I seem to say this every year on this day

'07 Football NCS Football95

Number two-ranked West Virginia just lost to Pitt (just as USC lost to UCLA last year). Number one-ranked Mizzou followed that by losing to Oklahoma.

As I sit here and watch ANOTHER final day of the college football season unfold with unfathomable results, I can only imagine how AWESOME – uh, I mean MEANINGLESS today’s football games would have been if we had that all important “playoff” for which so many fans think that they desperately long.

A little after 11pm ET, ABC’s Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit commented that today could be the “BCS’ worst nightmare” and the system is literally imploding today. Conventional wisdom would agree with them. I do not.

You see, days like today and seasons like this season are exactly WHY college football is so wonderful. If a playoff existed heading into today’s games, then imagine how unimportant and unremarkable today’s events would have been. Heck, West Virginia probably would have played all of their back ups to rest their starters and lost their game with Pitt on purpose. (Why can’t fans ever recognize that behavor is not static when environments experience significant change?

College football continues to prove that every week is a playoff and fans just keep forgetting that if a playoff system existed the regular season wouldn’t be nearly as excited as we have today.

The events of this year is expose the crux of the BCS’ REAL PROBLEM – the selection of the TWO teams to play for the National Championship.

The problem with the BCS is NOT that more teams need an opportunity to play for a national championship after having an entire season to rise to the top of the polls. The problem with the BCS is that they need a more specific, precise and scientific formula for choosing the two teams to square off in the Championship Game.

If the BCS would construct a single, universal, scenario-tested, scientific computer formula then why would you need to select more than two teams after every team in the country has played 12 regular season games?

Contrary to popular opinion, the current system does NOT really utilize a computer program to analyze data to rank the teams. The current system actually uses a computer to sort the heavily weighted rankings of humans along side with various independent computer rankings, some of which are weak and based on misguided weightings of data that create stupdid rankings. The result is a diluted mess whereby the subjective polls outweigh everything and invariably is going to create controversy.

If a single computer program existed to analyze RESULTS from the field – not the subjective opinions of humans – then college football would achieve the kind of CONSISTENT ANALYSIS and OBJECTIVE RANKINGS for which we all want.

Take a look at this discussion about the reality of how “Strength of Schedule” is neglected under today’s current situation. People like to talk about SOS, but the reality is that even a ‘consideration’ of SOS is grossly subjective unless some kind of objective and consistent measurement criteria is applied. If a solid, accurate and UNIVERSAL computer program was used to analyze actual performance on the field and not various subjective human opinions then factors like strength of schedule would really matter than the system could accurately choose the two best teams in the country

I don’t care what teams that other people ‘THINK’ are better than each other. This means NOTHING. If the pundits were actually right about their selections, then the rankings would actually never change. I believe that the actual PERFORMANCE of team’s on the field should be all that matters. If #1 beats #10 by 1 point and #2 beats #10 by 50 points, then #2 has PERFORMED better than #1. It’s not that difficult. But, it doesn’t work that way in today’s world when the #1 could be a ‘loaded’ USC team with 25 first rounders on the roster that everyone knows is the ‘best team’.

Should the National Championship be awarded to the ‘best team’ or the ‘team that has performed the best’?

The construction of the computer formula would not be easy, but it would not be impossible. One current mistake that I would like to see fixed is the impact of WHEN a team loses. If all teams play 12 games per year, why does it matter more that a team just within the last month instead of in the first month? It’s absurd. The ONLY reason this problem currently exists is because of the imperfections of humans. Yet, they are the ones that complain about the rankings. The relative performance as judged by a team’s ENTIRE BODY OF WORK during the season should be criteria for judgement.

Every school, fan and media member in the country would know the criteria and the formula used to rank teams. Records (“Wins”) would obviously still be the driving factor, but strength of schedule, margins of victory (capped at something like 30 points), location of games and other criteria would/could play a major role in the rankings. For example, if a team went undefeated, but played one of the weakest schedules in America then they have nobody to blame but themselves if they can’t achieve a #1 or #2 ranking.

Allow me to give you a hypothetical example to make my point of the problems with the current system and how a computer could fix it –

Consider that Ohio State begins the season ranked #1 in the country and Minnesota begins the season picked last in the Big Ten with no expectations. Consider that it is one of those seasons in the Big 10 where the two teams do not play each other but they play identical Big 10 schedules.

If Ohio State and Minnesota beat each Big Ten team by the identical margin of victory who do you think would be ranked #1 in the country at the end of the year? What if OSU played an embarassing non-conference schedule and Minnesota played a particularly difficult non-conference schedule. Do you think that today’s Einstein-voters would rank Minnesota ahead of OSU who started the season #1? If they PERFORMED identically against the conference schedule, why wouldn’t Minnesota’s PERFORMANCE merit a higher ranking than OSU?

What if Oklahoma also ended the season undefeated and ended the season ranked #2? Minnesota would be more deserving to play OU than OSU yet would be boxed out by today’s ridiculous rankings. If we had a single computer formula there would never be a fear of this playing out and there never COULD be a situation where the more deserving team was discriminated against.

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'07 Football NCS Football

95 Responses to I seem to say this every year on this day

  1. VaWolf82 12/02/2007 at 1:42 AM #

    Do you think that today’s Einstein-voters would rank Minnesota ahead of OSU who started the season #1?

    Maybe…the BCS system has had two chances to screw up a scenario similar to this one.

    In 2003, LSU, Oklahoma, and USC all had one loss. USC had a dramatically easier SOS and lost to an unranked team. Even though the AP writers couldn’t figure out which two teams should play for the national title…the BCS system did.

    In 2004 with 3 unbeaten teams, the pretender (Auburn) was exposed and left out of the title game.

  2. VaWolf82 12/02/2007 at 1:48 AM #

    Personally, I am not opposed to a play-off system but most of the arguments for and against are not very convincing.

    The one thing over looked by every play-off proposal that I have seen is the most important…..money. The corporate sponsors of the BCS bowls pour millions of dollars into college football. Who/what is going to replace this money in a play-off system?

    Every proposal that I have seen just assumes that a playoff system will make more money that the current sytem….without any supporting evidence. If you want to change the system, put up proposals that demonstrate increased revenues.

    Any talk without concrete financial proposals is just so much hot air.

  3. wolfpackbball 12/02/2007 at 1:54 AM #

    I’m still sticking by my assumption that the 6 BCS conferences could send their champion to the playoff to join two at large bids chosen by whatever computer system/human interpretation that would be manageable (even if it was as bad as the current system). The regular season would still be a playoff of sorts (in conference) and the ‘mid majors’ would have a chance to join as well.
    It’s all so muddled this year that I’m going to be disappointed no matter who gets in the game (looks like LSU and Ohio State) because so many teams are close to even IMO.

  4. wolfpackbball 12/02/2007 at 1:56 AM #

    To respond to VA, I would think that the meaningless bowls could still be played and the BCS bowls could still go on as planned.
    I’m sure the sponsors could find a way to make more money. That’s what they do for a living. Of course, I’m not a football scheduler/planner either, so what the hell do I know

  5. RBCRowdy 12/02/2007 at 2:00 AM #

    For VA too,

    Start with 8 teams next week. Losers get assigned to bowl games. By the last week of December you will have 2 teams left, and 6 in BCS bowl games. Top 2 get in title game, other 6 get in the bowl games. No more debating whether an LSU OT loss is ‘better’ than a USC loss in regulation. Only 2 teams play 3 extra games (4th game is bowl and they would already play that), 4 play 1 extra, and 2 play 2 extra.

    And, basketball players miss 2 days of class a week and thats ok. Football players at the top 8 BCS schools are not rocket scientists with only a few exceptions. So academics is not a reason to not go forward and money isnt either because they will still have the bowl games.

  6. Dan 12/02/2007 at 2:10 AM #

    Sorry, but that whole post is dumb.

    If only conference champs made it into a playoff then the games today mean just as much, if not even more. Not to mention the previous weeks games mean more as well.

  7. MadWolf92 12/02/2007 at 5:41 AM #

    I do think they at least need to tweak the championship game to disallow teams that lost their conference. Notre Dame, as always, and assuming they’re ever on the sunny side of good again, benefits.

  8. bTHEredterror 12/02/2007 at 7:40 AM #

    With the addition of conference championship games, we have already essentially moved into that playoff phase anyway. And how meaningless would the second to last and last conference game be if we trail the division leader by one game? Win we and are in line for Jacksonville and a one game playoff to get into the dance……instead of just a bowl game, in Miami granted, but essentially just an atta-boy show. Albeit with a hellacious check to go with it.

    By the way, Did you catch that “meaningless” Cowboys-Packers game Thursday? Or the equally meaningless Colts-Pats dandy last month? How about that meaningless Eagles-Pats game, with New England already in the playoffs and Philly at 5-5 playing their hearts out, for what? The chance to pull off a shocker, the chance to get in to the playoffs where who knows what could happen.

    An 8 team playoff would be just fine, and I agree with the thought of using lesser bowls as a stepping stone. Nobody at 7-5 or 6-6 should get a reward, or just how meaningful is this reguilar season really?

    Auburn had no beef until they won the SEC, maybe they didn’t afterward, but they were undefeated from the best conference, and a crowned champion on the field at that. Maybe they deserved to be denied for a weak O-O-C, maybe people remember the year before USC undressed them in an opening game, either way it was wrong.

    Yet the BCS, the remnants of the old system kind of Frankensteined together with Deep Blue, sent two losers of conference championship games on to the inevitable slaughter rather than a team like the Tigers (whom I loathe as a reminder).

    And the old system would have done the same, these instances were a benefit of an on the field championship game, they just exposed teams earlier, and exposed the whole system for the beauty pageant it is.

    The idea of holding out on rankings until later in the year would be an improvement, but would still be biased towards teams with greater national exposure. The rankings are mostly about media anyway, they want to sell you #5 versus #17, whether that’s the case or not. Since they are paying out the wazoo for the game rights, they have every right to use somebody’s preseason predictions, and you know they would in any event, to sell the show.

  9. PackerInRussia 12/02/2007 at 9:01 AM #

    While we’re at it can we replace the refs with robots? Seriously, this post reminds me too much of the movie I, Robot. It’s all the stinkin’ humans’ fault! I do agree with some of it though. It makes good points. I agree about how when you lose matters way too much. If two teams played the identical schedule, only one team played it in reverse and each lost to the same team, but one lost at the beginning and another at the end, the one who lost at the beginning would most likely get the nod despite the same records. However, perhaps the team who lost in the beginning actually is a better team by the end of the year. This is where I think human judgment is important.

  10. PackerInRussia 12/02/2007 at 9:02 AM #

    “I’m still sticking by my assumption that the 6 BCS conferences could send their champion to the playoff…”

    But didn’t LSU already pull down VT’s pants and spank them once? Why should they have to prove they’re a better team a second time?

  11. PackerInRussia 12/02/2007 at 9:02 AM #

    “By the way, Did you catch that “meaningless” Cowboys-Packers game Thursday? Or the equally meaningless Colts-Pats dandy last month? How about that meaningless Eagles-Pats game, with New England already in the playoffs and Philly at 5-5 playing their hearts out, for what? The chance to pull off a shocker, the chance to get in to the playoffs where who knows what could happen.”

    But unless the team wins the Super Bowl will those games really matter? I think the point is that at the end of the year the regular season means jacksquat (unless you’ve won the Super Bowl). The regular season only matters when you’re talking about how you can improve upon it for the next year. The games are fun at the time they’re played, but that’s it. Look at NC State football. We all still have a good feeling about the Gator Bowl year because we had a pretty good season plus a good bowl win. Anyone feel really good about the 2nd place finish in basketball a few years ago?

  12. jamieinkorea 12/02/2007 at 9:14 AM #

    I find it completely absurd that the two teams that were Nos. 1 & 2 have one loss, but because it came today, they are out and the other teams that have 1 or 2 losses that came earlier in the year are back in the running.

    What a flippin’ joke…

    It makes no sense to me. Yet, because the BCS makes so much money and the National Championship can be given to a team with a big fan base, I don’t see it changing any time soon.

  13. BJD95 12/02/2007 at 9:27 AM #

    Every year, I disagree vehemently. Did the BCS really make today’s games more interesting? Not the ACC or SEC championships. Certainly when the games were being played, everybody thought that all four participants were out of the title picture. And even if it did, so what?

    Because, frankly, the college football season might as well be over NOW. There’s nothing at all to look forward to. Yeah, I’ll probably watch the title game, and bits and pieces of the other bowls. But my enthusiasm level will be very low. We get weeks of stupid-ass arguments over who should face Ohio State, when frankly, Ohio State is probably the weakest team of all the contenders. But they’ve only lost once, and oddball tiebreakers didn’t keep them out of the conference title game! Wait, they also didn’t have the POSSIBILITY of the title game and another tough game. So, they should be REWARDED for that? The BCS system says that it should.

    It should also be noted that since USC and Auburn were legitimately left out, the powers that be tweaked the BCS formula to make it LESS dependent on objective computer models and MORE dependent on inertia-based human polling. This was the “solution” from the folks who share your side of the playoffs argument. I’m very comfortable taking the other side of any argument with them.

    It makes NO sense for the post-season to be considerably less compelling than the regular season. Things should be building to a crescendo (sp?) – that’s the natural flow of sports. Take the NFL, for instance. I watch the regular season, and follow it intensely. It’s still a compelling, quality product even though every week isn’t “do or die.” Most games do matter for playoff positioning, as would yesterday’s college games. But the NFL post-season is outstanding. I (and many other sports fans) plan my weekends around the games. I usually watch every single minute. Or look at college basketball – a similar argument was made against expanding the NCAAT. Doing so would “cheapen” the regular season, and conference tourneys. And maybe that was true, but the impact on both was insignificant. Overall, the sport’s popularity exploded – thanks to a compelling, properly-sized post-season.

    I do understand the money argument – it’s the only one that makes a lick of sense to me. I still have trouble believing that no TV network would offer a giant pile of money for a playoff system, whose ratings would likely come close to matching the NFL playoffs. Additionally, I expect the BCS TV ratings to go down over time, perhaps drastically. When that happens, so will the TV money, and perhaps even bowl sponsorship dollars. The presidents will have to do SOMETHING to resuscitate the cash cow.

  14. bTHEredterror 12/02/2007 at 9:49 AM #

    “But unless the team wins the Super Bowl will those games really matter?”

    Yes, because say the Eagles had won, and didn’t sniff the playoffs. They still messed it up for the Patriots. I’m an Eagle fan, and if the NFL had a system like the BCS, we would have a couple more Super Bowl appearances. At the expense of the Bucs and Panthers. But since you have a chance to lose in the postseason, what you worked so hard to gain in the regular season, it just makes the playoffs infinitely more meaningful.

    And I have some good memories of beatings administered to the Cowboys, a punt return by Westbrook with everything on the line against the Giants, Spurrier flapping his lips in frustration at our stellar secondary. Ask the teams who miss the playoffs by one stinking game how important the regular season is. What a playoff does is spread the opportunity, glory and misery, to what the system describes as a productive cross section. In the case of the NFL’s 32 teams that is the top 37.5% of the leagues in terms of W-L. A similar cross section for D1 would be a 44 team playoff. But it is somehow reduced to the 99th percentile with more teams and fewer games to review. Don’t bring in 44 and make it crazy, just start with 4 for goodness sakes and see what you get. The college presidents are like little boys afraid to kiss a girl and get cooties, they just don’t know what they are missing.

    All I’m saying is in the perfect world, DI would just do what every single solitary other sports league at every level in this country has done, make it just a tad less political, or mythical if you must,with a playoff. The realist in me knows this isn’t going to happen until they bleed green with reduced Bowl attendence and sponsorship. Which isn’t going to happen because die-hards like us, will take any opportunity to see our team play a quality opponent.

  15. bTHEredterror 12/02/2007 at 9:57 AM #

    Sorry for the double post guys.

    My best argument for this setting(State Fans) is this…….without a playoff system, Jimmy V is just another coach who could never have a complete regular season. He would have a couple of ACC tournament trophies, and UNC and Duke would have piles of championships as the always rulle the regular season polls.
    With a playoff scenario, maybe Dick Sheridan is Jimmy V for football. Solid seasons and get hot at the right time, which is always late in the season, and you might get it done.

  16. Wulfpack 12/02/2007 at 10:18 AM #

    I must be completely missing the premise of this argument. To me, it’s very simple. The BCS is forced to take the two “best” teams in the country. The problem is, it frequently doesn’t know how to do that. To me there is only 1 way to solve this problem — playoff. If you are going to hand out a trophy, please just make sure it goes to a team that has earned it.

  17. VaWolf82 12/02/2007 at 10:18 AM #

    money isnt either because they will still have the bowl games.

    You miss my point. It’s not that you won’t have bowl games….you won’t have the BCS bowl games. There is no reason to think that a playoff would reduce the amount of money Chick-Fil-A spends, but why would Tostitos pour the same amount into a bowl featuring teams that couldn’t get into a play-off?

    If the quality of teams playing in a bowl is dramatically reduced, you can guarantee that the money invested is going to drop as well.

  18. VaWolf82 12/02/2007 at 10:21 AM #

    Maybe they [Auburn] deserved to be denied for a weak O-O-C, maybe people remember the year before USC undressed them in an opening game, either way it was wrong.

    No it wasn’t wrong. What would have been wrong would to have excluded a team with a better resume from the championship game. Most years, Auburn’s OOC schedule wouldn’t have been an issue. But when it comes down to evaluating teams with identical records….the details matter and Auburn came up on the short-end of the evaluation.

  19. VaWolf82 12/02/2007 at 10:24 AM #

    Wait, they [OSU] also didn’t have the POSSIBILITY of the title game and another tough game. So, they should be REWARDED for that? The BCS system says that it should.

    I think you are putting the blame on the wrong organization. The conferences with a championship game made that decision all on their own. If their schools are adversely affected by that decision, it is the conference’s fault, not the BCS system.

  20. Packaholic1 12/02/2007 at 10:26 AM #

    As long a it doesn’t affect us, I love watching the BCS lovers squirm. It will be delicious this afternoon seeing who gets screwed the worst.

  21. Texpack 12/02/2007 at 10:29 AM #

    The 2003 situation where USC was properly left out of the BCS title game, was immediately “corrected” by eliminating SOS from the BCS formula and increasing the weighting of the human polls. This year the BCS is simply the vehicle through which the polls choose the National Champion. That is what makes it a joke.

  22. VaWolf82 12/02/2007 at 10:33 AM #

    The BCS is forced to take the two “best” teams in the country. The problem is, it frequently doesn’t know how to do that. To me there is only 1 way to solve this problem — playoff.

    This doesn’t solve the problem at all. If you can’t select the two best teams, then you can’t select the best 4, 8, or 16. There will alwyas be room for argument about why this team was included or why that team was excluded. So you are only left with deciding how many teams you want to include….and right now that number is set at two.

    I find it interesting that with all of these excellent posts and points made, that no one has given an example of a team that was one of the two best in the country, but left out of the championship game. The examples that I’ve always seen amount to a claim that team “A” was as good as team “B”, but only one of the teams got to play in the championship game.

  23. Wulfpack 12/02/2007 at 10:36 AM #

    ^I think you will hear many of those arguments tonight after they are released. You are right, you can’t select the best 2, or 4, or 8…but you CAN have a playoff that will end all of these arguments. I know in an 8-game playoff we will hear about why team A, B or C didn’t get invited…but to me that is nothing in comparison to what is today. We have a freaking computer telling us who the two best teams are. What a complete joke. Let it be decided on the field like most other sports.

  24. Astral Rain2 12/02/2007 at 10:41 AM #

    One thing this year proves- about 80 teams start the year with no chance to play for a national championship. Look at Hawaii. If they had started the year ranked 25th, they’d be #1 right now and locked in.

    Instead, they may get screwed all the way down to the Aloha Bowl.

    Most years, a 4 team playoff would be enough. This year, it would take 8.

    Ohio St, LSU, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, USC, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Georgia.

    That’s how I would do it on an 8-team system
    6 BCS champs
    2 at-large spots, one guaranteed to a non-BCS school/independent.

    First game would be Christmas Weekend, Second Game’s New Year’s weekend, Final week after.

  25. BJD95 12/02/2007 at 10:45 AM #

    VA Wolf – what it does it create perverse incentives. The conference title games are good for college football competitively, as the games are high quality matchups that add more intrigue to the season. I don’t like a system that PUNISHES things that are good for the game overall.

    If not for the random upset by Pitt last night, the national title game would have been Ohio State vs. West Virginia – two teams from weak conferences with no title game that played ABSOLUTELY NOBODY. Go ahead, name West Virginia and Ohio State’s best wins. Home against UConn? At freaking Penn State? What message does that send to the other athletic directors? Is it good for college football for there to be a race to the bottom, from a competition standpoint?

    Even after Pitt’s win, we are stuck with people trying furiously to find ways to screw the team almost everyone acknowledges to be playing the best right now (Georgia), in the nation’s best conference.

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