4 weeks....2 other teams for 3 weeks 4 other teams for 2 weeks and 8 other teams for 1 week. The extension of the season is overstated for all but a handful of teams.

[hammb]

You know, the whole playoff thing really has too many flaws to make it a reality for an incredible long time. The playoff suggestions on this board mean winners of all 11 conferences being in, and the smallest power of 2, or smallest good playoff number, above 11 is 16. 16 teams means four weeks of games. How exactly can we find a four week period where none of the 16 schools will be in classes? Remember the amount of students involved - a bowl game doesn't just involve 85 scholarship players and a bunch of walk-ons for two different teams playing against each other. It also involves a whole lot of cheerleaders/dance team members, 200 - 250 each in two marching bands, plus the thousands of students that would flock to the games. That's an amazing amount of students missing classes - be it finals if the playoffs start early, or the first two or so Fridays and/or Mondays of classes if they start late. I'm just barely going to scratch the surface on where to hold the games because that's a mess of itself - do you transform a traditional bowl game and make it a national quarter-final and thus potentially hurt ticket sales in lieu of fans who would rather take a risk on their team and buy tickets for a later, more important game?
Yeah, a playoff is fair, but its utterly impractical. No matter how much it hurts to say, I do believe the BCS is the best system available now and in the foreseeable future, so I will continue to watch the games because you do get absolutely amazing games there. How can you beat Kansas/VTech, Boise/Oklahoma, or the surprise Gators blowout over Ohio State? Irreplaceable moments that I will never miss.

I dont think your arguments hold water. The Bowls could exist exactly as they are today. With the tournament only involving 16 teams for one week that leaves 8 teams to not go to bowls as they are now if we take all the teams after week 1 and put them into the bowl mix. If we take teams from the second week on thats just four and so on and so forth. There is 1 entire month for many teams between bowls their last game....the majority of the games would fit nicely in those weekends. Fans, bands, dance teams and walk ons would not complain as they are a part of history. Your words about loss of ticket sales could not be more unfounded. A playoff would draw fans the way the superbowl and the ncaa tourney does...to be a part of the event. The BCS needs gone ASAP. It is better then what we had but it is entirely unfair for nearly half of the teams in the sport. Your games that you describe as absolutely amazing I would agree. Those games don't suddenly go away with a tournament. Imagine if that amazing game meant that you get to go on and potentially win another and another. All of a sudden you have 15 games with players going on.

Dont forget that the season is extended for only 2 teams for 4 weeks....2 other teams for 3 weeks 4 other teams for 2 weeks and 8 other teams for 1 week. The extension of the season is overstated for all but a handful of teams.

And nobody complains about a very similar time frame for the NCAA Hoops tourney. Classes are generally in session for most of the schools during that playoff as well.

The kids in school excuse is pretty weak as far as I'm concerned. The only reason why there is not, and never will be, a playoff is money. The big schools control the money in the current set up and they are not forced to share. It ensures that they keep the money and also that no non-BCS schools will ever be able to invest enough in their program to get to that level.

[tekekini]

What about the MAC, and all the other non BCS conferences>

You're an idiot.

First, most (i would say as high as 95%) of people who are fans of non BCS schools are also fans of BCS schools. 90% of those fans are fans of the BCS school first and fans of the non BCS school second.

You can boycott if you wish, but you will be the one missing out on the real football that is played in this country.

Where do you get your useless radical ideas anyways?


Plus, as someone else already said, a playoff as you want it, is not going to happen, it is not feasible for the schools. It only benefits the FOX network or whoever gets the contract to cover the games. It kills the tradition of the bowls, students missing school, costs of transportation is already up 110% + this year, it does not make any sense financially.

The only thing that you might see is a +1 system. where you take the top 4 teams of the BCS final standing and put 1 v 4 and 2 v 3. Winners play each other.

And then in three years you will still bitch because # 5 and 6 got left out when they had the same records as # 2 and 3.

If you have a 8 or 16 team playoff then you will bitch because 9 and 10 or 17 and 18 got left out when they beat someone who is in the playoffs, have the same record, but just didnt win their conference championship.

You will bitch no matter what happens so get over it and enjoy what you do have because it used to be up to the AP and the coaches before. In the pre BCS days nobody had to do anything to earn it. OSU wouldn't have had to have played Florida or LSU. They could have played some shitty PAC 10 team in the Rose Bowl and had won their third national title this year.

Unless, you are a closet OSU fan and that is what you would have prefered?

[MarkL]

I like the comparison to the NCAA tourney, as there certainly are some serious similarities. However, football has a much bigger roster than basketball and draws much bigger crowds to much bigger venues. I just don't see it working out well for all involved anywhere nearly as well as the BBall tournament works. Also, yeah, in a perfect world, we would start the first wave of bowls around Dec 19 - 22, when finals are over, and they'd be done not too far away from when the current championship game is played, but I also don't see that one happening. The early games draw much smaller TV audiences, and that's not just because they generally have smaller teams that fewer people nationwide care about. Its also because they are late evening games when many people still are working, as holiday breaks haven't kicked in yet for most businesses. I would be rather worried that the powers that be in charge of such a system would want to capitalize on the largest viewing audience possible and wouldn't care to start until a few days before New Years. That right there would really destroy January scheduling, as games would go well into the month.

As for the money and not caring about classes ... well, unfortunately, that is a truth that's quickly becoming evident.

Hey ... this is a really good discussion topic, and also relevant. It's pretty easy to tell nationwide that a large majority of fans are sick of the BCS, and even many prominent coaches want a playoff, but the presidents, commissioners, BCS-ers and such don't agree. Here's to keeping this thread on track (haha ... )

[tekekini]

This guy ha sa good argument against it:

"There are lots of reasons why I'm against a playoff. Scope/Mission Creep is certainly a big one. If you start with 4 or 8 teams, it will eventually become a larger field, and it will devalue the regular season.

The NCAA basketball tournament was an 8 team bracket 30 or so years ago. Today, it has ballooned to 65 teams, and there are many coaches who are pounding on the table demanding that it go to 96 or 128 teams. Scope/Mission Creep is unavoidable.

But that's not my biggest concern.
My issue is related to the NCAA's fundamental inability to develop a system whereby the "Best" eight teams make the playoffs. To architect a playoff system for college football today would require so much compromise, consensus building and caveats to get sign off, avoid Anti-Trust Law Suits from small conferences and to include all the appropriate TV Partners that it would create a dramatically more frustrating system than what we have today.

The Compromises:
To create a playoff of 8 teams, the NCAA presidents would have to agree to certain compromises with each other to get the deal done.

1. They would give preferential access to non-BCS teams who met certain criteria. This is done today with the BCS Bowls, and it is done entirely to avoid law suits. There is no way a playoff vote passes without a Boise, Hawaii or Utah having access if they crack the Top 8 or 10 in some sort of poll.

2. They would still give ND preferential access. This is done because the NCAA presidents can't count. They have 119 votes to Notre Dame's 1 vote, but they still cave to ND's demands for no apparent reason other than fear and TV.

3. The six BCS conference commissioners would NEVER sign off on a deal whereby their conference champ was shut out of an 8 team playoff. There would have to be automatic access for regular season champs.
Everyone likes to point to 2004 and say, "See. We need a playoff because undefeated Auburn didn't get to play for the title." I'd like to point you to 2006 and show a playoff won't work.

The final regular season poll from 2006 was:
Bowl Champ. Series Poll 2006:
1. Ohio State (Big 10 Champ)
2. Florida (SEC Champ)
3. Michigan
4. LSU
5. USC (Pac 10 Champ)
6. Louisville (Big East Champ)
7. Wisconsin
8. Boise State (Top Non-BCS Champ)
9. Auburn
10. Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ)
11. Notre Dame
12. Arkansas
13. West Virginia
14. Wake Forest (ACC Champ)
Assumptions:
For the sake of argument, let's swap Oklahoma and Notre Dame.

Let's also assume that Notre Dame gets a waiver for the playoffs that ensures they make the 8 team bracket if they finish in the Top 10. For TV reasons, this is a VERY likely scenario.

Let's also assume that a Top 8 non-BCS conference team gets an automatic bid into the playoffs. This is another likely scenario to avoid lawsuits, and to get the non-BCS conference teams to vote for the tournament.
That means your seeds from the 2006 season would be:
#1 Seed Ohio State as Big 10 Champ
#2 Seed UF as SEC Champ
#3 Seed USC as Pac 10 Champ
#4 Seed Louisville as Big East Champ
#5 Seed Oklahoma as Big 12 Champ
#6 Seed Boise State as top non-BCS team
#7 Seed Notre Dame by virtue of finishing in Top 10 poll
#8 Seed Wake Forest as ACC Champ
Look at who doesn't make the playoffs in that scenario. Michigan (#3), LSU (#4) and Wisconsin (#7) are left out of that bracket. That's a better system than what we have now? One that excludes better teams who are fully capable of winning from participating?

In 2004, the at-large teams in a playoff would've been #4 Texas and #6 Utah. Cal (#5) and UGA (#7) would've been left out of the bracket in favor of #21 Pittsburgh and #13 Michigan (conference champs of their respective leagues). In 2005, #5 Oregon would've been shut out of the playoff system in favor of #22 FSU. And, there are other examples of a #6 or #7 team being shut out of the system for a team ranked sub-10 team.

Is that really more "fair" and less "frustrating" than our current system? Is that really "settling it on the field?" Is that the best way to "discover who is the best team?"

I can't see how.

If you were building a system from scratch to decide a college football champion, you would definitely use a playoff system. Unfortunately, that ship sailed about 70 years ago. We have to recognize the realities of college football today. They would have to build a system that addresses the needs of various constituents with conflicting agendas and historical biases. And committee driven, compromised process won't get you a better end result.

As for a 4 team "Plus 1" system....what good is that? Last year, UGA and USC were likely the two better teams in college football, and they finished 5th and 6th in the final BCS polls. Some sort of polling / mathematical system would be used to see the Top 4 teams in a Plus 1, and it likely wouldn't be very different than the BCS Poll. If last year's team UGA doesn't get to play for the title, then what good is a Plus 1?"

And he is a fan of a team who got the biggest screw job ever - last year's Georgia team.

http://georgiasports.blogspot.com/2008/ ... llege.html

[tekekini]

I like the comparison to the NCAA tourney, as there certainly are some serious similarities. However, football has a much bigger roster than basketball and draws much bigger crowds to much bigger venues. I just don't see it working out well for all involved anywhere nearly as well as the BBall tournament works. Also, yeah, in a perfect world, we would start the first wave of bowls around Dec 19 - 22, when finals are over, and they'd be done not too far away from when the current championship game is played, but I also don't see that one happening. The early games draw much smaller TV audiences, and that's not just because they generally have smaller teams that fewer people nationwide care about. Its also because they are late evening games when many people still are working, as holiday breaks haven't kicked in yet for most businesses. I would be rather worried that the powers that be in charge of such a system would want to capitalize on the largest viewing audience possible and wouldn't care to start until a few days before New Years. That right there would really destroy January scheduling, as games would go well into the month.

As for the money and not caring about classes ... well, unfortunately, that is a truth that's quickly becoming evident.

Hey ... this is a really good discussion topic, and also relevant. It's pretty easy to tell nationwide that a large majority of fans are sick of the BCS, and even many prominent coaches want a playoff, but the presidents, commissioners, BCS-ers and such don't agree. Here's to keeping this thread on track (haha ... )

Actually I see more and more people coming out against a playoff. Only Tuberville (still pissed about being left out) and Paterno (old, senile and craps himself) are crying about it.

[MarkL]

Actually Tek I saw an article a while back ... I wish I could find it, but that would take a while, and it would have been on foxsports.com, sports.yahoo.com, sportsline.com, or espn.com, not really sure which. It stated a bunch of coaches who said they were in favor of at least a plus one - Tressel, Meyer, Stoops, some others too, but the common denominator was they had all won championships in the current system, and they felt it needed fixing. That definitely got me to thinking some about a plus one. That is a system I would be in favor of personally, but without a doubt a four team playoff would soon not be enough.

Phil Steele had an article in the 07 preview about the plus one system. His ideal system would have the bowls take place as they normally would, but with the top four playing each other in the final two BCS bowls, then have those two winners face off weeks later in the NFL bye week before the Super Bowl. Sounds interesting, it would keep some sort of college football happening between the first week of January and national signing day. Not sure I like it, but it was a good read.