Could the BCS Be Any Worse?



While sleeping through the Orange Bowl beatdown by Stanford over Virginia Tech, I had a dream.  A dream that for one day I could be the omnipotent commissioner of the NCAA and fix this horrible mess.

Tim Tebow working
on his release point
with the BCS trophy

First rule: You can't just say that the answer is a playoff.  Because that isn't going to happen, despite what Marc Cuban tells you (http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/ncf/news/story?id=5927151) and frankly I don't want to see a 16 team playoff.

Problem #1- There is minimal reward but significant risk for playing big games early in the year.



Problem #2- Games are scheduled up to 10-12 years in advance (for example Ohio State has scheduled Georgia for 2020 and 2021) so there is no way to predict the quality of the matchup when it actually occurs.  Ohio State has been aggressive in its scheduling of quality nonconference opponents this decade which led to great games against Texas and USC.  The same could have been said for its matchup against Miami in 2010 and 2011 when these games were originally scheduled.  Miami, however, has fallen on hard times and this matchup did not live up to its original billing.

Solution:  Conference head to head challenges.  One of the things that makes college football great is the regional pride that is associated.  Find me a football fan in Big 10 country that wanted to see Penn State lose to Alabama early this season.  The bowl games offer the only opportunity to compare teams from different conferences but there are too many variables that make that less than reliable (at least thats what Big 10 fans have to say after the 0-5 record on New Years Day.

         Teams from each conference would be ranked by their records from the previous two seasons.  They would play the corresponding team from an opposing conference for a home and away series over two years.  This creates "a playoff" in the regular season where the best of the Big 10 plays the best of the SEC, ACC vs Pac 12, Big 12 vs Big East.  This year this would have given us matchups like OSU vs Florida, Penn State vs Alabama (bad example as this happened) and Georgia vs Iowa.  While there is still year to year variability it should ensure more interesting games.  It also would force schools like Georgia to play outside of their comfort zone (Georgia had played no regular season games outside of a state that was on the wrong side of the civil war from 1965 until 2008) 

Kyle Brotzman faking a Percy
Harvin-esque migraine
after missing field goal against Nevada

Problem #3: Weak conferences- This year presented a significant issue for the BCS when both TCU and Boise State were poised to go undefeated.  Thankfully Nevada and Kyle Brotzman's two missed field goals prevented this from happening.  But think about the excitement that a Mountain West-WAC championship game during the conference championship week would have generated.  To a degree this becomes a moot point with Boise State joining the Mountain West next year where they will face TCU but becomes an issue the following year when TCU leaves for the Big East.

Solution: All conferences are associated with a post-season championship game.  The Big 10 adds their championship next year with the addition of Nebraska making the conference 12 teams.  Conferences lacking a championship game will include the Big 12, Mountain West, and Big East.  Since the Big East has not provided a national champion in football since the year I was born, the Big East champion and the Mountain West champion would play for the BCS berth.  This means that we can look forward to many TCU-Boise State match-ups in the future. The Big 12 would use its regular season champion as the automatic qualifier until it expands.

Problem #4: Teams not ranked in the BCS rankings playing in a BCS game.  Due to the automatic qualifiers from the "major conferences" teams like UConn are in a BCS bowl and teams like Boise State and Michigan State get left out.  You will then tell me that Michigan State wasn't that good look what happened in their bowl game.  While I agree with that end result and suspected all year long that MSU were more lucky than good, you have to remember that if Boise State's kicker could kick the equivalent of an extra point it could have been Ohio State on the outside looking in.

Solution: Only teams in the top 10 of the BCS rankings are eligible for a BCS bowl game.  There are monetary issues that would have to be worked out amongst the conferences but there will be more TV money to split amongst the conferences if you can guarantee more games that are competitive.  The only game that I have watched with my full attention was the Rose Bowl because it was a good game.  I watched the Fiesta Bowl just to see if Oklahoma was going to get Boise State'd again.  Finally, I watched the Orange Bowl because the only alternative was to try and keep track of the 30 different women on the first episode of the Bachelor. 
     Using the improved system your bowl games could have been: Rose: Oregon-Wisconsin, Fiesta: Oklahoma-Arkansas, Sugar: Auburn-Stanford, Orange: TCU-Ohio State

Problem #5: The championship is 5 to 6 weeks after the end of the season.  Some teams can handle this others can't, just ask themembers of the 2006 Ohio State Buckeyes that were rolled by Florida.  People want college football to be done on the 1st or 2nd of January.  By the 10th of January, most of us have gone on with our lives. 

Solution: Keep the BCS championship game but utilize it to matchup the top 2 teams from the previous weeks bowls. With the addition of the BCS championship game in 2006, it seemed natural that they could utilize this format for the "plus one" that I am advocating.  It offers a pseudo-playoff that would decrease the likelihood of ending the season with two undefeated teams (ie this years game would feature TCU vs the winner of Oregon-Auburn), maintain the current bowl structure, and should ensure a game between two teams that are playing their best football at that point.

Please use the comment buttons below to present your ideas, rebuttals, etc.

Thanks to Bill Janssen for his contributions to this proposal.