The Musing of BCS computers

You will not question the bcs, only obey.

 

no kidding, the New York Times has Texas #2 with LSU #9!

that is wacked

 

I thought that some of these were how these guys were ranking teams in their heads? Like their own little writers poll. Anyone else ever hear that?

 

I, as a sportswriter, support a playoff system for college football. All of the excuses are a b.s. crock. They do it at the other levels of NCAA football, why not the big boys? Answer, it's all about the dollar. The BCS is the biggest bunch of garbage on God's earth. Why would you want a Rube Goldbergesque contraption of equations and values to spit out the national championship contenders when it should be decided where it belongs: on the field, not within the innards of a bunch of sillicon, plastic and copper?

 

What method would you propose for selecting the teams that made the playoffs? Would there still not be a BCS type formula that helped select some of the teams?

 

Yes, take the **** out of the BCS, leaving it a bare polling system naming the top 6 or 8 teams.

Those teams (depending on rankings, schedule strangth, conference, etc.) would be seeded and play within a month period.

With the Super Bowl reaching February, I don't see a problem in extending the National Championship Game another week.

It just depends on if teams can survive a possible 15-game schedule.

But again, some in the NFL want to go to an 18-game schedule.

Anyway, as bad as the BCS may be, it's really the best. Roy Kramer keeps on looking like somewhat of a genius putting the top two teams against each other without flaw the past, what 6, 7 years?

It still hasn't failed.


Now an original idea I am thinking of is using the BCS-type calculations in a way that would determine a true National Championship game, but also satisfy those who need a playoff-type system.

With some conferences playing Championship games and otehrs not, how about this:

Throughout the season the Computers will determine which teams are the top 8 teams. Well my idea is for, say there would be a 4-team 'playoff', the Computers to seed teams 1-4 (or 1-6, whatever).

So right now, it is not determined if USC or LSU will go, and it won't be determined for another 2 weeks. Well, the genius of this is that the System will place, say the number 6 team vs. number 1, #5 vs. 2, #3 v #4.

Okay, I think it may not be completely clear, but I'll try to re-explain it. Say Alabama is number one in the polls, and clearly the number one team in the BCS. Well either they would play a lower seeded team or they could get a bye.

Well, what my description mainly looks like is the top 4 or 6 teams would play until the end, but that's not exactly what I'm going for. It's more like it would take teams like USC and LSU and place them in a 'qualifying round' for the National Championship.

They are clearly the number 2 teams, so it's hard to say that one should go and the other shouldn't on the basis of other teams' performance.

The idea I have is more complicated than pitting USC v LSU in a one week deathmatch for OU, but that's what it appears in this situation.

If, say, there were 4 undefeated teams, the computers would (maybe) forget rankings and decide upon performance of those teams and seed them 1-4. Then it would be a true Nat'l Championship.

Anyway, I hope at least one of you understands what I'm saying.

 

Anyway, as bad as the BCS may be, it's really the best. Roy Kramer keeps on looking like somewhat of a genius putting the top two teams against each other without flaw the past, what 6, 7 years?

I think Miami fans might disagree. Or Oregaon fans.

Certainly it puts the top two BCS teams together, but that's what it has to do. It doesn't put the two teams that are ranked numbers one and two by other polls together all the time.

 

I-AA schools have a 16 team playoff. All conference champs get an automatic bid and the rest of the spots are filled at large.

All the excuses (besides money) don't hold water because this system works great for I-AA. The best team wins every year. No questions asked. The championship game is played before any of the major bowls are played, so to say the season would be too long is silly.

Each playoff game could be a "bowl". There are 15 total games, and the last 3 games could be the BCS bowls. Do we really need more than 15 bowls anyway?

Of course, this will never happen because there is way to much money at stake for the big conferences. Pretty sad.

 

Heh, bamaslammer, from now on, over in the D&D forum, I want you to preface all of your posts with "I, as a sportswriter...."

 

A playoff is the only way to rid this madness. There's no perfect formula out there that will please everyone. And pure voting will still leave a bad taste in many people's mouths, especially for a small conference team like TCU if it did stay undefeated.

 

That's pretty sad. Those students get compensation beyond what almost any college student can make. If the division 2 schools can handle it, then the big boys definitely can.

 

I think the BCS scoring system is reasonable with 2 exceptions.
1) Fix the quality win bonus part so if you beat an excellent team twice you get MORE credit than beating them once instead of the current system where you weaken the credit you get now by beating a team the 2nd time (e.g., like if LSU beats Georgia this year or if UT beat CU a few years ago).
2) Reintroduce the margin of victory in computer polls to eliminate the OSU "just squeaking by is enough baby" effect. You can make the margin only matter up to 30 point difference and/or apply transformations (log, square root) to take away the incentive to run up scores.

That said I do want a playoff, one that uses BCS type system for the top 8 or so.