On the BCS
An open letter to ESPN.com's Pat Forde in response to his article
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls04/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=1939745
I just finished reading your extended lament over what havoc the BCS has wrought on the wonderful New Year's football holiday. You say that it has drained the life out of every other bowl game that is not the "big one". Your solution, then, is a playoff. How creative!
But do you not see that a playoff would only serve to drain the life out of the last few weeks of the regular season? Who would have watched OU paste CU if they knew that even a Sooners loss, however unlikely, would still have not dropped them from the top 8 (or 16)? Same goes for UCLA's valiant effort the same day against top-ranked USC. Letting the top 8 teams battle it out for supremacy also has the effect of draining the life out of every other team's season-making game. UCLA had a chance to vindicate their own season by snatching a shot at the title away from their hated rival. That made for an exciting, emotional contest that would have been lame otherwise.
Furthermore, setting up this playoff of 8 (or 16) would still stir up controversy. You can no more easily pick the top 2 than the top 8. Is Boise St. in or out? Va Tech? Michigan? You would end up with just as much campaigning, only from more people. More teams would have to run up scores to bolster their case of being in the top 8, just as Utah had to do to move into the top 6.
I think the media stirs up more trouble with the BCS than the fans would ever notice. We just want to watch good football. The real "problem" with college sports is that there are so many teams that do not play each other during the season, making comparisons the subject of watercooler discussions rather than an eventual meeting in the playoffs. And that is fine with me, because I am not a big fan of the NFL. I do not want college sports to look the same. I am a born and bred Oklahoma Sooner fan. I realize that things have gone our way the last two years especially. But I also remember the not-so-remote lean years, when the only thing we had to look forward to was possibly upsetting Texas or Nebraska and ruining their hopes of an undefeated championship season. No matter how bad your team is one year, all it takes is one Saturday to turn everything around and give the players and coaches and fans something to smile about. The biggest problem with the BCS is that it places the focus entirely on the national champion and ignores everything else college football has to offer its fans every Saturday.
Thanks for your time
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls04/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=1939745
I just finished reading your extended lament over what havoc the BCS has wrought on the wonderful New Year's football holiday. You say that it has drained the life out of every other bowl game that is not the "big one". Your solution, then, is a playoff. How creative!
But do you not see that a playoff would only serve to drain the life out of the last few weeks of the regular season? Who would have watched OU paste CU if they knew that even a Sooners loss, however unlikely, would still have not dropped them from the top 8 (or 16)? Same goes for UCLA's valiant effort the same day against top-ranked USC. Letting the top 8 teams battle it out for supremacy also has the effect of draining the life out of every other team's season-making game. UCLA had a chance to vindicate their own season by snatching a shot at the title away from their hated rival. That made for an exciting, emotional contest that would have been lame otherwise.
Furthermore, setting up this playoff of 8 (or 16) would still stir up controversy. You can no more easily pick the top 2 than the top 8. Is Boise St. in or out? Va Tech? Michigan? You would end up with just as much campaigning, only from more people. More teams would have to run up scores to bolster their case of being in the top 8, just as Utah had to do to move into the top 6.
I think the media stirs up more trouble with the BCS than the fans would ever notice. We just want to watch good football. The real "problem" with college sports is that there are so many teams that do not play each other during the season, making comparisons the subject of watercooler discussions rather than an eventual meeting in the playoffs. And that is fine with me, because I am not a big fan of the NFL. I do not want college sports to look the same. I am a born and bred Oklahoma Sooner fan. I realize that things have gone our way the last two years especially. But I also remember the not-so-remote lean years, when the only thing we had to look forward to was possibly upsetting Texas or Nebraska and ruining their hopes of an undefeated championship season. No matter how bad your team is one year, all it takes is one Saturday to turn everything around and give the players and coaches and fans something to smile about. The biggest problem with the BCS is that it places the focus entirely on the national champion and ignores everything else college football has to offer its fans every Saturday.
Thanks for your time
posted by matt at 8:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home