Analyzing ‘Death To The BCS’ : Chapter Eight

Our ‘Death To The BCS’ series trudges on slowly but surely. Halfway home in our breakdown of the book penned by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan, a great read that explains in detail what a sham the current Bowl Championship System really is.

Our goal is to provide a Cliff Notes-type version of the book for those who don’t have the time to dive in, all in effort to fire up college football fans, forcing all of us to demand more out of this broken, money-driven, flawed system.

Last up, Chapter Seven : Myth Of The Dead Bowls. Today’s read, Chapter Eight : It’s Always Some Team Getting Screwed.

– The 2006 Rose Bowl pitted Southern Cal against Texas in what was being billed as an attempt at a “Threepeat” for the Trojans, having won the 2005 Orange Bowl and 2004 Rose Bowl. The OB was the official BCS title game. but the Rose was a case where USC, the AP’s top-ranked team, squared off against fourth-ranked Michigan, while the BCS title game (2004 Sugar Bowl) had LSU playing Oklahoma for the championship, which the Tigers won.

LSU fans were disgruntled with the media’s “Threepeat” chatter and a diehard Tiger, a twenty-six-year-old Internet consultant named Steve Cospolich, began an email change voicing his displeasure.

By the time the Longhorns beat the Trojans, Cospolich and some friends launched Onepeat.com – a site with a simple graphic and a PayPal button, encouraging folks to donate money for a billboard in Los Angeles. Within ten days over $10,000 has been raised by college football fans nationwide.

The message in the end; any national championship needing ten thousand dollars and a billboard for legitimacy probably isn’t worth a damn, anyway.

“It’s always some team getting screwed,” said Cospolich.

– The Onepeat.com folks raised $11,625 – more than enough to hang a billboard on 39th and Figueroa, next to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and kitty-corner from the USC campus. The tagline on the billboard read; “Shouldn’t Dynasties Win More Than One?”

Some of the leftover money was used for a car-hauled advertisement that drove around ESPN’s headquarters (in Bristol, CT), reminding the network how lame the “Threepeat” talk was.

The final $2,625 went to Hurricane Katrina victims.

– As of 2009, of the twelve national championship games since the inception of the BCS, there have been at least seven questionable match ups. (Same could be said for Alabama / LSU this year or Auburn / Oregon last year.)

– The top two teams are determined by coaches who vote along political lines – Harris Poll electors with obvious political biases – and computers whose influence is neutered by the restrictions the BCS places on them.

– In 2005 Southern Cal thrashed Oklahoma, 55-19, in the biggest blowout in BCS title game history, while Auburn tore through the toughest conference in the country, finished the season undefeated and was left out of the mix.

“It still kills me,” said Tommy Tuberville, coach of the 2004 Auburn squad that finished 13-0. “I coaches (as an assistant) in five national championship games at Miami. I knew what kind of team we had at Auburn. We beat five top 15 teams that year. USC and Oklahoma played three total between them. It’s just so much politics.”

– A big issue; preseason polls. When 2004 kicked off the Trojans were No. 1 with the Sooners at No.2 while the Tigers were a respective No. 17 and No. 18 in the polls.

With all three undefeated during the regular season, there was no way the voters were going to let Auburn leapfrog either traditional powerhouse, no matter how impressive the Tigers looked.

– The day after the 2004 Sugar Bowl, where Auburn knocked off Virginia Tech, Tuberville flew to Miami the following day for the Orange Bowl, where he held a presser to lobby voters to think twice about the Tigers’ efforts. One AP voters used his vote to put Auburn No. 1, but that was it.

“This has created, and will continue to create, a lot of problems when you have people determining a mythical national championship through polls and not having everyone play it out on the field,” Tuberville said in his speech. “It’s unfortunate that people won’t get to see it played out like it should.”

– Oklahoma lost the Orange Bowl and years later Southern Cal had the win vacated due to a cheating scandal. In the end, Auburn is still the only undefeated team from 2004, yet no title was awarded retroactively.

– “I was dead right,” said Tuberville. “Sometimes I’ll sit there and think, ‘You will be the only team in the history of college football to go 13-0 in the SEC and not play for a championship.’ I think we could’ve beaten USC. We’d played them hard the previous two years. We would have given them a game.”

– The first true BCS mess came in 2000 when the BCS chose Florida State over Miami to take on No. 1 Oklahoma in the 2001 Orange Bowl, even though the Hurricanes were ranked higher in the human polls, having beating the Seminoles during the regular season.

Miami worked over No. 7 Florida in the Sugar Bowl, while Florida State fell to Oklahoma, 13-2 in the Orange Bowl, with the world not getting the deserved Canes / Sooners match-up it should’ve.

– A year later Miami was the unanimous No. 1 and went on to face a No. 2 Nebraska team that didn’t even win the Big XII after getting rolled at Colorado, 62-36. A few upsets moved the Huskers back to the number two spot in the BCS, while Oregon remained fourth, despite being ranked second in the other polls. Ducks head coach Mike Bellotti was livid.

“I liken the BCS to a bad disease, like cancer,” said Bellotti. “Not to take anything away from Nebraska or Colorado – they’re great football teams – but one has two losses and the other didn’t win their conference championship. We’re No. 2 in both polls, but those things don’t have a lot of merit, obviously.”

– A similar story in 2003 when top-ranked Oklahoma was schooled by Kansas State in the Big XII title game, 35-7, yet still got the BCS title game nod over one-loss Southern Cal.

– “We basically have a system for college football that too closely resembles the old Soviet Presidium,” said Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun. “You have a … politburo that’s decided if you aren’t one of those party members, then you’re unable to participate.”

– In 2009 there were five teams that entered bowl season undefeated; Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, Texas Christian and Boise State. The Crimson Tide beat the Longhorns for the title while the Bearcats, Horned Frogs and Broncos were shut out. (TCU and Boise State were forced to slug it out against each other in the Fiesta Bowl, instead of getting pitted against major conference teams, getting a win and shaking up the system, a la undefeated Utah upsetting Alabama in the Sugar the year before, while Florida won it all.)

“There’s really no true champion with the system that’s in place,” said Utes head coach Kyle Wittingham. BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall followed up saying, “A change is imminent and necessary.” Florida head coach Urban Meyer, whose team won titles in 2006 and 2008, was to the point when stating, “You’ve got to blow it up and start over,” despite the system working to his advantage … twice.

– In 2009 the AFCA (America Football Coaches Association) claimed that 73 percent of coaches liked the current system, despite what coaches are saying. The AFCA also only offers a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reply and doesn’t offer or mention a reasonable alternative. In other words, 27 percentage of coaches think the BCS is such a disaster that they’d rather have nothing.

– Next up; Chapter Nine : Cowardice and Cupcakes.

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