First BCS Rankings

You really think Utah last year -- which kicked the shit out of Alabama by the way -- wouldn't have been able to make it to the national title game and perhaps even win it?

You are kidding yourself.

 

Utah would have never gotten a chance to prove it, because under the 8-team system favored by most fans, the WAC champion wouldn't been in the field to begin with.

 

Yes, they would have been the first wild card in the field. There would have been six BCS conference champs and two wild cards -- Utah would have been one of them.

 

Exactly. And if they're not legitimate, they'll get the asses handed to them in the first round of that 8 team playoff. But, either way, we'll know, because they had the opportunity to prove it on the field. That's immensely preferable to this system.

And btw, mystery meat, it ain't just the "mid-majors" that get screwed over by the current system. Seems like every year year at least one team gets in that game by little more than a coin flip over another that was equally deserving. Last year it was Texas that got the shaft, they beat Oklahoma by the exact same margin as Florida, their only loss was on the road on a last second play to a top 10 team, Florida's only loss was at home to Mississippi. So how was Texas any less deserving of being in that game than Oklahoma and Florida? They lost their shot at a national championship essentially by a coin flip. Someone gets screwed like that nearly every year.

And comparing it to the system we had before is a bullshit argument. Obviously I'm not advocating a return to that. Instead, the comparison is to a playoff system the way football champions are determined in every other college division, high school association and professional league in existence.

 

Um, Boise State was last year's WAC champion. Utah won the Mountain West.

 

Feel free to settle. I won't. And, hopefully, everyone else who realizes that the high-and-mighty have widened the gap between themselves and the Great Unwashed with these ignorant systems won't, either.

No one does this in the NCAA basketball tournament. The little guys are allowed to play ... even the No. 16 seeds who get fed to Kansas, Chapel Hill, Duke and Michigan State every year. Why should football be any different (BTW, the "they would play more games" argument will not work. NCAA keeps stretching to allow more regular-season games, so somehow, it's pretty doubtful that they're overly concerned with "student-athletes" missing class or study time).

 

Maybe, but it would have been the very rare exception, and I'm not certain they would have taken Utah as one of the two wild-cards. Alabama would have definitely been one of them and I could see Texas getting the other over the Utes. Oh, and WAC-MWC, what's the diff (LOL). ;D

 

One of the many reasons the BCS is such horse shit is the power rankings seem to overrate the strength of the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Big Ten every year and those teams seem to benefit in terms of getting overrated in the BCS standings, even in years when those conferences are down.

And like I said before, the argument that the system makes the regular season more relevant is bullshit as well.

 

Alabama, coming off a loss in the SEC title game would not have been one of them. Perhaps USC and Texas, though I think it would have been Texas and Utah.

 

Nonsense. An 8 team playoff would not shut out the 1 or 2 non-BCS conference schools each year that have a legitimate claim. It would not have shut out Boise State in 06, who absolutely proved in the Fiesta Bowl vs. Oklahoma that they belonged. It would not have shut out Utah last year, who absolutely proved in the Sugar Bowl vs Bama that they belonged. Those teams deserved a fair opportunity at the title.

 

Sam, I would be all for a D-1 playoff if they would set it up like the NCAA hoops tournament. Make it a 24-team or 32-team field, give the champions of all 11 D-1 conferences an automatic bid, plus 13 at-large teams (21 if you make it a 32-team field) based on the BCS rankings (or whatever you want to call them), and make it a true national tournament. I'm all for it. But I'm not in favor of some elite 8-team (or even 16-team) field that locks out the little guys.

 

A 16-team playoff -- with 11 champs and five at-larges would not "lock out" the little guys