By: Bruce Bullington, GreensboroSports.com staff writer
You might not realize it, what with all the talking heads on ESPN and on talk radio doing their typical hand-wringing, but here’s a news flash.
The BCS worked. Again.
This bowl season saw the complete exposure of the Big Ten, a conference with two allegedly-elite teams that many said should have been playing for the BCS title.
Part one of that fallacy was exposed on New Years Day. Michigan, who was supposed to put on some kind of statement about being left out of the national title game, was embarrassed by a USC team in the Rose Bowl that had supposedly slipped from its recent glory years. The 32-18 final score certainly didn’t reflect how one-sided the game was.
The Big Ten did rally in lesser bowls as Penn State defeated Tennessee 20-10 in the Outback Bowl and Wisconsin edged out Arkansas 17-14 in the Capital One Bowl, but their champion was blown out 41-14 in the BCS title game by a Florida team that BCS opponents said didn’t even belong in the game.
The common argument is that an eight or 16-team playoff would be appropriate. While this would certainly be exciting for any fan of college football, it would dilute the importance of the regular season.
Division 1-A (or, as it’s been renamed, Division 1-Bowl subdivision) has the most importantregular season in all of major sports. Ever week is like a playoff game, with
every losspotentially eliminating teams from championship contention. By contrast, in the NFL, Kansas City lost in the opening week of the season to Cincinnati at home and was not eliminated from the title hunt until the first round of the playoffs. Did the Chiefs really deserve to play for the Super
Bowl?
In America, we are obsessed with the underdog. We loved George Mason’s run to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament last spring, never mind that they didn’t even finish first in their conference in the regular season and were far from one of the top four teams in the nation at the end of the season. The Pittsburgh Steelers wouldn’t have even made the playoff ten years earlier, but they were given a chance to steal a Super Bowl and they took advantage of it.
Major college football is the only sport left that only recognizes excellence and doesn’t allow mediocre teams another chance in winner-take-all, one-and-done crapshoots.
Here’s hoping they keep it that way.
This Just In…..Boise State says the system does not work, my vote goes for co-champions this year.
Really? You think Boise State deserved to play for the national championship? They played the 3rd worst team in a BCS bowl (Notre Dame and Wake were worse) and needed gadget plays and luck to eek out a win.
There were five to ten teams that deserved a shot at the national title before Boise State. If they want to run with the big boys, they need to join a major conference.
As you said above everyone thought FLA should not have been playing in the BCS title game and you see what happened, that is why the game should played on the field not by a vote, who knows what would happen if BS played FLA, I guess we should tell George Mason to join a major conference before they reach the Final Four again, my vote goes for co-champions this year.
George Mason had no business playing for the NCAA title. They played in a mediocre conference and won four games in a row and got much more of a chance to win the national title then they deserved.
The only way Boise State could have won the national championship was to get lucky. You can’t make a case that they were one of the best teams. Personally, I prefer the champion in any sport to be an elite team, not just a lucky one.
Everyone said FLA had no business playing for a championship this year but you see what happened, give Boise State a chance and you never know what might happen, I vote for co-champions this year.