macdaddy's Journal: My BCS gripe

Note: I would have selected the journal Topic "Football." Oddly enough it wasn't an option... ;-)

I have a gripe, and it's a big one. This particular gripe is with the college football ranking system and bowl selection system. In short I believe the current system is a scam. Tell me this, how can the number one college football team in the nation, USC, not play in the national championship? How can the number 3 team, OU (O Who?), play in their place? Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a USCOU fan either. I'm a K-State fan. That's right. I have a Wildcat tattooed on my ass, and I like it. I'm a fan of the team that was ranked 15th last week, K-State. I'm a fan of the team that played the team that was ranked number 1 last week, OU. I'm a fan of the team that beat the living hell out of the number 1 team in the nation, at least they were last week. That's right. #15 K-State whipped the living shit out of #1 OU 35-7. Oh hell yeah! Who's your daddy?! If your a O Who fan, you probably don't know. ;-P Let me just say one more thing before I get back on topic. Bob Stoops REALLY looked like he needed a dip REALLY badly at the end of the 3rd quarter. If you don't know what I mean by that then this will be utterly lost on you.

Last week's #1, OU, was completely and utterly trounched by #15, K-State. It wasn't like OU wasn't there to play. They scored on their fourth play. OU just couldn't K-State's running or passing game. OU's offense couldn't handle K-State's power house of a defense. OU was simply bested by the better team, the team that went to Arrowhead to win. That ass-whoopin' dropped OU to number 3 and raised K-State to #8. Why is it that OU is still playing in the Sugar Bowl, this year's championship game, then? I'll tell you why. It's because some computer in up-state New York thought they should be. USC whipped Oregon State Saturday by 24 points. This win ensured USC the number 1 spot in the nation. However no one ever expected a BCS computer to decide that since OU played 1 more game than USC that OU was the better team. Opps! Bend over USC. Now you know how we K-Staters feel. The BCS jackasses have been screwing us for years. Strength of schedule my ass. How many times have we had the number 1 defense in the nation? This year we have the nation's leading rusher. The BCS always treats us like their midwest bitch.

USC was voted number one in the nation by the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll AND the Associated Press' media poll. You remember what coaches are don't you, BCS people? They are the people who really know what teams are the best in the nation. Try not to forget that.

USC is the number one team in the nation. The Rose Bowl is this year's true National Championship game, once again. The BCS is now truly a joke. Now everyone realizes this. We K-Staters have been saying this for years, as has others. Now the nation knows it too. How exactly can a supposed number 1 team be number 1 and yet not even win their conference? Strike that, how can they be number 1 if they thoroughly got their asses kicked in their coference game? Bye bye BCS. The BCS ranking is a joke. The best should be decided by playoffs. That's the only fair why to play the game. You'll be gone very soon BCS, and we couldn't be happier.

"Strength of schedule my ass."

[Tickenest]

Why?

What does it mean for a team to be "the number one team in the nation"? Does it mean they're the best team? Does it mean they've gone the longest without a loss?

If we've trusted the BCS formula (note that I didn't say "trusted a computer" since that's not how the BCS works) to tell us who the top two teams in the country are, why don't we just go all the way and have the formula decide the national champion?

And isn't it kinda absurd to take a sport where you have 117 teams playing for one champi

You hit the nail on the head.

[smyle]

You've got it.

"Number one team" as you see in the papers (not the BCS) is based on polls - one of them of coaches, the other of sports writers (presumably people that really know how to assess a team).

The BCS "formula" is technically a secret, but given the number of possible inputs and seeing what it has spit out, it's been reverse-engineered with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Here's the rub: in the BCS formula, it takes into account "strength of schedule." However, the polls also take strength of s

Re:You hit the nail on the head.

[macdaddy]

I agree. Playoffs are the only way to go. I vote that the conference winners play each other in the playoffs. I suppose it's possible that the real #1 and #2 teams could be from the same conference. I don't have a solution for that problem. Ideally you wouldn't have any trouble but you can't count on that. If the I-A conference champs played each other in a Final-12 playoff race of sorts then I think we would have a much more fair outcome. Perhaps a couple wildcards could also be allowed that the coa