Here is my column today for The Washington Post ------
This column is going to be written in a very calm tone. There will be no calling the BCS presidents liars because their veracity really isn't a relevant issue at this point. There will be no calls for a congressional investigation or even for President Obama to follow up on his comments of a year ago calling for a college football playoff.
The president has other issues on the table and, to be honest, short of threatening the tax-exempt status of the big-bucks schools, even his presence probably won't force the heads of the 66 BCS schools in question to end their hypocrisy.
Let us look factually at the college football landscape with five weeks to go before BCS bids are handed out.
At this moment there are seven teams in the college football bowl subdivision -- as it is now called by those nice people at the NCAA -- with undefeated records. Five of those teams -- Florida, Texas, Alabama, Iowa and Cincinnati -- play in conferences where the champion receives an automatic bid to a BCS bowl, regardless of record. The other two, TCU and Boise State, play in non-BCS conferences where it is possible to go undefeated and not play in a BCS bowl and impossible to play for the national championship under any circumstances.
Click here for the rest of the column: BCS is busy trying to fix its image, but nothing else
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10 comments:
Hi John - Bravo on this article. As a true dyed-in-the-wool Boise State Bronco fan, I feel you feel our pain. Thanks for bringing this to light in the most eloquent way possible. I'd love to send you a BSU jersey! GO BRONCOS!!!
Brilliant, John, as always. If Boise State goes undefeated and get stuck in a non-BCS bowl, I think the BCS pundits should fly to Boise and explain to the players in person why they're not worthy of playing for a championship. Though, in reality, there's no such thing as a national championship in the FBS, is there. And that's a shame.
It's nice to hear an "objective point of view" instead of the usual coming from a supporter of the "haves".
John - I changed the wikipedia thing for you. Clearly you are best known for On The Brink book --- and i changed it to reflect that. Some tpo's on it, but I'm in iphone at bar.
Edit Wikipedia? There's an app for that.
Michael -- thanks for the heads up on the earlier post!
And Jeff, I think he'd wear it proudly...
FOTB Staff
Change the minds of the college president?
There's a nap for that...
I haven't met anything yet that a nap could either fix completely or at least make better.
I agree with John, that a playoff would be much better than the current system. However, Boise does not play anybody. They do not deserve to be in the BCS this year. A win against Oregon is impressive, but a season it does not make. Miami of Ohio, San Jose State, Bowling Green, Nevada, New Mexico State, etc. The AD and Coach will need to get in front of those kids and explain why they didn't qualify for the BCS. If they had played two other BCS schools, plus Oregon, their argument is much stronger (just like Gonzaga in basketball). I believe Boise will lose to Idaho in a few weeks, and it will correct itself...Idaho is good, and will be in a bowl game.
Annonymous - Maybe Idaho beats Boise, who knows, but for all your other points its the collegiate football system that puts Boise behind the 8-ball. I don;t know the Boise situation exactly, but most schools like theirs have a nightmare trying to schedule any credible BCS schools, and virtually no BCS conference program will do a home and home, probably not even a Duke. I bet if you ask Oregon, they will never agree to do it again.
There is absolutely no reason why a BCS conference team with any aspirations, or any coach for the middle to back of the pack in one of those conferences, would agree to play Boise. In basketball, at least that one loss doesn't murder your program. In football, it could spell murder to play and risk losing to Boise, or another like it.
Heck, ask Virginia or Clemson if they'll have TCU back anytime soon. Scheduling 'up' is not an option often for the have-nots.
The BCS is made up of all 11 conferences not just the 6 AQ's + ND.
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