It's time to put him down...

So I wrote a long diatribe last year about the BCS (Bowl Championship Series), and how it had become a completely bastardized version of what it was originally intended to be. It had become (even more than when it was created) a money-making venture and little more. However, once the BCS contract is up in 2013, we’ll finally have what we’ve been waiting for in college football, a college football playoffs. I’m sure everyone is really weeping over the death of the BCS, and lamenting the loss of the biased computer system that seems to always favor teams from the South, specifically the Southeast (the S-E-C, Southeastern Conference). Good riddance…

While I certainly don’t like the BCS, in general, due to their unseemly practices of putting profit over sport, I am particular upset with the organization this year, in that they’re screwing over my favorite team in college football, Notre Dame. Okay, I get it, people don’t like Notre Dame. Notre Dame has been given preferential treatment by the NCAA and TV stations for years, so it’s time for them to get screwed, right? Well, no. The BCS is not supposed to bias against teams because they’re not popularly loved. Or, I guess more truly, they’re either loved or loathed. Just a little background, I did not attend ND, but I’ve loved the school since I was a little kid; and since my college never had a good football team (and doesn’t even have one anymore), I’ve continued to root for them. I guess it’s my Irish ancestry… Anyway, I digress.

Notre Dame has been screwed in the first BCS rankings that have been released for the 2012 season. Notre Dame is 6-0 and ranked number 5; they have faced three ranked opponents, Michigan, Michigan State, and Stanford. Kansas State, who is ranked ahead of ND at number 4, has faced one ranked opponent (Oklahoma at #6), and just happens to be in another conference that he BCS favors, the Big 12. Oregon is also ranked above ND at number 3, but that is at least understandable, because Oregon has one of the most (if not THE most) high-powered offenses in the country, and has been dominant over the last few years. But then we come to Florida at number 2. Florida beat LSU, who at the time was the #2 team in the nation, and they’ve beat another ranked time (Tennessee at #24), but I don’t see how that puts them ahead of Notre Dame. Oh, right, they’re in the SEC. What a coincidence, so it the #1 team, the #6 team, and the #7 team (Alabama, LSU, and South Carolina, respectively).

I’ll give the SEC their props, they’re a great conference, but that doesn’t automatically mean that they’re better teams and therefore should get pushed up in ranking, just because they supposedly have a tougher strength of schedule. Notre Dame is not in a conference, but has consistently played tough teams and beat them, therefore they should be ranked based upon their performance and strength of schedule, not their conference (or lack thereof). Notre Dame should be ranked #3.

p.s.  I’m willing to bet that when South Carolina beats Florida this weekend at the Swamp, you’ll see SC leapfrog Notre Dame and jump down to #3, while Notre Dame will probably only drop down to #4. Ugh…such is life.

Get rich quick gimmick...

I'm not the biggest sports fan on the planet. And up until a couple of years ago, I'd been on a self-inflicted sports diet for about 7 years. However, I've slowly started watching most sports again over the past couple of years, and I have to say that my casual interest, coupled with using the games as an excuse to hang out with friends and drink beer, has made my spectating experience a much happier one.
However, even during this self-imposed sports blackout, I remained committedly interested in college football. College football is so much fun to watch, because the teams are forever changing, and a team that is good one year/multiple years/decade, will flounder in ensuing years, due to poor recruiting, sanctions, etc. The action is slower and less polished than pro football; but because they're playing for either the simple love of the game, or because they're trying desperately to get onto a pro roster, the players are much more invested than the pro athletes seem to be.
So why it is that we as a college football watching crowd, or really as a society in general, have allowed the Bowl Championship Series to manipulate college football, and take advantage of the free talent at their disposal, is beyond me. It all started back in the late 90s. College teams had been complaining that simply having bowl games which pitted specific conferences against one another both unfairly putting good teams into unwatched bowls, but also did nothing to demonstrate who the best team in the country was*. Therefore, the BCS was created to give college football a National Championship game. However, what has happened is that we have now a huge money-making business for the BCS, that has almost nothing to do with college football or the universities, but instead has as its sole purpose to sell ad revenue and make huge profits off the NCAA and the free labor that comes out of it.
The names of the bowl games is a clear indicator of where the priorities lie. The games used to be called the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. Now, with the advent of the BCS, the games are now called the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio. These names are stupid. It's the same as the stadium names in professional sports, but at least the athletes are being paid in the Pro's.
But names are really the least of our worries; the larger issue with the BCS is that it's decidedly unfair. The ranking is unfair, the choice of which team goes to which bowl is unfair, the amount of money that teams spend and receive is unfair, and the fact the college students are being exploited is unfair.
College football rankings; Harris, Coaches and BCS polls all are unfairly bias toward bigger schools in either the midwest or the south, most specifically teams in the Big 12 and the SEC. For some reason the "power rankings" always reflect these conferences as being the toughest, regardless of how good the teams in that conference are. This year, the SEC happens to have some very good teams, four teams in the BCS top 10 in fact (a little suspicious...), but it's a little odd that the same teams and conferences happen to be in the top 25, regardless of how their seasons actually turn out. The Pac 12 gets a little respect, simply because their teams are so dominant, but still will lose out in power rankings to and SEC or Big 12 team, who supposedly have tougher schedules.
Make no mistake, LSU is the best team in the country. They're undefeated, and they've had a very tough season, with many tough games on the road. However, after that, it's difficult to figure out exactly how and why they ranked the teams the way they did.

Let me know what you think of the BCS.