Back to What's Wrong With the BCS

Blow up the BCS already!!!

I'm getting really tired of bad bowl game matchups, tired of blowouts in big games, and really tired of not letting the players decide on the field of play who really is the best team in the "Football Bowl Subdivision" (what everyone still knows as Division I-A college football).

In case you're curious, here are the official rules straight from the BCS Football website on FOX Sports on MSN (whew! Sounds like many of these multi-sponsor bowl game names!):

Bowl Championship Series

Automatic Qualification, At-Large Eligibility and Selection Procedures, 2007-2010 Games

Automatic Qualification

1. The top two teams in the final BCS Standings shall play in the National Championship Game.

2. The champions of the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Southeastern conferences will have automatic berths in one of the participating bowls after the 2008 through 2013 regular seasons.

3. The champion of Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference or the Western Athletic Conference will earn an automatic berth in a BCS bowl game if either:

A. Such team is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings, or,
B. Such team is ranked in the top 16 of the final BCS Standings and its ranking in the final BCS Standings is higher than that of a champion of a conference that has an annual automatic berth in one of the BCS bowls.

No more than one such team from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference shall earn an automatic berth in any year. (Note: a second team may be eligible for at-large eligibility as noted below.) If two or more teams from those conferences satisfy the provisions for an automatic berth, then the team with the highest finish in the final BCS Standings will receive the automatic berth, and the remaining team or teams will be considered for at-large selection if it meets the criteria.

4. Notre Dame will have an automatic berth if it is in the top eight of the final BCS Standings.

5. If any of the 10 slots remain open after application of provisions 1 through 4, and an at-large team from a conference with an annual automatic berth for its champion is ranked No. 3 in the final BCS Standings, that team will become an automatic qualifier, provided that no at-large team from the same conference qualifies for the national championship game.

6. If any of the 10 slots remain open after application of provisions 1 through 5, and if no team qualifies under paragraph No. 5 and an at-large team from a conference with an annual automatic berth for its champion is ranked No. 4 in the final BCS Standings, that team will become an automatic qualifier provided that no at-large team from the same conference qualifies for the national championship game.

OK, so we're dealing with five bowl games pitting the top ten teams according to the last BCS rankings at the end of the season against one another, right? To borrow a line from Lee Corso, Not so fast, my friend!

This year, rule #1 is fairly easy to implement. #1 Oklahoma* (Big 12 champion, 12-1 record) faces off against #2 Florida (SEC champ, 12-1). Unlike in years past, this should be a good matchup between two very deserving teams. No quibbles here. Let's look at some of the other four BCS bowl games, however.

* For clarity's sake, all rankings are pulled from the final BCS rankings as of today, 7 Dec.

Now we're down to eight spots to fill from the mix of automatic berth qualifiers and teams deserving of at-large bids. Le "Granddaddy of them all"(TM), the Rose Bowl gets #5 USC (Pac 10 champ, 11-1) against #8 Penn State (Big 10 champ, 11-1), and that has two benefits: 1) It should be an entertaining game between two very good teams; and 2) It preserves the Big 10-Pac 10 matchup everyone likes to see. At least, that is the preferred matchup since 1947.

Now just six spots remain in three other BCS bowls. Let's swing over to the Sugar Bowl first, just for giggles. Meeting at the Super Dome this year are #6 Utah (Mountain West champ, 12-0) and #4 Alabama (SEC number two, 12-1). Wait, so that means we're already burning one at-large bid for a conference number two. Given that Alabama held the number one ranking for so long, and is still ranked so highly after losing to Florida in the SEC Championship, that's probably OK. This should be a good game, although I haven't seen much of either team this year. Alabama has a strong defense, and I couldn't begin to tell you anything at all about Utah other than they are undefeated. Urban Meyer isn't still coaching there, right?

Four spots remain; who's gonna get 'em?! Again, for giggles, let's go to the Orange Bowl. For some reason, the BCS commissioners decided to award automatic BCS berths to the winners of the Big Least and ACC conferences. The ACC has some traditionally decent football schools in there, including the Florida version of Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, and Boston College. Virginia Tech rose to prominence behind Beamerball and Michael Vick, and Ralph Friedgen did some good work at Maryland, but the rest of the schools are more basketball schools like UNC, Wake Forest, NC State, and Duke. The Big Least has been something of a football wasteland ever since they lost their more powerful schools to the ACC. They had to pick up Cincinnati and Southern Florida just to keep the conference going, so we're basically talking about Pitt, Rutgers, WV, and Louisville. Syracuse is a basketball school that hasn't been good in football since Jim Brown played there. Regardless, two other automatic bids go out for this game, and it should be a real winner. #12 Cincinnati (Big East champ, 11-2) looks much better in this matchup against a #19 Virginia Tech (ACC champ, 9-4) team that played its way into the automatic BCS berth by beating a better BC squad in the ACC Championship game. Again, this game should be a real winner... NOT!

Now that we've let in two teams that finished outside the top ten in the last BCS rankings, that means two teams from the top ten have to get screwed somehow. It's simple math.

And that takes us down to the last BCS bowl game, the Fiesta Bowl. Fortunately, we didn't have to worry about Notre Dame taking up a BCS spot via rule #4, although by some miracle, they did finish 6-6 and bowl eligible this season. They're playing in the Hawaii Bowl on 24 Dec, so Merry Christmas, ND fans. We did see the successful application of rule #3, in which the MWC champ, Utah, gets to play in a BCS game. That also invokes the last paragraph of rule #3, stating that no more than one team from one of the "lesser" conferences shall obtain an automatic berth. So, now that we've satisfied all the automatic berths, we go to the at-large berths.

This year, we actually see the successful application of rule #5 (and aren't you happy all the rules are right where you can see them?!). The University of Texas ended up #3 in the final poll, and since OU won the Big 12's automatic berth (not an at-large bid), the Longhorns suddenly find themselves in an automatic berth. Confused yet? We also see the successful application of rule #6, since Alabama finished #4 in the final poll, yet Florida qualified as the automatic berthee from the SEC Conference. But wait, we did see UT qualify under rule #5. At this point, I think all bets are off, and the BCS gurus can basically pick whomever they want.

The teams we're left with are #7 Texas Tech (Big 12 number three, 11-1), #9 Boise State (Western Athletic Conference champ, 12-0), #10 Ohio State (Big 10 number two, 10-2), and #11 TCU (MWC number two, 10-2). They already allowed two Big 12 teams into the BCS club, and the rules stipulate that no more than two teams from a BCS conference can take up spots in the BCS bowls. Sorry, Texas Tech, you had a great season and even knocked off the number one team in the land at home, but you're out!

They already allowed in one "lesser" conference champion in Utah into the BCS club, so what are the odds that Boise State would get an at-large invite? Even though Boise State proved two years ago they could play with the big boys (during one of the most thrilling Fiesta Bowls ever!!!) when they shocked OU in overtime through a little razzle-dazzle, what are the odds of getting another shot at a big-time football factory like Texas? Maybe the BCS gods were a little scared that Boise State might pull off another upset against a Big 12 school on a neutral field. That just might upset the whole BCS apple cart. Shock me once, shame on you; shock me twice, shame on me...

Oh, and sorry, TCU, but no one is about to pass out an at-large BCS berth to the number two team from the MWC. It just ain't gonna happen.

So, this year's Fiesta Bowl matches #3 Texas (Big 12 number two, 11-1) against #10 Ohio State (Big 10 number two, 10-2). Yes, OSU fans do like to travel to the desert in January. Yes, Ohio State has had good success at the site of the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, OSU is a football factory competing head-to-head with the football factory from Texas. OSU and Texas even played that very memorable home-and-home series several years ago, when Vince Young parlayed an early-season victory over Ohio State into a national title run. So there are numerous reasons why the BCS gods wanted to match those two schools against one another in Tempe, AZ.

And yet, I can't help but think that Boise State got screwed. Where will they be playing their bowl game this year? The 23 December San Diego Poinsettia Bowl, and against none other than TCU. So much for finishing the year ranked in the top ten overall, ahead of Ohio State. No good deed goes unpunished. Meanwhile, many other more prestigious bowls like the Outback, Gator, Cotton, and Capitol One Bowls filled their slates with the third- and fourth-best teams from the traditional power conferences. Why not match Boise State with Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl? They were the next two highest ranked teams, and they had Texas Tech fans to pack the place even if folks from Boise decided not to fly down (which is highly unlikely).

This type of thing happens every year, and generates no small amount of controversy. I, for one, was really hoping Missouri could pull off the upset in the Big 12 Championship game. That would have meant a 10-3 Missouri team (if they had won) taking up the Big 12's automatic berth, while Texas probably would have played for the national title -- without winning their own Division, much less their own Conference! That has happened several times in the past, and it seems the Big 12 is always the culprit.

Blow up the BCS already!!!

Why Can't I Watch the College Football Game I Want?

Coming from an Ohio State fan, this might seem a bit strange. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that my wife and most of her family graduated from Oklahoma State University. One of her favorite lines is that my family accepted her because she graduated from "an OSU" if not "THE OSU."

Checking out the coverage maps (and sorry if the link doesn't work past today) on the ABC Sports website, I see that we live in the small part of the country that will receive the U Michigan vs. Michigan State game at 2:30 Central today. Given that Michigan isn't all that good this year, I expect that game to be a clunker, even if it is a rivalry game. I would MUCH rather watch the U Texas vs. OK State game, also being played at 2:30 Central, and which the majority of the country will get to see. It's a matchup of #1 vs. #6, and should be a high scoring affair. Big 12 teams (including Texas and OK State) occupy four of the top five spots in the list of highest scoring offenses this year.

In fact, a very good argument could be made (and probably should be made) that the Texas-OK State game should have been the prime time 7 pm Central matchup, since #1 vs. #6 is a better matchup than Ohio State (#9) vs. Penn State (#3). It used to be not all that long ago, ABC would show a college football game of national interest at Noon Eastern, 11 am Central, before switching to regional coverage at the 2:30 Central time slot. They no longer do that, perhaps because not enough people were watching at 11 am Central. Now, the only way to get college football games being played at 11 am is to subscribe to a provider that carries ESPN, ESPN2, and/or ESPNU.

I am, of course, being a little selfish here. I assume that if ABC chose instead to carry the Texas-OK State game in prime time, they would then move the OSU-PSU game to the 2:30 Central regional coverage slot. In that case, I would get to see both games, since we live in the Midwest and almost always receive the Big 10 coverage that is available (like we are getting today, for example).

What counts against the Texas-OK State game is that OK State is not known as a football powerhouse. They have always been overshadowed in their own state by the team from Norman, OK. Yes, they produced the legendary Barry Sanders, and there are plenty of current NFL players who hail from the Stillwater campus. But the simple fact that they reached #6 in the rankings is pretty incredible in and of itself. Personally, I would love to see them win all their games (requiring knocking off #1 Texas and #4 Oklahoma), which should put them into the BCS National Title Championship game. How cool would that be?!

My real beef with ABC's segmenting the coverage map is this: even if I wanted to pay for coverage of the game, I have only one option for getting it. The game is not going to be carried on ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU, since ABC has the game (yes, I know all those channels are controlled by the same parent company). So subscribing to cable would not help one iota. The cable company in our area, Comcast, also does not provide the ESPN360.com service to its subscribers, so that isn't an option.

The only way to get the Texas-OK State game today is to instead subscribe to DirecTV, and to then pay the extra fee to get the ESPN GamePlan package of college football games. The current October GamePlan lineup is here, and you have to scroll down to get the 25 Oct lineup. I haven't actually had a DirecTV sales guy come out to our house to check our sight lines to their satellite, but with the high trees all around our house, we might not even be able to get DirecTV's signal.

Which goes to a much bigger beef of mine with the current state of affairs with regards to TV providers. You already know that we don't subscribe to cable or DirecTV. Even if we did get cable, there have been numerous examples recently of cable companies refusing to carry channels that provide content I would want to see. The recent rollouts of the BigTen Network and the NFL Network, and the subsequent court battles between those entities and cable companies to fight over how much to charge subscribers and on what tier to carry them, only serve to prove the point. In too many cases, the cable subscribers (and there are still large numbers of U.S. households that simply can't get a good feed from a DirecTV satellite) are frozen out of being able to watch the content they want.

It's gotten so that in America, the land of the free and the home of market based economics, even people who are willing to pay to receive certain content are not able to receive that content. Why? It's because the already wealthy fat cats in charge of incredibly prosperous private companies fight over which one of them is going to line their pockets even more. Frankly, I'm disgusted by all of it! Which is just one more reason why I get my TV signals over the air. I'm not giving any more money to those fat cats.

"Choice, man!"

The Nuke-yoo-lar Topic of W's Legacy

I friend of mine recently e-mailed an op-ed piece from Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post titled "History Will Judge." The link provided should take you right to it, and it's well worth the read. I feel sheepish that I hadn't read it or linked to it before, but there are only so many hours in the day for keeping up on the news.

I was happy to see that what was sent in e-mail actually matched the online column, with no edits one way or another. Sadly, I never trust what gets sent via e-mail any more. I don't even subscribe to the age-old Cold War tenet of "Trust but Verify." Whose motto was that? Better than "In God we trust. All others we monitor," which is a motto many spooks might recognize.

The reason why I feel compelled to discuss Krauthammer's column is because I'd been thinking about W's post-Presidency plans myself recently. Seriously. I've been trying to get my head around what W will do in retirement, since I can't picture him being invited to the public speaker lecture circuit any time soon. Which group would have him? Even the die-hardiest of the die-hard GOP faithful have distanced themselves from anything to do with Bush's administration.

I'm sure Bush will continue to have many friends in high places, certainly. He still has his defenders, and he still should have plenty of influence. On what, though? As Krauthammer points out, history will most likely be kinder to W as peoples' memories fade a bit. If no less than Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter can all get image rehabs after leaving office, then certainly Bush can, too.

One question for which we really won't have an answer for years to come will be how this very recent Wall Street implosion will affect W's legacy. Nixon (almost impeached), Ford (stagflation), and Carter (malaise) successfully rehabbed their legacies after leaving office; Hoover (Great Depression) did not. I'm not ready to commit to calling these banking problems and economic hard times anything close to another Great Depression. In 1929, over 300 banks had closed their doors even before the stock market crashed. In 1930, over 1,000 additional banks closed forever and the phrase "bank run" struck fears all across the U.S. We're not there yet, and the structural laws and oversight bodies put in place after 1929 should keep us out of another Great Depression. That's the whole idea, at least.

There's no doubt that Wall Street has had its worst week ever (WSJ article, subscription req'd.). I'd like to think that agricultural policies have changed enough so that we won't hit another Dust Bowl again. Unemployment remains relatively low -- last I checked, I think it was around 6%, although as part of the recent rate cut by the Fed, they said they think it will edge up to 7-7.5% by late 2009. Certainly that is still nowhere near the 25% unemployment hit during the Great Depression. Durable goods orders are down and inventories are up, which spell Recession for the economy, and most economists are predicting we're already in a Recession now (more WSJ).

The reason all of the economics issues is important for Bush is that they will have a far more lasting impact on his Presidential legacy than anything else he's done. This is also the key difference from the Krauthammer column, which was published before the Wall Street meltdown. W could be forgiven for promoting a "shoot first, ask questions later" foreign policy. He could be forgiven for domestic spying if it truly keeps us safe from another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. W could be forgiven for acting unilaterally when he felt compelled to do so, even though I think we all remember then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's briefing to the UN Security Council regarding the threat in Iraq. So what if Saddam's WMDs were a figment of his imagination and little more than a ruse to keep the Iranians from attacking? In 2003, everyone agreed they were a real problem. I even think W can be forgiven for his line about looking into Putin's soul back in 2001, as ridiculous as that seems now.

I think Bush will retire to his ranch in Crawford, TX (and everything is bigger in Texas, haven't you heard?), and perhaps have some measure of peace in the months following his departure from the White House. How long can he cut brush? How much mesquite is there in Texas? Would a following administration really put W on the road for sensitive diplomatic missions, as W's father and Bill Clinton have done together? Could you imagine W in France next year, cheering on THE GREAT COMEBACK by Lance Armstrong? It boggles the mind.

If nothing else, W in January becomes fair game for the SNL animation "The X Presidents" as part of their TV Funhouse lineup. So we at least have that to look forward to.

Are We the Car We Drive?

In the time of $4 per gallon gasoline, many people are seeking ways of reducing their fuel costs, period. People who have the option and can afford to move closer to public transportation are doing so, even in car-crazy LA. More and more people are bicycling to work, a mode of transportation I try to use whenever possible. Even Texans (who live in The Land of Big Trucks, and everything is bigger in Texas, haven't you heard?) are buying hybrids and even those golf-cart looking electric vehicles for short trips. People eagerly await the roll-out of the new Chevy Volt, signing up on even unofficial wait lists.

And yet, car manufacturers continue to resist one of the clearest means of increasing fuel efficiency in current-model cars: reducing the horsepower produced by the engine. The prescient Gregg Easterbrook (who is a visiting Brookings Fellow and contributing editor at The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and The Washington Monthly, in addition to writing several books, including the fascinating "The Progress Paradox") described this fuel mileage vs. horsepower battle in his two most recent Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ) columns on ESPN.com, the archive of which is here. If you like to get insights into the game of football you can't find anywhere else, plus much more (he often delves into science fiction, TV and movies, and things related to Congress), his column is well worth the time it takes to wade through it. Plus, he posts pics of cheerleader babe professionalism. W00t!

Easterbrook already covered the issue better than I could replicate here, but it did get me thinking of reasons why automakers have all progressively expanded both the size and horsepower of their cars. The Honda Civic, for example, is now about the same size or larger as the Accord used to be, way back when. It's not just Detroit. For crying out loud, the 1979 Accord had a whopping 72 horsepower! 72!!! Which was up 4 hp from the previous year. The current Accord, with available 3.5L V6, puts out a max of 268 hp. So, it is easy to see why (some, not all) car manufacturers are protesting the rise in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

Speaking of which, there was a recent WSJ opinion piece that tried to link the CAFE standards to Detroit's poor showing in recent automobile sales. That's like saying NAFTA is the reason for agricultural subsidies in California. They might be tangentially related, but there's not a causal relationship there. The author of that opinion piece remarked how GM and Ford actually did quite well selling smaller, Euro-style vehicles in places like Europe and South America. So, why are they unable to sell such cars here in America?

My own hunch is that we, as Americans, still attach significant unspoken tags to the cars we drive. If we drive a Porsche, it means we have lots of money and are pricks. If we drive a Prius, obviously, we care more about the environment than we want to look cool. If we drive a big truck, then we're manly men! (Honh! Honh! More Power!!!) I think this explains why people drive big monster SUVs for ferrying around the kiddos much more so than just needing the space for hauling more stuff. If we just needed the space, then why don't people still buy wood-paneled station wagons? This also helps explain why my wife's brother, who lives in Austin, TX (The Land of Big Trucks, and everything is Bigger in Texas, haven't you heard?) not too long ago traded his BMW Mini for a Ford F-250, even though he doesn't have a 10,000 lb boat to haul on a regular basis. Why buy the F-250 if you have no boat?

For the longest time, Americans could get away with driving whatever they wanted because gas was so cheap. Having lived overseas in Europe and Japan, I wondered when America would be forced to pay as much (roughly $4 per gallon) as they were paying back in 1996. That time has now come, although I haven't been over there since we started paying $4 per gallon to see if their prices rose along with ours.

Maybe peoples' perceptions will change as everyone gets used to buying $4 gasoline. Maybe a guy who buys a Toyota Yaris will be seen as smart and more desirable for dating, rather than as a wimpy nerd. Seriously, have you ever seen a guy driving a Honda Fit? I haven't, even though the slogan (The Fit is GO!) is catchy. No guy would be caught dead driving a new VW Beetle, unless his truck was in the shop. Speaking of VW, their Cabriolets have always been known as a "chick car." End of discussion. Someone recently completed a study in which women listened to different vehicle sounds, and the ones they felt were most sexy belonged to the exotic supercars. I'm not making this up. So, the previous question about the Yaris is most likely an overwhelming NO.

I know we Americans often define ourselves by what we do, a topic that was used to great effect in the ***John Cusack movie reference alert!*** movie "Grosse Pointe Blank." If you've seen it, you know he played an assassin who goes back to his high school reunion and tried to relate to his classmates, who had settled into "normal" jobs like BMW dealer, radio DJ, realtor, and security guard. Are we what we do for a living? Are we the car we drive? Are we defined by our hobbies? Can we be known for the assistance we provide to others?

For now, I'll go back to driving my 1999 Mazda 626 and dreaming about that Acura TL I've always wanted. Best car for the money, I say. I just wish I could trade some of its 286 hp for better gas mileage.