Football teams are playing under a flawed system
Posted by The Skyliner on February 17th, 2010Julie Cobb
Staff Writer
Screaming fans, marching bands and big hits are all signature elements of college football, one of the greatest sports in American history.
All fans look forward to having their favorite team make it to the national championship game, but few are able to explain how the two lucky teams get there.
The national championship and four other bowl games are determined by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Trying to interpret the BCS rules and regulations is almost as difficult as interpreting the United States Constitution.
The BCS takes into account the number of losses, strength of schedule, polls of the Associated Press writer and coaches, polls from seven computer ranking systems and how many top 10 teams a team has defeated. All the sections are added up and the two teams with the lowest numbers are chosen to play for the national championship title.
While it may sound like a good system, there are several flaws. According to the BCS website, the BCS is “managed by the commissioners of the 11 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly Division I-A) conferences, the Director of Athletics at the University of Notre Dame, and representatives of the bowl organizations. The conferences are Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, Pacific-10, Southeastern and Western Athletic.”
In other words, the BCS is run by a group of people with personal agendas in mind. The major conferences, like the South Eastern Conference and the Atlantic Coastal Conference, are favored and smaller schools are pushed to the side.
There have been several complaints regarding the BCS system, but the cries of the public are drowned out by the sounds of pockets being lined with money. For example, in December of 2009, the Fiesta Bowl was accused of encouraging employees to give donations to political candidates.
The BCS has too much room for error. A playoff system, instead of a ratings system, would be more impartial and rational.
In 2008, then President-elect Barack Obama stated his own concerns over the BCS and proposed his own plan.
“I think it’s about time we had playoffs in college football. I’m fed up with these computer rankings and this, that and the other. Get eight teams — the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a national champion,” he said.
A playoff system would look a lot like March Madness, the process used to determine the winner of the national championship in college basketball.
March Madness takes the top 64 college basketball teams and places them into four different brackets. Once a team loses, they are out of the tournament. The two remaining teams play for the national championship.
However, the BCS committee is very much against a playoff system.
“My colleagues and I on the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee have discussed the future of postseason football on many occasions and we do not believe a playoff would be in the best interest of the sport, the student-athletes or our many other constituencies,” said David Frohnmayer, chair of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee.
While the committee may think that the BCS is in the “best interest of the sport,” they are wrong. The BCS is flawed and needs to be sidelined.
Tags: Spring 2010, Vol. 110 - Issue 4