BCS playoff long overdue

On the Fly (as published in The Democrat July 17, 2012)

The recently approved college football playoff system is a resounding victory for fans of the game.

The playoff system, which would put an end to the oft-bemoaned Bowl Championship Series (BCS) selection system, will be made up of four teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine a national champion.

Much of the criticism of the BCS selection system focused on the use of computers, which combined a number of factors including records, poll rankings and strength of schedules, to determine the two teams which would play for the national championship.

The system led to controversial selections almost every year, such as the 2004 game in which an 12-0 Southern California team defeated a 12-0 Oklahoma team 55-19, while a 12-0 SEC Champion Auburn squad was left out of the picture. (USC later had the win vacated.)

The four teams for the new playoff system will be chosen by a selection committee which will consider win-loss record, strength of schedule, head-to-head results and whether a team is a conference champion.

This comes as big news to programs such as Boise State, who despite several recent undefeated regular seasons, has not been able to play for a national championship due to a weaker, non-BCS conference affiliation.

The real winners of the new system are the fans.

College basketball’s annual 68-team tournament in March to determine its national champion, affectionately known as “March Madness,” is one of the more popular annual sporting events among fans, drawing huge audiences across multiple television stations.

In terms of collegiate athletics, football trumps basketball in most areas of the county. I suspect the result will be tremendous TV ratings, which means more revenue for everyone, from advertisers, to the National Collegiate Athletics Association, to the conferences, and in turn to the schools.

The college bowl system has been stale and in need of a shakeup for quite some time. The main changes seen in recent years have involved the addition of bowl game after bowl game.

That’s great for those of us who participate in “Bowl Pick ‘Em” contests amongst our buddies. (Just don’t tell my parents!) But the common football fan doesn’t sit around watching Southeastern Great Lakes University play the Mesa Verde Technical Institute in the Fruit of the Loom bowl to determine which team finishes the season one game over .500.

While it’s unlikely that the number of bowl games will decrease, four teams having a chance to win the national championship generates a much needed boost in excitement to the system.

Can an overachieving underdog shock the world? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m excited that the world may now have the chance to find out.

By the numbers:

• ·       Since the BCS system was put into place in 1998, national championships have been predominantly claimed by the Southeastern Conference, with eight national championships; the Big 12 Conference has two, the Atlantic Coast Conference has one, the Big East Conference has one, the Big 10 Conference has one, and the Pacific-12 Conference has zero following USC’s title vacation.
• ·       SEC teams have appeared in the national championship game on eight occasions, with a record of seven wins, zero losses, and in 2012 both Alabama and LSU appeared in the contest.
• ·       Three SEC schools have as many national championship or more than any other conference since the BCS was established: LSU (2), Florida (2), Alabama (2).
• ·       The Big 12 Conference has 7 national championship game appearances, second only to the SEC’s 8, but has posted 2-5 record, for a .286 victory percentage, the lowest of any BCS conference.