BCS. WTF?

[midranger]

Okay. The penultimate BCS standings are out, and barring severe craziness, we'll land in the Rose Bowl with no chance at the National Championship. That's great and all, but..... look at the computer rankings.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bcs

How are we #4 in two of them and out of the top-10 in two more? Who has Stanford beat? A four loss Arizona team? How in the hell are we behind so many 2 (Arkansas, Oklahoma, LSU, Missouri, Nebraska), and even 3 loss (Alabama, Texas A&M) teams in so many of those damn rankings? Seriously. Does beating Texas or Florida or USC give you "Super Secret Bonus Points" regardless of how **** those teams are for the year? How are we behind Boise **** State in one of them? Did they beat a #1 ranked team? Is Nevada a better loss than MSU?

The lack of transparency in these computer rankings is distressing to say the least.

[crkone]

Coley Matrix (12th in computer ranking):

http://www.colleyrankings.com/matrate.pdf

The BCS has demanded in recent years to take margin of victory out of the computer rankings.

[MickeyDavis]

What a freakin joke that nerds determine who plays who and who gets to play for the "title".

[midranger]

You mean Ph.D. level statisticians shouldn't determine football championships?

[trwi7]

What a freakin joke that nerds determine who plays who and who gets to play for the "title".

You'd think that Northwestern would always play for the title.

[Flames24Rulz]

This system needs a total rehaul -- starting with abolishing the damn thing altogether and going to a 16 game playoff.

[El Duderino]

This system needs a total rehaul -- starting with abolishing the damn thing altogether and going to a 16 game playoff.

I think an 8 team playoff would be enough

[Turk Nowitzki]

This system needs a total rehaul -- starting with abolishing the damn thing altogether and going to a 16 game playoff.

16 teams is too many. 8 would probably be sufficient.

[MickeyDavis]

If you did 8 you could keep the current bowl system. The top 8 would be in the 4 major bowls. Then you would have the 4 winners meet in the semi's and then the championship game.

One argument I've heard against playoffs is that the players would miss extra time from school and that extra games increase the chance for injury (this is actually what Michael Hunt argued a few weeks ago).

With an 8 team playoff using the current bowl system only 4 teams would be playing extra games. 2 would play 1 extra game, 2 would play 2 extra games. Big deal. And students are off most of January anyway. And how many days of school do basketball players miss? They play a lot of weeknight games on the road.

[humanrefutation]

I generally am in favor of a playoff over the current system. I just think the wear and tear on the teams will be a problem if you add possibly 4 more games to their current schedule with a 16 team playoff. That's why I'm fine with 8.

As to the argument about school, I just don't see why the impact of a playoff would be any more dramatic than the normal week-to-week schedule. They'd be playing weekly in a playoff, probably, which is the same as they do now, so that wouldn't change. Do finals get effected? Sure, but midterms, papers, and other assignments get effected by the regular season in the same manner. You could take two or three weeks off for finals, and start up again around Christmas and go over winter break for the playoff, which is when the bowls are usually scheduled anyway.

And, for the sake of consistency, what about the NCAA Tournament? What about basketball games? I never hear complaints about the academic impact of the basketball tournament or basketball regular season, and I'd argue that impact could be far more dramatic because of how often the teams play during the week.

[chuckleslove]

If they do an 8 team playoff they would need to eliminate the automatic qualifiers. If they still had an AQ bid from the 6 major conferences then this year you would have the following playoff teams(assuming the top teams win next weekend):

Auburn
Oregon
TCU
Stanford
Wisconsin
West Virginia
UConn

I personally would rather see a 12 team playoff with the top 4 BCS standing AQ conference champions getting a bye in the first round, given current standings that would give you a bracket that looks like this:



If you had an 8 team playoff you would still end up with MSU and OSU being screwed, I just don't see any way the major conferences would do a playoff without at minimum the conference winners getting an auto bid to the playoffs.

I gave the top 6 seeds to the AQ conference winners, just seemed like the most realistic solution that I could actually see them agreeing to. Have the 4 second round games be at the site of the current BCS bowls and then figure out how you want to do the semi finals and the championship game, maybe have them rotate amongst the BCS locations or have it at a new location where the BCS championship game moves around similar to the Super Bowl.

[chuckleslove]

I generally am in favor of a playoff over the current system. I just think the wear and tear on the teams will be a problem if you add possibly 4 more games to their current schedule with a 16 team playoff. That's why I'm fine with 8.

As to the argument about school, I just don't see why the impact of a playoff would be any more dramatic than the normal week-to-week schedule. They'd be playing weekly in a playoff, probably, which is the same as they do now, so that wouldn't change. Do finals get effected? Sure, but midterms, papers, and other assignments get effected by the regular season in the same manner. You could take two or three weeks off for finals, and start up again around Christmas and go over winter break for the playoff, which is when the bowls are usually scheduled anyway.

And, for the sake of consistency, what about the NCAA Tournament? What about basketball games? I never hear complaints about the academic impact of the basketball tournament or basketball regular season, and I'd argue that impact could be far more dramatic because of how often the teams play during the week.

Even worse than basketball is how much school college baseball players miss.

As for the school and injury concerns, the smaller divisions do a playoff system and those students actually all have to go to class and get good grades because none of them have dreams of making it in the NFL.

[Scoops]

8 is too few. You'd leave a bunch of 1-2 loss teams out of it and while it'd be infinitely better than what there is now there'd still be a ton of controversy. Don't get why a lot of people prefer 8 to 16...don't the lower divisions have a 32 team playoff?

[chuckleslove]

8 is too few. You'd leave a bunch of 1-2 loss teams out of it and while it'd be infinitely better than what there is now there'd still be a ton of controversy. Don't get why a lot of people prefer 8 to 16...don't the lower divisions have a 32 team playoff?

Division 3 does for sure but they also only play 10 regular season games so its 10 games + 5 for playoffs which is 15 max. A BCS school will play 12 regular season games, a conference title game and then a bowl for 14 max.

Here is the division 3 bracket if anyone cared

http://static.psbin.com/u/9/rh7qyqtiiv8 ... et2010.pdf

[trwi7]

Then do 16 teams. In that case you pretty much cover all the one loss teams. Most games played is 16.

I agree that 8 is too few.

[chuckleslove]

Then do 16 teams. In that case you pretty much cover all the one loss teams. Most games played is 16.

I agree that 8 is too few.

I'm fine with a 16 or a 12, I think with a 16 in most years you are going to start dipping into 2 loss teams and then you will have some controversy over which 2 loss teams to take or not, though at that point if you have 2 losses you have no right to bitch and moan. I sort of like having the 12 team playoff because it gives a bonus to people who win their conference and most likely have no losses in a bye. Hell in 2009 the 16th ranked team was Oregon St in the final BCS poll with 4 losses.

I'm personally driving the 12 team playoff bus but I would be just fine with a 16 team playoff too.

[El Duderino]

If they do an 8 team playoff they would need to eliminate the automatic qualifiers. If they still had an AQ bid from the 6 major conferences then this year you would have the following playoff teams(assuming the top teams win next weekend):

Auburn
Oregon
TCU
Stanford
Wisconsin
West Virginia
UConn

I personally would rather see a 12 team playoff with the top 4 BCS standing AQ conference champions getting a bye in the first round, given current standings that would give you a bracket that looks like this:



If you had an 8 team playoff you would still end up with MSU and OSU being screwed, I just don't see any way the major conferences would do a playoff without at minimum the conference winners getting an auto bid to the playoffs.

I gave the top 6 seeds to the AQ conference winners, just seemed like the most realistic solution that I could actually see them agreeing to. Have the 4 second round games be at the site of the current BCS bowls and then figure out how you want to do the semi finals and the championship game, maybe have them rotate amongst the BCS locations or have it at a new location where the BCS championship game moves around similar to the Super Bowl.

If there is a playoff, they should get rid of each conference getting an AQ, it's ridiculous for the Big East to get a BCS bid this year and it would be ridiculous if they got a bid into any playoff format if there was one in place this year.

As for OSU and or MSU being screwed if there was an 8 team playoff this year, so be it. If it was 16 teams, whoever finished 17th/18th would complain that they were screwed also. If UCONN wasn't included given they don't deserve a spot, OSU would be included.

At least with 8 teams, you'd be settling things on the field and especially in cases where say there is only one undefeated major conference team, multiple one loss major conference teams, and any TCU or Boise undefeated types.

[Mags FTW]

What a freakin joke that nerds determine who plays who and who gets to play for the "title".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZEdDMQZaCU[/youtube]

8 team playoff is fine. Have no AQs and pick the top 8 from the coaches and AP polls.

[chuckleslove]

You can argue that there shouldn't be any AQ bids, but I see absolutely no way they wouldn't include them. They include them in every single sport and there is no way the BCS conferences are giving up that money and share of the pie if they go to a playoff system, that is why it needs to be a 12 or 16 team playoff to accommodate the current AQ conferences and make it better for the fans and determining the actual best team.

[ClassicJack]

I honestly would be happy just to see them do a 4 team playoff at this point. The NCAA is so stubborn that I think we are at least 15 years away from seeing them do 16.