Guidelines for fixing the Bowl Championship Series
James Mason
Issue date: 10/14/05 Section: Sports
Once upon a time in college football, the AP poll was the law of the land. The writers who covered the games for their collective papers chose the champion, and everyone was happy. Fortunately, for those of us who love a little controversy, the ESPN/USA Today/Coaches/The Triangle (just kidding) poll was created and controversy soon followed. Having two polls created a chance for two teams to claim to be champion at the end of the year, since there is no playoff format in college football. However, a solution was found, presumably by some math majors with way too much time on their hands.
The solution was the Bowl Championship Series, which started in 1998. The BCS is responsible for selecting the participants in the Sugar, Fiesta, Rose and Orange Bowls. Each year, one of these bowls will host the National Championship game. The game participants are the top two teams from the BCS poll. The original poll, used until the 2004-05 season, used a team's poll average, computer ranking average, schedule rank, number of losses and a quality win component. This formula forced teams to schedule harder games, instead of the cream puff non-conference games many BCS conference schools schedule. This also increased the pressure on teams to win every game. Seems simple enough, right? However, in 2003, USC was ranked first in both human polls but finished third in the BCS. LSU and Oklahoma, ranked first and second, respectively, in the BCS but second and third in the human polls, squared off in the BCS title game. The AP poll, reluctant to participate in the BCS anyway, used this chance to select USC as champion after it won the Rose Bowl, giving us dual champions once again. The BCS folks decided to change the formula, removing the loss, quality win and strength of schedule component from the formula, in an effort to ensure the top two teams in the polls were the top two BCS teams.
Not only does this eliminate the need for teams to play tougher schedules, giving us thrilling games like the Texas vs. Ohio State game this year, or the Virginia Tech vs. USC game last year, but it made the BCS poll worthless. Worst still, it didn't even end the controversy. When Texas went to the Rose Bowl instead of Cal, the traditionalists were in an uproar over the disruption of the traditional Pac 10 - Big 10 Rose Bowl match-up. Even though Texas proved they were supposed to be there and Cal proved they were a fraud, enough damage was done. The Coaches Poll became more heavily scrutinized, the AP pulled out of the formula and the Harris Interactive poll, whose voters gave Idaho some top 25 votes in their first poll, replaced the AP poll (raise your hand if you knew Idaho even had a university, let alone a football team. Maybe we need a football team here after all.) Needless to say, the BCS is in disarray. Fortunately, I have a solution to fix the BCS, and it doesn't involve a playoff.
The solution was the Bowl Championship Series, which started in 1998. The BCS is responsible for selecting the participants in the Sugar, Fiesta, Rose and Orange Bowls. Each year, one of these bowls will host the National Championship game. The game participants are the top two teams from the BCS poll. The original poll, used until the 2004-05 season, used a team's poll average, computer ranking average, schedule rank, number of losses and a quality win component. This formula forced teams to schedule harder games, instead of the cream puff non-conference games many BCS conference schools schedule. This also increased the pressure on teams to win every game. Seems simple enough, right? However, in 2003, USC was ranked first in both human polls but finished third in the BCS. LSU and Oklahoma, ranked first and second, respectively, in the BCS but second and third in the human polls, squared off in the BCS title game. The AP poll, reluctant to participate in the BCS anyway, used this chance to select USC as champion after it won the Rose Bowl, giving us dual champions once again. The BCS folks decided to change the formula, removing the loss, quality win and strength of schedule component from the formula, in an effort to ensure the top two teams in the polls were the top two BCS teams.
Not only does this eliminate the need for teams to play tougher schedules, giving us thrilling games like the Texas vs. Ohio State game this year, or the Virginia Tech vs. USC game last year, but it made the BCS poll worthless. Worst still, it didn't even end the controversy. When Texas went to the Rose Bowl instead of Cal, the traditionalists were in an uproar over the disruption of the traditional Pac 10 - Big 10 Rose Bowl match-up. Even though Texas proved they were supposed to be there and Cal proved they were a fraud, enough damage was done. The Coaches Poll became more heavily scrutinized, the AP pulled out of the formula and the Harris Interactive poll, whose voters gave Idaho some top 25 votes in their first poll, replaced the AP poll (raise your hand if you knew Idaho even had a university, let alone a football team. Maybe we need a football team here after all.) Needless to say, the BCS is in disarray. Fortunately, I have a solution to fix the BCS, and it doesn't involve a playoff.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Howard Dudley
posted 10/30/06 @ 4:04 PM EST
One problem with your solution: It still exlcudes the 53 teams that are not members of the BCS conferences. I don't care what you say about stregnth of schedule, any systems that makes it impossible of over half of the teams in college football to compete for the national championship is illogical and unfair. (Continued…)
michael z.
posted 4/06/10 @ 7:39 PM EST
Excellent article. I have several suggestions on how to fix the BCS as well. If interested, check out my post at: http://thepolesposition.com/2010/04/05/fixing-the-bcs-aka-the-bowl-conspiracy-series/. (Continued…)
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