The BCS is evil and must be destroyed.

The BCS Is Evil and Must Be Destroyed

Originally posted 12/08/04

This is an old, tired argument. I realize I am beating a battered gong when I bark at the moon for a playoff system in Division I-A college football, but someday, someone sitting in a university president’s office will listen to the hordes of us that continue to bellow.

The real question with the BCS is how the SuperConferences managed to coerce the mid-level conferences to buy into it. How many legs were broken? Whose teeth were smashed? This is an ugly and sordid affair and it is vile beyond words.

How the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big Twelve, PAC Ten, and SEC duped the rest of the country’s colleges into allowing them to dictate who is allowed to be the national champion is a conspiracy worthy of both Mulder and Scully.

Why do these conferences get to set themselves up for the most prestigious bowls and why are the other conferences ecstatic to fight like dogs over the scraps they’ve left? It’s sickening.

This season, with its five undefeated teams, will undoubtedly end with more than one undefeated team after January 1st. There will be more than one team who will be able to claim, and rightfully so, that they are the national champions. All a team can do is play the team put in front of them and as long as they beat every one of those adversaries, why shouldn’t they be able to claim to be national champs.

Especially, when the BCS system denies each of those schools the opportunity to play off.

As I said, this is an ancient argument, which has been rolled over a gad-zillion times. The BCS conferences claim that they have absolutely no plans to go to a playoff system. Why? Because it keeps their schools rolling in the bowl money and their schools atop the national rankings.

Utah is getting screwed. Auburn is getting screwed. Boise St. is even getting screwed.

But I have a solution.

And it is in no way dependent on the SuperConferences making a change of heart, which is good, because we all know that they don’t have hearts anyway.

No, my plan is dependent on the mid-level conferences and most importantly the MAC. The Mid-American Conference has, over the last fifteen years, produced great teams. Teams that rocked major college programs across the country. Bowling Green, Marshall, Miami of Ohio, and Toledo have all been to bowl games in recent years.

Participation, if not outright leadership, in the playoff system by the MAC is essential to ridding the world of the foulness of the BCS. The MAC is the largest non-SuperConference and perhaps they believe that with continued stellar performances, they too will be allowed to eat at the big boy table on New Year’s Day. If they believe that the BCS schools will play fair and let them in, they need to give Urban Meyer and Utah a call. It’s not going to happen.

What needs to happen is the non-BCS schools, the conferences not guaranteed a BCS berth by winning their respective conferences, need to show some self-respect and drop out of the BCS nonsense. The MAC, Conference USA, the Mountain West, the Sun Belt and the WAC need to come to an agreement—and start a National College Football Championship Tournament. Let a national championship be determined on the field.

Oh, I know what you’re saying, that’s a pipe dream. Nobody would respect the "also-rans" National Champ, but the Tournament would make huge money. And it would deplete the non-BCS bowl field to nothing. If they want to spend the money and gain the recognition Bowl games bring, they can sponsor playoff games or perhaps all of the sponsors could go in together and sponsor the whole thing. Saving money galore, while getting the publicity and prestige spread out over an entire month.

The fields can be determined by the polls too. Allowing the Tournament the option of inviting all of the BCS teams the opportunity to turn down the possibility of taking part and ruling themselves out of the real National Championship. When these teams decline, teams will be bumped up and slotted to fill the brackets. Each playoff (or Bowl game, if you want) will generate a ton of money all to be split among the schools in a negotiated contract. With more bowls, more excitement and a true National Champion, the BCS teams will eventually fall into line.

This plan evens the playing field, stealing the great power from the BCS conferences and dispersing it to all Division I-A schools.

It is fairer to all schools and there will be no arguments about who the true National Champs are.

All of the NCAA arguments against a playoff are a crock of…well, they’re bogus, to say the least. The Division I-AA teams manage to pull off a tournament to crown their champion and so does Division I-A Basketball. There is no reason whatsoever that this couldn’t be implemented. But the mid-level conferences have to stand up for themselves, refuse the BCS’ table scraps and force the SuperConferences to play ball.