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With no chance for outsiders, BCS system remains bogus

By Brian Burwell
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Published: December 2, 2011 - 11:05 PM
ST. LOUIS: The snake oil salesmen who perpetrate the grandest hoax in American sports will be at it again this weekend, spritzing perfume on the pig that is the so-called Bowl Championship Series and expecting us to believe the final games of this regular season are part of the pageantry of college football.

Part of the hoax is how players, coaches, media and fans are preparing to wage debates about the outcome of championship games in the SEC, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12, and pretend this is what makes major college football scintillating. The truth is, no matter how much the apologists rave, this is a phony championship system rigged against any schools from non-BCS conferences.

That’s how the BCS can create a system that pretty much guarantees a rematch of LSU versus Alabama in its “championship” game regardless how this weekend plays out. That’s how it is conceivable that unbeaten LSU could lose to Georgia in the SEC championship game today and still end up atop the BCS final rankings. That would then set up the “dream” rematch to decide major college football’s so-called national champion between two teams that failed to win their conference.

Since we’re already on that subject, it seems that I am a part of a controversy in the SEC because of some good old-fashioned Internet mischief regarding Alabama coach Nick Saban. In a Wikipedia article making the rounds in SEC country, when Saban was the coach at LSU in 2003-04, just before playing Oklahoma (which was blown out in the Big 12 championship game) in the 2004 BCS title game, he was alleged to have said “Anyone who doesn’t win their conference has no business playing in the national championship game.” According to the Wikipedia article, the quote was taken from a column I was supposed to have written on Dec. 8, 2003, titled “Saban ready for Oklahoma.”

Man, that’s a great quote isn’t it?

There’s only one problem with it. There’s a good chance Saban never said it, because I have scoured the Post-Dispatch archives and my personal computer and office files and failed to find this quote in any article I ever wrote, or for that matter in the column that was listed as the source of the supposed quote.

Oh how I wish it was legitimate, but it seems to be a fabrication.

The best quote I can find from Saban that I can verify was from a column I wrote after interviewing Saban at a press conference before the ’04 BCS championship game. Saban was championing the idea of a playoff system, in this case a so-called “plus one” system touted in a Nike ad that would have pitted the winner of the Rose Bowl (USC, which was ranked No. 1 in the polls before the bowl game, but didn’t make the top two in the BCS rankings) playing the winner of the Sugar Bowl in a winner-take-all, legitimate national-title game.

“Use some kind of system that you call the BCS, or whatever, that takes four teams or eight teams,” Saban said. “But I think it’s important to keep the bowl system that we have right now. ... You know, I have a tremendous respect for the system that we have ... [but] the system is not equipped to handle three teams at the top, and that was the case this year.”

The system in place now is not equipped to handle three teams at the top or five or six or seven teams at the top, or any other combination you can come up with, because as long as one of those teams is a non-BCS conference team, that team has no chance of vying for the title.

Sports is supposed to be the fairest environment you’ll ever see. We race, we jump, we hit, we throw. We keep score. We measure. We record the winners and losers. May the best team win. But that simple rule seems to apply everywhere in our sports culture but in major college football.

The BCS apologists cling to the mantra “Every game counts.” It’s all part of the propaganda that the regular season is college football’s championship playoff system. They will tell you that the regular season is the lengthy elimination round that sets up their bogus “championship” game. Yet as best as my doddering old mind can recall, if the regular season is supposed to eliminate teams, then Alabama is already out of the hunt since the two teams already played earlier in the season and ’Bama lost 9-6.

The trouble with this potential matchup — or any matchup that the BCS ends up with — hasn’t changed since the whole scam was concocted years ago.

It’s about opinions. The route to a national championship game shouldn’t be about opinions. And it shouldn’t be up to pollsters or computers to determine who belongs in the BCS championship. There’s no chance that unbeaten Houston will get within sniffing distance of the championship game.

So that’s why I am back to rooting for chaos to wreck everything. By the end of the weekend, I am hoping that No. 1 LSU gets blown out by Georgia, and that Oklahoma State, No. 3 in the BCS rankings, crushes Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game.

What would be great is if by the time the weekend is over, even after the BCS announces its bowl pairings no matter what they are, the Associated Press writer’s poll comes out Monday and has a top fivethat doesn’t look anything like the BCS rankings.

Why can’t we have a crazy weekend that gives Oklahoma State, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Houston or Boise State legitimate claims on the top two slots? Whatever causes the most possible damage to the validity of this bogus system, that’s what I’m rooting for.

Freak:

'Tis the season to bash the BCS. Unfortunately, the only people with any real power to change it - namely the TV networks and the BCS universities - have no real reason to change anything. It's a money-making machine, no matter how much people dislike it.

Dan Wetzel, the national sports columnist for Yahoo! Sports, wrote an exhaustive piece recently calling the BCS program illegitimate and saying it essentially holds the game hostage.

Great summary"

Understand this, though: No matter what it says, the BCS is not a system designed to choose a championship matchup. It is merely a tool to stave off the inevitable playoff bowl directors fear will cut into their millions in tax-free profits, a casino-style distraction to placate the masses.

Wetzel references a straightforward analysis by UC Irvine statistics professor Hal Stern, who is by no means a college football expert. But, as Wetzels says "the laws of math may not matter to – or even make sense to – the BCS administrators. Anyone wonky enough to rank college football with math, though, does get the sanctity of numbers..."

I was really impressed that he included analysis by Bill James, who is one of my all-time favorite sports writers, though he doesn't really identify himself as a writer, more of a statistician (actually, a sabremetrics expert).

James said Stern is right - the BCS formula is a smokescreen.

“Stern’s analysis was clearly right,” said Bill James, the baseball statistics maven whose work was highlighted in the book and movie Moneyball and backs Stern’s call for a BCS boycott. “This isn’t a sincere effort to use math to find an answer at all. It’s clearly an effort to use math as a cover for whatever you want to do.

“It’s just nonsense math.”

Now that's bad enough, but Wetzel goes further. Check out his follow up to James' statements:

And that’s if the nonsense is accurate. The truth is, no one knows. Five of the six computer rankers protect their formulas, claiming proprietary rights to their algorithms. They refuse to share the formula with anyone, including the BCS, which, as such, is incapable of checking on the accuracy of the rankings.

Repeat: Absolutely no one has any idea if the weekly BCS standings are true. No one. And they don’t seem to care.

Only Wes Colley makes his formula public, which allows outside review. Last season, his rankings twice were found inaccurate because of improper data entry. Some of the scores he used weren’t up to date.

I'll admit, I've never been a supporter of the playoff system in college football and my reasons are two-fold, neither rooted in logic or anything. First, I love the bowls. I love that BG has a chance to go to a bowl every year because I've had three incredible experiences going to bowl games with my son.

Second, I just don't enjoy college basketball. And I just have a gut feeling that a playoff system will make college football feel to much like hoops with all the March Madness stuff.

But if we're going to crown a national champion in football, something has to change because the current system has gone from being ridiculous to just plain embarrassing.

I agree 87...the ones making the money certainly will do whatever they can to protect that money. Thanks for posting excerpts from all those articles.

1987alum wrote:
I'll admit, I've never been a supporter of the playoff system in college football and my reasons are two-fold, neither rooted in logic or anything. First, I love the bowls. I love that BG has a chance to go to a bowl every year because I've had three incredible experiences going to bowl games with my son.

Second, I just don't enjoy college basketball. And I just have a gut feeling that a playoff system will make college football feel to much like hoops with all the March Madness stuff.

I have never understood the first argument. There is no reason you could not still have bowls and a playoff. You would take only 16 teams away. The Meineke Bowl does not lose value because there is a playoff.

I think the second argument makes some sense. I could care only a little amount less about the rest of college basketball outside of BG until the tournament. However in a college football tournament where you need to basically win your conference or be in the top ten rankings to get in, where there are only 5 total at large bids, the regular season would surely matter. Especially if you make it only one at large bid per conference.

Well, I guess I'm thinking that if there were a 16-team playoffs plus bowls for the rest, the bowls would become like the NIT.

The regular season in football would still matter unless we went to a system where there was a playoff bracket for each conference championship, like basketball. As it is, eithere there is one winner, or the top team from each division play to determine the winner. If you don't do well in the regular season, you stand no chance of getting into the playoffs. In basketball, and even in hockey, the season is a warm-up to the end of season tournaments. A team could tank all season, get on a hot streak, and make it to the NCAA tournament.

1987alum wrote:Well, I guess I'm thinking that if there were a 16-team playoffs plus bowls for the rest, the bowls would become like the NIT.

I still think you can frame a system where the Bowls are integrated into the playoffs system. The top four (Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange) could be the quarterfinal games on New Year's Day, getting back to the old Bowl system that was MUCH better. Then semifinals at the two of the same sites, alternating each year and the National Championship at a neutral site moved around like the Super Bowl. How could this not make a TON of cash???

Here is a question. Would you rather as MAC champion play Arkansas St or Alabama. What is going to be more memorable? What would be more important for exposure and recruiting? I think going to Tuscaloosa for a chance to win and go on is something I would remember for my entire life. i am not sure the same case can be made for Mobile.

1987alum wrote:Well, I guess I'm thinking that if there were a 16-team playoffs plus bowls for the rest, the bowls would become like the NIT.

They already are. Nobody gives a damn about them except for the teams and fans involved. They're meaningless "rewards" for mediocre seasons.

College Football is one big joke, and personally I'm sick of it. The teams at the top all cheat or are involved in some sort of scandal. More than half the teams in it have no chance of competing because the system doesn't allow them to. The entire thing is about making money for the big schools while teams at the MAC level continue to bleed money with little to no benefits to be seen from it.

As for comparing football to basketball I think you're misplacing your blame, '87. The reason why the regular season of hoops is so meaningless is because all the conferences (except the Ivy League) have decided to take the extra bucks and crown their champion based on a conference tourney. A tourney in which EVERY team gets in. If the automatic tournament bids went to the regular season champion, or the conferences eliminated berths in their conference tourneys (I'm thinking maybe only 4 teams), the regular season would gain a whole lot more excitement/meaning.

The bottom line, AFAIC, if you're going to award a national title you have to do so in an environment where ANY team that wins all their games can win the title. The way football currently stands that is not the case, and that is pathetic.

hammb wrote: As for comparing football to basketball I think you're misplacing your blame, '87. The reason why the regular season of hoops is so meaningless is because all the conferences (except the Ivy League) have decided to take the extra bucks and crown their champion based on a conference tourney. A tourney in which EVERY team gets in. If the automatic tournament bids went to the regular season champion, or the conferences eliminated berths in their conference tourneys (I'm thinking maybe only 4 teams), the regular season would gain a whole lot more excitement/meaning.

But Brian, doing what you want to do is just plain mean. I mean (no pun intended), just because these kids play the game they should be rewarded with a trip to their conference tournament. Just like every kid that plays in little league now gets a trophy. What would happen to the psyche of our players if we didn't reward them with a trip for trying?

<end sarcasm>

If I were the MAC commissioner, I would tell all schools "Schedule as you want. Just make sure you keep the first week of March open for the conference tourney. We'll see you in Cleveland!" The only time you would see another MAC team might be a rivalry game (BG v. Toledo, Kent v. Akron, Miami v OU) and when everyone gets to Cleveland. Basically you would have the Non-conference schedule, the Conference Tournament, and hopefully post-season play.

hammb - I hear you. Your points make sense.

but ... and this goes to Globetrotter's post as well ... my feeling about the bowls is different. A post-season game against Alabama would be great, memorable, even. But what are the chances fo that happening? BG hasn't won a MAC title since ... um ... well, point made.

So there's no playoff game vs. Alabama.

From my perspective, the memories from Mobile are priceless. I went there twice with the Falcons - one exciting victory, one mind-numbing defeat - and came back with memories to last more than a lifetime. I'd take two trips to Mobile (and one to Detroit, for that matter) over the faint chance of playing a powerhouse in a playoff game.

As for hoops ... I know that I'm about the only sports fan on the planet who doesn't get amped up over March Madness. Really, I just don't care about college hoops - regular season, conference tournaments, the Big Dance. None of it holds much allure for me.

I follow the Falcons from a distance, watch them on TV whenever possible (which isn't often, outside of the women's tournament appearances), but that's about it.

College football, OTOH, I'll watch just about any game anywhere.

I dunno. I loved going to the three aforementioned bowl so much that my perspective is hopelessly skewed, I know.

Should division one college football ever seek having a true National Championship. It would have to include the foundation of Conference Champions. Why? Because that is the first step, win your conference. Yes, there would be teams from various conferences who may well be able to best those champions, especially in the early going. Yet in time, more and more parity would prevail. It is this parity, that the BCS is dead set against. At the end of the day, this will never happen. Making it not worth the wasted breath. A new modified divisional bracket system will likely arise. One where average attendance, stadium size, maybe budget size or some such system will determine the new top level of D1 football, one which excludes the usual suspects.
I for one, find it foolhardy to read about BGSU going to a bowl. The Bowl games are proven worthless at the level where this school competes. Costing well over 100k to participate, and returning no tangible recruiting advantage. This is all about winning the MAC. That is where a MAC fans focus needs to be. The rest is just three card Monty.

Falcon1970 wrote:Should division one college football ever seek having a true National Championship. It would have to include the foundation of Conference Champions. Why? Because that is the first step, win your conference. Yes, there would be teams from various conferences who may well be able to best those champions, especially in the early going. Yet in time, more and more parity would prevail. It is this parity, that the BCS is dead set against. At the end of the day, this will never happen.

The we have the money why should we help others get a peace of it philosphy is my least favorite in all walks of life. You get to that tournament a couple times in 5 years suddenly you are a recognized shcool and you can build. Would mean much more in terms of exposure adn you could develop a more competitive team.

Seeing 6-6 Florida taking on 6-6 O$U on Jan 2 is sickening. Neither team was even .500 in their conference. But, O$U will sell a ton of tickets and the Gators have about a 90 min drive to Jacksonville. It's all about the jack.

hammb wrote:

1987alum wrote:Well, I guess I'm thinking that if there were a 16-team playoffs plus bowls for the rest, the bowls would become like the NIT.

They already are. Nobody gives a damn about them except for the teams and fans involved. They're meaningless "rewards" for mediocre seasons.

College Football is one big joke, and personally I'm sick of it. The teams at the top all cheat or are involved in some sort of scandal. More than half the teams in it have no chance of competing because the system doesn't allow them to. The entire thing is about making money for the big schools while teams at the MAC level continue to bleed money with little to no benefits to be seen from it.

As for comparing football to basketball I think you're misplacing your blame, '87. The reason why the regular season of hoops is so meaningless is because all the conferences (except the Ivy League) have decided to take the extra bucks and crown their champion based on a conference tourney. A tourney in which EVERY team gets in. If the automatic tournament bids went to the regular season champion, or the conferences eliminated berths in their conference tourneys (I'm thinking maybe only 4 teams), the regular season would gain a whole lot more excitement/meaning.

The bottom line, AFAIC, if you're going to award a national title you have to do so in an environment where ANY team that wins all their games can win the title. The way football currently stands that is not the case, and that is pathetic.

Well said, Hammb.