Analyzing ‘Death To The BCS’ : Chapter Ten

Our ‘Death To The BCS’ series trudges on slowly but surely. Just over 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 Nine : Cowardice and Cupcakes. Today’s read, Chapter Ten : Diluting The Regular Season.

– At the end of the 2009 NFL season, the Indianapolis Colts chose to protect players rather than chase a perfect season, sitting stars down the stretch and prepping for the playoffs. The efforts shows that the quest for ‘perfect’ was pointless and it was all about winning the Super Bowl. This is obviously something The Cartel latched on, building the argument that how long before college teams start ‘throwing’ games and resting players, once a spot in the college tournament (playoff) is set?

There are dozens of reasons this would never happen in college football, but The Cartel still chose to exploit the Colts for the sake of their argument. There is no way it’d ever make mathematical sense for a team to sandbag games if there were a playoff. Games would matter even more at this point.

– BCS executive director Bill Hancock sent out a press release, arguing this exact point. “[The Colts’ decision] does offer a real-life illustration of what an NFL-style playoff could do to college football’s regular season,” Hancock wrote, before going on to argue against the laws of arithmetic.

– In reality, the chances for sandbagging are far greater under the current system than in The Cartel’s world. Because of the small number of teams competing for conference and division titles, the disproportionately large number of league games, and record being the only factor in determining league supremacy, it’s common for teams to clinch either a league title or a berth in their conference title game with one or two regular-season appearances to spare.

For teams that lost early in the season and have no shot at making the BCS title game, the pinnacle has been reached — either a BCS bowl bid or a shot at a conference-championship game that earns them a chance at a BCS bowl. Technically, nothing would prevent them from resting starters in the final week as it could mean the difference between the Insight Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl.

– In 2009 the Ohio State Buckeyes had wrapped the Big Ten title and guaranteed a bid to the Rose Bowl. But with two losses, had no shot at the BCS title game entering their annual showdown with rival Michigan. By Hancock’s reasoning, the game was meaningless and an ideal time to sandbag … but the Buckeyes went all out against the Wolverines as they’re a hated rival. Georgia Tech and Central Michigan were in similar situations and did the same in their finales.

– Under a college football playoff system, the likelihood of tanking is virtually infinitesimal. A playoff eliminates the problem and if the BCS wants to do away with this, the first step is to stop with the automatic bids to BCS games (for conference champions), instead basing all selections on final BCS standings.

– The regular season is a huge issue for The Cartel, so when an argument rings hollow, it uses half-truths and misdirection, all in effort to make the BCS look prudent next to other sports. For example, The Cartel tries to sell the notion that NCAA college basketball and March Madness is a mess.

“You look at college basketball, and I would say there’s probably one must-see game during the regular season, Duke-North Carolina,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told USA Today.

Again, one of the most powerful men in sports is comparing two sports that are wildly dissimilar.

– The NCAA men’s tourney boasts a field of sixty-eight, making it fairly easy for major schools as the six big conferences have seventy-three teams playing basketball. Between automatic bids and thirty-seven at-large spots, they compete for forty-three available slots in the NCAA Tournament. That means 58.9 percent of major programs can potentially make the field.

Those same six conferences have sixty-six football teams, including Notre Dame. A maximum of eleven teams (16.6 percent) could make a playoff, making football’s regular season a survival of the fittest.

– Basketball teams play between thirty and thirty-four pre-NCAA Tournament games — nearly three times the size of a football schedule, automatically diminishing any single result. Teams play as many as four times per week, which also weakens the build-up to any one game. Archrivals also face each other two – or even three – times a year, not once, like in football.

Conference tournaments also allow a last-chance shot at an automatic bid for even cellar dwellers and for teams that succeed in the regular season, the tournament rewards higher seeds marginally. No home-court advantage and only a slightly easier tournament draw, that after the first round (or two) is a wash.

– The Cartel’s notion that “every week of the season is a playoff” is nothing more than a marketing line. Which regular-season game eliminated Boise State, Cincinnati and Texas Christian from the 2009 playoff? None. Who knocked Utah out in 2008? Nobody. What sort of playoff system leave out an undefeated team from the nation’s best conference, as happened with Auburn in 2004? The elimination of unbeaten teams doesn’t fit most definitions of a playoff.

– In 2001 Colorado pasted Nebraska by twenty-six points in the regular-season finale and the Cornhuskers still played for the national title (losing to Miami) despite not owning the Big XII conference title. Two years later Oklahoma lost the Big XII title game by twenty-eight points yet still advanced to the BCS Championship game.

– A real playoff brings meaning back to September, adds excitement to October and turns November into a footballpalooza, where otherwise-obscure games draw widespread interest. Smaller conferences would benefit (suddenly the MAC title game is worth watching as the winner becomes a first-round upset candidate) and the big ones, as well (the ACC title game, always plagued by weak attendance, low ratings and irrelevance now matters with a playoff).

– The chase for five at-large bids would create a national free-for-all. There would be dozens of games, all intertwined, with the fortunes of every bubble school shifting by the possession, creating a crescendo of college football, all before the truest action begins in December.

– “You’d have a horrible argument over those [at-large bids],” former Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen told Dennis Dodd, of CBSSports.com. A horrible argument coming from a great obstructionist talking about horrible arguments.

– Even with five undefeated teams heading into bowl season, the 2009 regular season was a snoozer. All of the perfect teams played uninspired schedules and the only intrigue came from upsets and the SEC title game between Alabama and Florida. One Saturday in November, none of the top nine teams in the BCS standings were less than a twenty-three point favorite in Vegas.

– Delany stated, “I don’t want to see the regular season turned into a seeding process,” yet he’s all right with I-AA opponents and less-than-compelling match ups.

– By seeding the teams and offering home-field advantages to the best eight, the push to get to the top would create a secondary market of must-watch games.

The Top 2 would have the right to host through the national semifinals and Top 3 would assume a traditionally easier first-round match-up, against the Sun Belt, MAC and Conference USA champions. The Top 4 would get at least two home games and the Top 8 one.

Each step of the ladder is one more goal to pursue, one more race on which fans and followers would fixate. While it seems impossible to make games as Ohio State-Michigan, Auburn-Alabama, or Florida-Florida State more exciting, the fight for seeding would add a new dimension.

– A playoff would just add opportunity or excitement to the post-season — it would invigorate the regular season.

– Next up; Chapter Eleven : Nonsense Math.

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