There is No Way to Validate the BCS

Another college football regular season has come and gone; while it was an extremely tough year to be a Michigan Wolverine fan, it was another season filled with great games, amazing plays, and outstanding players. Of course, it also generated the normal (if not more) amount of BCS controversy; with the bowl matchups just announced, it's once again time to reflect on why the BCS is so wrong for college football.

Over at ESPN, there are a few quotes from BCS chairman John Swofford. He attempts to validate the national championship game teams, Florida and Oklahoma, like this: "One of the interesting aspects of where we are, looking at the standings, is that Florida and Oklahoma are one or two in the Harris poll, coaches' poll and even the AP poll, which is not used in the BCS standings. You have a consistency there with the human polls on those same two teams." So since the silly human human polls have those two teams ranked 1 & 2, that validates your (even sillier) BCS? The University of Texas, among others, would definitely disagree with that.

Texas beat Oklahoma 45-35 in October and finished with the same Big XII record as the Sooners. When it came to determining the tie-breaker for the Big XII championship game, rather than using the logical head-to-head matchup result (which would be used by any other sport), they used the BCS standings - which had the Sooners slightly ahead of the Longhorns. Since Oklahoma beat Missouri in that game, they're heading to the BCS title game - even though the Longhorns and Sooners have only 1 loss and Texas beat Oklahoma earlier in the season.

Don't get me wrong - Florida and Oklahoma are both very good teams. But they're both one-loss teams, and that puts them in the same boat as Texas, USC, Alabama, Penn State, and Texas Tech. And don't even get me started on Utah and Boise State, which are both still undefeated (but while I am here, how big of a joke is it that undeafeated Boise State gets thrown into the December 23 Poinsetta Bowl while 2-loss Ohio State gets the BCS Fiesta Bowl, even though Boise State is ahead of the Buckeyes in the final BCS standings?).

So Mr. Swofford, as even president-elect Obama knows, there is no way to validate the BCS. Whichever team wins the BCS Championship Game is going to be considered national champs, but what happens to the USC/Penn State winner? Or how about if Oklahoma beats Florida and Texas crushes Ohio State? Or if Utah beats Alabama, who was the "human's" #1 team for much of the year? No, this year will have no true "national champion"; it will merely have a series of 1-loss (or even undefeated) teams that can lay claim to being the best in the country.

Everyone knows a playoff is needed; if college basketball can work in a 3-weekend playoff, I see no reason why college football couldn't do the same. And there are a number of feasible ideas out there (mine is here). There's no reason why another method wouldn't be possible, and there's no reason why it wouldn't be a great moneymaker for the NCAA. Tradition is important, I know, but the fans are asking for something more. It's time to create a new tradition - one that doesn't involve the BCS.

UPDATE: No doubt in my mind - Utah should be considered the national champions. Beating four ranked teams during the season - including crushing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl - is more than impressive enough for them to jump over 1-loss Florida for that claim. The AP and BCS may not see it that way, but there are quite a few people that do.