Give us change, Barack
Utah's whupping of mighty Alabama, if nothing else, has generated yet another round of fierce arguments nationwide on how unfairly the top teams in college football are annointed. The undefeated Ute's have become exhibit A in, as the New York Daily News' Mike Lupica puts it:
. . .why the BCS is the dumbest system ever invented to produce an eventual champion in any major sport.J.C. Hagen at Bleacher Report makes a passionate argument that the Utes have kicked open the door definitively for non-BCS teams:
We need to stop calling them stunning upsets. We need to change our perceptions and expectations. We need to evaluate teams fairly and objectively so we can stop being "stunned" when this happens.Unfortunately, college football is about traditions, particularly the tradition of making obscene amounts of money. Mark Purdy at the San Jose Mercury points out that any proposed reforms to the BCS process are doomed simply because bowl game TV ratings have been crummy as it is. "Not at the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl, maybe. But at the Orange Bowl, definitely."
Purdy figures adding more games will only dilute the viewership more:
It would be fun to see Utah play the winner of Thursday's BCS title game between Florida and Oklahoma. It would be the fair thing to do. And it would be logical, in broader terms, to set up a simple eight-team post-season tournament that would guarantee no such beefs. It also would be the most impractical, counterproductive and risky thing the NCAA could do.Stewart Mandel at Sports Illustrated confirms the ratings problem. Even if Utahns thought the Sugar Bowl was a Trojan War-caliber matchup:
The Utah-Alabama Sugar Bowl garnered a 7.8 rating, an 11 percent increase from last year's Georgia-Hawaii game. Even so, the game ranked seventh-lowest among the 45 BCS games played to date.And in the end, the Mountain West seems to be dismissed as a flyover zone. A New York Times analysis of the University of Texas' potential role in the BCS mess, for instance, somehow misses the point:
If Southern California’s thumping of Penn State planted a few more seeds of doubt about whether the two best teams are playing for the national championship next week, Texas would not mind dumping a mound of fertilizer on that notion Monday night, when it plays Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.You have to scroll down another 10 paragraphs to see Utah's special delivery of manure to the BCS even mentioned.
Back in November, you'll recall, Barack Obama talked in detail about a change that could make him the most popular man in Utah:
Eight teams. That would be three rounds to determine a national champion. It would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.
3 Comments:
I agree with Barack. We definitely need a playoff system to determine the fair champ. True there would be some risks to the college players, but if these guys are going pro eventually, they're going to need the experience of a playoff postseason. Their bodies will be better equipped to deal with the rigors of a pro postseason. I don't know that Utah would have beaten Florida (assuming they're the champs), but I'm a hopeful person. GO UTES!
Once again the greed and hate of the football powers that be has been exposed. Sure, we could let Utah play the winner, but we are worried about TV ratings, which means advertising revenue, which of course we won't share in any way with the atheletes. Why are TV ratings down? Two reasons: Way too many bowl games so that by the time the good matchups roll around people are burned out. So, with all do respect, a few of these bowl games may need to be dropped.
Second, people are tired of seeing Ohio State or some random SEC team get better bowl games than undefeated mid-major teams, only to get exposed. Nothing against Ohio State, but they were probably not one of the best teams around this year. So in short, fewer bowl games, and see some new blood.
He'd have my vote. (And I voted for Bush, Hatch and {more recently} Schanze.)
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