COLUMN: BCS has more problems than it’s worth
BCS (Bowl Championship Series). Every time I hear those three letters, it sends a chill down my spine.
Ever since its inception into college football five years ago, controversy has followed.
The system was originally designed to match the top two teams in the land, something the old bowl system had failed to do since the bowls were heavily tied to individual conferences. However, except for this year, the No. 2 team has never been very easy to select.
Before last year’s bowl games, the Oregon Ducks, Colorado Buffaloes and Nebraska Cornhuskers all had one loss.
Nebraska, however, secured the BCS No. 2 spot, even after losing to Colorado in the Big XII Championship game.
Oregon still believes it should have been the one to take on the undefeated Miami Hurricanes.
The BCS is lucky this year. The controversy does not surround the title game.
Undefeated Ohio State and currently undefeated Miami fill the No. 1 and No. 2 spots. The Hurricanes can bring controversy back to the title game this year if they lose to Virginia Tech in the Big East title game.
My problem with the BCS this year is the automatic bid to Atlantic Coast Conference winner Florida State.
Currently the Seminoles have a 9-4 overall record and a 7-1 conference record.
Why do the Seminoles get an automatic BCS berth with four losses while teams with two losses, i.e. Texas and Kansas State, have no shot at a BCS bowl because Oklahoma and Colorado play for the conference championship and BCS bowl spot?
Oklahoma is right above both Kansas State and Texas in the BCS standings while Colorado is below all of them because it lost three games.
Does any of this make sense?
Well, it doesn’t make much sense to me either and I wrote a 10-page research paper on it last year at my previous college.
I do know what would make sense though, a playoff system. Division I-A football is the only system on the planet that does not use a playoff system to determine its national champion. Every other major league has found success and less complaining by using a playoff. This would force teams that may have made a mistake earlier in the season prove it was a flub, and it would also prove who was for real by playing a harder schedule.
It would take a lot of work to implement the system correctly but it can be done. I have already figured out a tentative way to make everyone happy.
I even found a way to please the purists and the greedy moneymakers by keeping a couple of the bowl games.
This system will also solve the problem of there being too many bowl games. I mean, who wants to see ACC No. 4 team Clemson play in a bowl against the Big XII’s No. 5, 6 or 7 ranked team, most likely Oklahoma State?
It is important to give conference champions a shot at playing in the playoffs, even if it is Sun Belt Conference winner North Texas, who also went to a bowl last year with a 5-6 record.
Who knows, next year it could be Sun Belt conference winner Utah State looking for a bowl game to play in during the holidays.
The only thing I know for sure is that something needs to be done with the BCS. For now, I think the letters stand for Big Crock Series.
If anyone needs an idea on how to fix this, let me know and I will give you my research. That is for another time though.
Jim Higgins is a junior majoring in Broadcast Journalism. He is anxiously awaiting his invite to the Beehive State Bowl. Comments can be sent to jwhigg@cc.usu.edu.