It’s that time of year again, folks! It’s time for every college football analyst and Monday (or should I say Sunday?) morning quarterback to sit back and voice his baritone displeasure with the BCS bowl system.
Yup, it’s time to recline and ridicule. Undo a notch on the ol’ belt, crack open a cold one and lace into that wretched debacle.
Collective grumblings from the nation: “The Bowl Championship Series is a joke. I’ve seen kids with better rules and bylaws in a playground football game.”
“I don’t know which is a bigger joke — hiring a Neanderthal as our president or allowing this cruel charade called the BCS to continue to sap the life force out of college football.”
“Why don’t we just figure out a computer system to govern our people, too? Let’s not stop at ruining college football, let’s f*** up our entire way of life.”
Yes, the BCS postseason system sucks. Yes, it needs to be changed. Instead of griping about how illegitimate it is and how much I want to take it and wrestle it to the ground like a demon cobra, I would rather figure out some alternatives to the system.
There have been a number of people who have suggested an eight-team single-elimination tournament following the end of the regular college football season. I like this idea, but there are a few problems that could arise from it.
No. 1 — The season would stretch two games longer for a few teams, and that is widely opposed by a number of university presidents. Their reasoning is that the athletes are already missing too much school as it is. Well, the majority of the games would be played during the Christmas holiday, so you can throw that right out the window. Still, to mitigate the amount of time that athletes miss school, the NCAA could cut the regular season down to 10 or 11 games.
No. 2 — If you totally scrap the BCS system, the AP and USA Today poll would likely have to be averaged to determine who went to the tournament. The best solution would likely be to keep the current system and change the postseason format. Allowing the “best eight” teams in the country to compete for the title instead of the “best two” would give teams more of an opportunity to state their case instead of a computer.
No. 3 — College coaches often complain that too many players could be injured if games were added. Again, cutting the regular season back would help deter this possibility. Also, conference championship games would likely have to get discarded. I’ve heard others suggest a 64-team tournament similar to what they use in college basketball. The argument behind this is that more teams would have the opportunity to win the championship if the field was extended.
This suggestion is (for lack of a better word) stupid. Having that many games at the end of a season would surely exhaust players, which would open the door for even more injuries. Then you have to consider the fact that most teams then allowed into the tournament wouldn’t deserve to be there.
Another legitimate suggestion I’ve heard of is a plus-one format, where the BCS games would be played as normal, and then the two most convincing winners would meet in a game to determine the overall champion.
I like this method a lot because it allows the same number of teams (eight) a chance at college football’s most coveted trophy. It still relies too much on the opinion of a few unintelligent old sports writers and the progeny of Bill Gates.
College football’s ultimate champion should be decided by the players on the field, not by some clown up on media row who gets a free meal with every game (not that I’m complaining).
Ultimately, the best possible replacement for the current system would be something similar to the eight-team tournament. The sponsors would still get paid, players would have control over their own destinies once they got into the tournament and I would finally be happy.
After all, isn’t my happiness what’s important here?
