Death to the BCS
by K. Scott Bailey on Oct 14, 2010 8:26 AM CDT
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PrintI am buying the book today. As I laid out my own 10-team playoff structure last week, and followed up with another article looking at how such a playoff structure might have affected our own 2003 Wildcat squad, I am very interested in having a look at what Wetzel, Peter, and Passan have put together. Perhaps their laying bare of the corruption that enables the BCS to continue will actually be an impetus for change. I certainly hope it is.
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No playoff system is coming soon
Too much ‘tradition’ in the bowls. Frankly, I don’t care about it anyway.
I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom. - Gen. George S. Patton
Wetzel was on tv
last night, pitching his book. He proposes a 16 team playoff (which means 4 extar games to get a champion). First several games on campus. Ok, so you are in the “1st round.” You lose. Now, is your team or fanbase going to be excited about going to the Cotton Bowl or the Outback Bowl around New Years. NO, NO, and never.
Now you are down to the final 8. It’s December 17th (finals week). You lose. Are your fans going to be able to buy cheap airline tickets to Tucson for the “Copper Bowl” ten days later? NO.
Let’s get off this playoff kick. The bowls developed as a reward for a nice season. Fun in the sun – that stuff. Let’s keep that part of it. Of course the BCS sucks, but only if you are heavily invested in who the real #1 is. I don’t care who the real number one is.
Win your conference and go to a nice bowl. There is no way to install a playoff system without significantly changing what we have now. I really like what we have now.
oh hail the Purple and White
We'll just have to agree to disagree
I don’t like what we have now because it isn’t fair.
Disregarding the #1 question, the current system perpetuates the haves having and the have-nots not having. That just doesn’t mesh with my sense of fairness.
I get that the world isn’t fair, but I don’t think that means we need to perpetuate unfairness, or allow it to continue without resistance, just because it has always been that way.
by ChrisP Wildcat on Oct 14, 2010 2:14 PM CDT up reply actions
F76
I will never understand your anti-playoff kick. What we have now is corporate fat cats lining their pockets on the backs of 18-21 year old boys. What we ALSO have now is a system that is pathetically AWFUL at determining a champion, and that does it’s best to squeeze out any little guys who dare stick their heads above the BCS line. When I finally gave completely up on these bozos was when they took the two non-AQs that qualified for the BCS last year, and made them play each other, instead of giving both a shot at one of the AQ conference “top dogs.” Jerry-rigging at it’s finest.
"Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either 'cause they're too scared, or because they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes. This is your big chance, and you shouldn't let it go by..."
www.bringonthecats.com
by K. Scott Bailey on Oct 14, 2010 5:26 PM CDT up reply actions
I think you understand, and it's okay if we disagree
Again, I’m not trying to "win" an argument, but I will address a few of your points in the immediate post, and then try to succinctly state what I think is the best argument against a "playoff" format:
First, and the fat cats will line their pockets even less with a playoff system requiring at least three more games from these college kids? That’s silly. The fat cats will always line their pockets off someone – that’s the way the world works. It will get worse, not better, with a playoff system.
Secondly, of course the system sucks at determining a "true" champion in Big Time College Football. But this is only important if determining the "true" champion is important, to which I say, "who cares."
Thirdly, I agree completely that matching TCU and Boise last year was a complete act of cowardice, motivated by a desire to forever manage the "perception" of who the big boys are.
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Now, the BCS is going to implode because, in its desire for short term profits, i.e., getting the right "brands" into the Championship game "every year," they are shi***g in their mess kits. You notice that FedEx cancelled its sponsorship of the Orange Bowl. The BCS is getting so unpopular that no big corporate sponsors will want to be associated with this BCS thing. In other words, the money is going to start drying up.
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Now, I remember the bowl system before the BCS came along. It was worse then. The bowls were always competing for who got Notre Dame; the BCS at least offered a formula for who went where, etc. K-State has done better under this system than the old one, trust me on that.
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I just really believe that a playoff system would be a fundamental change to the "fabric," the history, of what Big Time Football has been for some 70 years. Any time you start making fundamental changes to a "system", there are unintended consequences. I do not think the goal of finding the "true" national champion is worth what I believe will be HIGHLY NEGATIVE unintended consequences to "the whole" of Big Time College Football if, in fact, a playoff system is implemented. I know I’m in the minority; a playoff system is probably coming – and I will blame the idiots at ESPN, with their constant "message management" around the BCS system when it happens. Now, I don’t expect anyone to necessarily agree with my point of view, and I respect all who disagree with this point of view. Enough said.
oh hail the Purple and White
Simply put
if we don’t care who the true champion is, then college football is no better than the WWE. I refuse to believe that, so I’ll keep using whatever podiums I’m given to be a tiny little gadfly on the ass of the fat, stinking cow that is the current BCS system.
"Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either 'cause they're too scared, or because they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes. This is your big chance, and you shouldn't let it go by..."
www.bringonthecats.com
by K. Scott Bailey on Oct 15, 2010 1:53 PM CDT up reply actions
I'll have to object to this:
“K-State has done better under this system than the old one, trust me on that.”
K-State barely had an opportunity to do better under the old system. In 1993-1996, we honestly got the bowls we deserved. In 1997, the last year before the BCS, we finished the season… at the Fiesta Bowl, which was probably exactly what would have happened under the BCS (unless North Carolina trumped us, in which case it worked out better).
Meanwhile, under the BCS, we pretty much got screwed in 1998, whereas in the previous system we actually would have ended up in a major bowl.
My new blog: Those Other Guys. Critiques welcome.
Exactly!
The BCS hasn’t done our Cats any favors. And 1998 was a BIG-time screwjob. Did you know that the guys actually took a vote on whether or not they were even going to go to the Alamo Bowl or not? Frankly, it was insulting, and I would have been in the “nay” votes. From what I understand, they “yays” held the day by like 1 or 2 votes, I believe. I still think that if the guys had voted to boycott the bowl game, that maybe there would have been more pressure put on the BCS system. Who knows?
"Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either 'cause they're too scared, or because they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes. This is your big chance, and you shouldn't let it go by..."
www.bringonthecats.com
by K. Scott Bailey on Oct 17, 2010 1:07 PM CDT up reply actions
Wellll...
I’d say the situation put a lot of pressure on the BCS system anyway. I mean, the rule which guarantees a BCS bid to an at-large candidate ranked #3 was implemented in 1999, and it’s referred to as the “Kansas State rule”. ;)
My new blog: Those Other Guys. Critiques welcome.
True, but
I’m referring to the kind of pressure that builds and builds until the whole damn thing finally explodes. Can you imagine what a good chance KSU would have had in a 4-team playoff that year? Who was really scary in 1998? Tennessee? Florida State? No, I really DO wish the guys had just boycotted the Alamo Bowl.
"Face it, sports are the window through which the university is viewed."
--Pres. Jon Wefald, Kansas State University
by K. Scott Bailey on Oct 17, 2010 3:45 PM CDT up reply actions
The screw job had little to do with the BCS
Yes, we should have gotten an at large bid to a big bowl. But the screw job was Texas going to the Cotton and the Nubs going to the Holiday. That was internal Big12 politics, and a wide spread attempt by many in BIG TIME FOOTBALL to keep us in our place, because we were not a “national brand” that commands a lot of eyeballs for the tv ratings. We wouldn’t have gotten the Fiesta in 2003 without winning the conference, so I say the BCS “system” has given us one and taken one from us.
oh hail the Purple and White
How was 2003 the BCS "giving" us something?
We went out and GRABBED that bid, F76. No, the BCS has given us nothing our boys didn’t earn, and it has effing robbed us of the chance to play for a national championship on more than one occasion, assuming that the BCS is what is standing in the way of some kind of true playoff. We would have made it into such a playoff on more than one occasion.
"Face it, sports are the window through which the university is viewed."
--Pres. Jon Wefald, Kansas State University
by K. Scott Bailey on Oct 18, 2010 12:00 AM CDT up reply actions
Soren Petro
Interviewed the author today on The Program. I think I might buy the book myself, but it got me thinking, maybe what’s deeper than the BCS as a problem, is maybe it’s the rankings in general for college football that makes a problem, because honestly there’s no fair way to rank a team, you’re always just polling a certain demographic (whether it be other coaches who can’t watch every team on the top 25 play, or AP writers who are either biased or not biased, or just some guys with computers), which is bound to make anyone outside of that demographic not agree.
Some historical perspective on tv contracts and the BCS system
I did a fan post today on the history of tv contracts in college football. That subject and the BCS system are interrelated. The fan post has some links that will illuminate on this subject.
I think Wetzel’s argument are a crock of crap. He is a tool. But the reason I did the post is so that folks can research some history and make up their own minds on some of this stuff.
oh hail the Purple and White
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