Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Outrage is cheap and plentiful, and like most cheap and plentiful things it is useless when you need to get something done. Any and all outrage over the BCS is functionally useless, and like a customer stuck bellowing at the mute face of an off-bank ATM charging you for the money you must have at that moment, you will take the fee for being a fan because you need the money far more than you can tolerate the lack of it. Go ahead and yell at it all you like -- it changes nothing, and might get you a misdemeanor charge when a passing cop sees you kicking the daylights out of a poor defenseless machine.
Sputter on if you like, but despicable as the BCS may be, it is a vast improvement over the old systems of determining a national champion. Remember that in the past -- from 1965 to 1967 -- the AP's national championship could in fact be awarded before the bowl season, meaning double the outrage when your appointed champion went down in flames in a bowl game. Before the half-sanity of the BCS there was voting, and voting alone, to determine the national championship, a process that due to bowl contracts meant the best teams playing each other was never even a possibility.
Under the existing system, that is at least a possibility, and that is an improvement from the previous regimes of crowning national champions. Also, if this seems familiar, it should, since panicking over the BCS leading into this year has only had one undeniably busted year: 2003, when USC and LSU split the title after Oklahoma snuck into the picture through the magic of some funky BCS math. A decade of the system has been good in producing fair matchups, even if the results in the games themselves have been erratic. (OSU/Miami? Classic. USC/Oklahoma? Classically gory.)
For the moment, hold the outrage. After the conference championship games, you should have a one-loss Big 12 team versus either an undefeated or one loss SEC team. USC may have a small case for being in the BCS Championship game, but their strength of schedule serves as a convenient enough counter to any claims they may make. (It's not their fault the Pac-10 went to the dogs this year, but still.) The same holds true for Penn State, whose schedule also puts them a few crucial paces behind a claim at the title. Contrary to what fellow TSBer Dan Shanoff says, it is not a playoff, but it will produce a quality matchup that, in retrospect, will look like the right call once the games are actually played and trophies hoisted skyward.
(Unless Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma this week and/or Texas loses to Texas A&M, and then you can set the drapes on fire, grab a gun and a bottle of liquor, and head to the hills, because this house is burning to the ground.)
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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You got one thing right. The BCS is nothing.
As long as college football continues to embrace the mythical national championship the list of meaningless bowls matching 6 win teams will continue to grow and their relevance will diminish more and more.
This is just ridiculous:
EagleBank Bowl Dec. 20
11 a.m. Washington, D.C. ACC vs. Navy ESPN
New Mexico Dec. 20
2:30 p.m. Albuquerque, NM Mountain West vs. WAC ESPN
St. Petersburg Dec. 20
4:30 p.m. St. Petersburg, FL Big East vs. C-USA ESPN2
Pioneer Las Vegas Dec. 20
8 p.m. Las Vegas, NV Mountain West vs. Pac-10 ESPN
R+L Carriers New Orleans Dec. 21
8:15 p.m. New Orleans, LA C-USA vs. Sun Belt ESPN
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Dec. 23
8 p.m. San Diego, CA Mountain West vs. Pac-10 ESPN
Sheraton Hawaii Dec. 24
8 p.m. Honolulu, HI WAC vs. Pac-10 ESPN
Motor City Dec. 26
7:30 p.m. Detroit, MI MAC vs. Big Ten ESPN
Meineke Car Care Dec. 27
1 p.m. Charlotte, NC ACC vs. Big East ESPN
Champs Sports Dec. 27
4:30 p.m. Orlando, FL ACC vs. Big Ten ESPN
Emerald Dec. 27
8 p.m. San Francisco, CA Pac-10 vs. ACC ESPN
Independence Dec. 28
8:15 p.m. Shreveport, LA SEC vs. Big 12 ESPN
Papajohns.com Dec. 29
3 p.m. Birmingham, AL SEC vs. Big East ESPN
Valero Alamo Dec. 29
8 p.m. San Antonio, TX Big Ten vs. Big 12 ESPN
Roady’s Humanitarian Dec. 30
4:30 p.m. Boise, ID WAC vs. ACC ESPN
Texas Dec. 30
8 p.m. Houston, TX Big 12 vs. C-USA NFL
Pacific Life Holiday Dec. 30
8 p.m. San Diego, CA Pac-10 vs. Big 12 ESPN
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Dec. 31
12 p.m. Fort Worth, TX Mountain West vs. C-USA ESPN
Brut Sun Dec. 31
2 p.m. El Paso, TX Pac-10 vs. Big 12/Big East/Notre Dame CBS
Gaylord Hotels Music City Dec. 31
3:30 p.m. Nashville, TN SEC vs. ACC ESPN
Insight Dec. 31
5:30 p.m. Tempe, Ariz. Big 12 vs. Big Ten NFL
Chick-fil-A Dec. 31
7:30 p.m. Atlanta, GA SEC vs. ACC ESPN
Outback Jan. 1
11 a.m. Tampa, FL Big Ten vs. SEC ESPN
Capital One Jan. 1
1 p.m. Orlando, FL SEC vs. Big Ten ABC
Konica Minolta Gator Jan. 1
1 p.m. Jacksonville, FL ACC vs. Big 12/Big East/Notre Dame CBS
Rose presented by Citi Jan. 1
4:30 p.m. Pasadena, CA BCS vs. BCS ABC
FedEx Orange Jan. 1
8:30 p.m. Miami, FL BCS vs. BCS FOX
AT&T Cotton Jan. 2
2 p.m. Dallas, TX Big 12 vs. SEC FOX
AutoZone Liberty Jan. 2
5 p.m. Memphis, TN C-USA vs. SEC ESPN
Allstate Sugar Jan. 2
8 p.m. New Orleans, LA BCS vs. BCS FOX
International Jan. 3
12 p.m. Toronto, Canada Big East vs. MAC ESPN2
Tostitos Fiesta Jan. 5
8 p.m. Glendale, AZ BCS vs. BCS FOX
GMAC Jan. 6
8 p.m. Mobile, AL C-USA vs. MAC ESPN
FedEx BCS National Championship Jan. 8
8 p.m. Miami, FL BCS No. 1 vs. BCS No. 2 FOX
by J Bone A on Nov 25, 2008 1:31 PM EST reply actions
Lets look at the top five and who they have played.
OU: 5 ranked teams Alabama: 2 Florida: 3
Cinn 16th Georgia 13th Georgia 13th
TCU 14th Florida 3rd(sat) Florida St. 24
Texas 4th-lost Alabama 1st (sat)
TTech 8th lost to Miss only getting 40 votes
OKSTATE 12th (sat)
TEXAS: 4 USC: 3
TTECH 8th-lost Ohio st 10th
OKSTATE 12th
OU 2nd
Missouri 11th
by adam.lippold on Nov 26, 2008 2:14 PM EST reply actions
Sorry i wasn’t finished before.
Lets look at the top five and who they have played.
OU: 5 ranked teams Alabama: 2 Florida: 3
Cinn 16th Georgia 13th Georgia 13th
TCU 14th Florida 3rd(sat) Florida St. 24
Texas 4th-lost Alabama 1st (sat)
TTech 8th lost to Miss only getting 40 votes
OKSTATE 12th (sat)
TEXAS: 4 USC: 3
TTECH 8th-lost Ohio st 10th
OKSTATE 12th Oregon St 17th- lost
OU 2nd Oregon 18th
Missouri 11th
We can easily see who has played the tougher schedules. This weekend will definately answer many questions with Bama and Florida duking it out. OU is on the road to OKSTATE in a game that can never be predicted. But USC playing only 3 ranked teams and losing to a team with three loses should not even be considered. When you look at the S.O.S.
by adam.lippold on Nov 26, 2008 2:17 PM EST reply actions
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