Bowl Championship Silliness - The Third

Today I bring you the third (and hopefully final) entry in my tirade against the hypocrisy of those who hold the reins of major college football. You might have expected some analysis or insight into last night's BCS national championship game between LSU and Ohio State (LSU won 38-24), but no, you'll have to go elsewhere for that.

If you tuned into the sports world today, you should know by now that that quest for a championship playoff in Division 1A football has a new ally, University of Georgia president Michael F. Adams. Adams released his proposal for an 8 team playoff, to begin after the current BCS contracts expire in 2010, this morning, only hours after fellow conference member LSU raised the 2008 BCS championship trophy. As I've said in my previous entries on the BCS, I prefer a playoff system, so you might expect me to talk about what a positive development this is. And in some ways, perhaps it is. There's really very little of his commentary on the BCS that I disagree with. When he talks about how the system has lost public confidence and doesn't work, I'm right there. And yet, on a larger level, this proposal, coupled with its source and the timing of its release, really just serves as another perfect example of why the leadership of college football is a mess, and any progress towards making it less of a mess has been and will continue to be mind-numbingly slow.

I'm sure that even if you don't follow college football that much, based on the information I've given you thus far, it wouldn't surprise you to know that Georgia was the school that saw itself as being the most "wronged" by the system this year. Here's a brief rundown on what happened. Georgia lost two SEC games early in the season, and as such did not win their division and did not qualify for the SEC title game. However, they finished the season on a roll, winning their last 6 games and leading many "experts" to suggest they might be playing better than any other team at season's end. They were ranked 4th in the BCS standings going into the last week of the season, and so when #1 Missouri and #2 West Virginia both lost as Georgia sat idle, it would have seemed natural for Georgia to move up into the #2 spot, behind #1 Ohio State. However, voters were clearly uncomfortable putting a team into the national championship game that hadn't even qualified for their conference championship. LSU, the SEC conference champion, moved above Georgia into #2 in the final polls, and as a result into the #2 spot in the final standings.

So, call me a skeptic regarding Adams' motivation for his proposal. The fact that he couldn't even wait until 24 hours after the BCS title game doesn't exactly ease my skepticism. While virtually everything he cites in his proposal is true, it's been true since the BCS came into existence. For all the ceremony and bluster about the BCS rankings, and the various components that have been used in the rankings throughout the history of the BCS, the simple fact of the matter is the system has always been designed so that the human voters decide who they want in the championship game. The computers are there and used, but they are really only a deciding factor if the 2 human polls don't agree on who #1 and #2 are, since the human polls are 2/3 of the ranking. That's the system, that's how it's been, and that's how those in charge want it. Witness the 2003 season, after which USC, who was #1 in both BCS polls, was left out of the BCS title game in favor of the #2 and #3 teams. Outcry all over the place, and the rankings revised to place more emphasis on the human polls. The participants in the BCS title game being subject to the whims of the voters is not an accident - it's by design. The only improvement that the BCS offers over the way things were done for decades in college football is that it presents a defined #1 and #2 prior to the bowls, and ensures that those two teams play. None of this should be news to anyone who has been involved in college football for any length.

I suppose I could be led to believe that the overt manipulation of the polls to avoid an unpopular scenario is something that would have drawn Adams' ire even had Georgia not been involved. The problem is that a very similar situation occurred last year. Ohio State and Michigan entered their final game of the regular season both at 11-0, and ranked #1 and #2 in the country. That meant that the winner would be #1 and 12-0, and the loser would have only one loss, which would have come at the hands of the #1 team in the country. No other major conference team would be undefeated. When Michigan lost the game, a 1 loss USC team jumped them to #2 in the polls. Not particularly shocking given the way the rankings usually work. However, when USC lost the following week, SEC champ Florida and their one loss jumped idle Michigan in the polls, avoiding the "unpopular" scenario of the OSU/Michigan rematch in the title game. So, where was Adams at after that "injustice"?

Adams can dispute this publicly all he likes, but the simple fact of the matter is that, had Georgia been in the BCS title game this year over LSU, there would have been no playoff proposal from Adams. The system "failed" Georgia, and so in Adams' eyes, it must broken. It's that kind of blatent self-interest that has kept the current system in place, and until those attitudes are stemmed, any system put in place is likely to be flawed - even a playoff.