Pac 10- We'd Leave B C S Over Plus-1

Arkstfan · July 30, 2007

College football made it from 1869 through 1997 without a mechanism to pit the purported #1 and #2 against each other and had a dang good product.

Right now pretty much nothing is determined on the field in post-season. The pairings are based on the weird voodoo of polls and computer rankings. Then we have this freaky month plus break between games. It is rare for a college team to take two consecutive weeks off in season and now they pause for five weeks or more? Florida went 36 days between their final game and the BCS game, Ohio State went 50 days.

All that is determined is who wins the game between the top two teams according to the voodoo.

So what that there were undefeated teams in Cotton not facing an undefeated team in the Rose? Since the BCS has started I can think of six teams that finished undefeated who didn't get a chance to play in the 1-2 game. I'd rather see the polls split on the champion than have a #3 or #4 rated team that is undefeated be totally shut out of claiming a mythical championship.

Arkstfan · July 30, 2007

What was the worst travisty of the old system was that BYU was a national champion. They played Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. A Michigan team that was 6-5 that year. The problem wasn't that they won the championship, it was that they played a soft schedule and played a bad team in the bowl game.
BCS is better then the old system...but still a far cry from what needs to happen.

That was a weird circumstance. The win over Michigan was BYU's 24th consecutive win. They beat a terrible Pitt team that had gone to three straight major bowls (Cotton, Sugar, Fiesta).

How did BYU get the title?

1. Bad candidates

Only two contenders made it through with less than 2 losses. In the AP the number #2 team was Washington who lost to USC which gave three loss USC the Rose. #3 was Florida who lost to Miami and tied LSU to start the season and was on probation. In the coaches poll #2 was the same #3 was two loss Nebraska who lost to Syracuse and OU, giving OU the Orange Bowl. So the only serious contenders were three teams who had failed to take their conference (Washington losing to USC, Nebraska losing to OU, Florida being declared ineligible).

2. The era

Part of the problem was the era. 1982, 1983, 1984, & 1985 only one team finished a season unbeaten and untied, the 1984 BYU team. That was the era immediately after I-A membership was slashed from around 130-140 to 105. Having the patsies shipped off to I-AA increased losses. How bad was it? Florida State at 7-3-2 was 19th in the coaches final poll (17 in AP), 8-5 yes 8-5 Miami was 18th in the AP.

3. Bowl cowardice.

BYU was contractually bound to the Holiday Bowl. Florida was bowl ineligible and Washington declined a Holiday invite to go to the Orange. Washington had a choice to play the #1 ranked team and turned it down. Nebraska could have gone to the Holiday and turned it down to go the Sugar to play LSU. Boston College turned down an invite to go to the Cotton. 9-2 Oklahoma State turned it down to go to Gator and so on. I think the poll voters were turned off by teams that supposedly wanted to be national champion who refused to go to San Diego to face BYU. Michigan finally took the challenge and they had beaten ranked Miami and had only lost to #2 Washington by 9.

UNTflyer · July 30, 2007

I think the BCS is better than the old days, but I still advocate a playoff system. Even in the pre-BCS days there were split championships.

However, there is NO DISPUTE about who is the NCAA basketball champion... or baseball, or hockey, or lacrosse.

A playoff system would remove all doubt from football.

Arkstfan · July 30, 2007

I think the BCS is better than the old days, but I still advocate a playoff system. Even in the pre-BCS days there were split championships.
However, there is NO DISPUTE about who is the NCAA basketball champion... or baseball, or hockey, or lacrosse.
A playoff system would remove all doubt from football.

There is no dispute who won the tournament, doesn't mean there still isn't talk about who was better. Villanova was 1-3 vs. Georgetown the season they won the NCAA Tournament over Georgetown. Most would contend that Houston was the better team and would have taken a best of series against NC State.