By Ian Noll –
Everybody loves college basketball’s March Madness and a football version would ensure that the best teams play each other in that sport. And it would ensure that a real champion is crowned every year.
The BCS-championship system college football is using now has continued to show it’s weak points year after year, the best teams are not playing for the championship every time.
“It’s better than the BCS, probably more fair, and the NFL does it so why shouldn’t college too,” Penn Manor junior Ian Martzall asked.
The Bowl Championship Series, BCS for short, is decided by human opinion which alone sets up unfair bowl games. The system was changed in 2004 when the strength of schedule, win-loss record and quality wins were all eliminated from deciding who will play, according to About.com. Human polls account for about two-thirds of the deciding formula compared to before when it was only one-quarter.
“It needs to be set up like playoffs in the NFL so the top 8 teams have a shot of winning it,” junior Matt Hatch insisted.
In recent years, there have been multiple blowouts, showcasing the fact that the teams were not evenly matched to play for the title game. The 2004 and 2006 championship games were prime examples of blowouts, 2004 was USC vs. Oklahoma, USC won by 36. The 2006 game consisted of Florida vs Ohio State, had Florida winning by 27.
Now, here’s a proposition to fix the system, and have the best teams play every year.
Playoffs.
It doesn’t have to be the NFL form of playoffs, or the March Madness version, but somewhere in the middle.
“I guess they could take away one or two regular season games, or just start earlier or end later,” Martzall said.
According to a survey ESPN conducted, the majority of the NCAA players and coaches prefer a playoff system over BCS.
To institute a playoff system the NCAA should start eliminating the games where the teams just have a “hay day” on smaller schools. An example would be Penn State playing a school similar to Youngstown State. Both are D-1 football programs, but are not even close to playing on the same level. With the elimination of these rather pointless games, could shorten the season so that the playoff system would be able to be used.
But with every idea or proposition, comes the critics.
According to CollegeFootball.procon.org, with a playoff system, a team can lose an entire year worth of hard work if they have one bad day. Also, if there was a playoff system the season would be extended by as much as a month and would contribute to player injuries and academic problems.
There hasn’t been a decision yet, but with a few big name conferences warming up to the idea of playoffs, the drop of the BCS might not be so far away.
The NCAA needs to drop the BCS already and move their ranking system towards a playoff oriented version. Doing this will ensure that the best teams who played well throughout the season will be playing each other in the National Championship. It will also hopefully eliminate blowout games, such as the 2004 and 2006 game.
The NCAA and the bigger conferences care more about money that anything else. Look at what March Madness has become. Really, 68 teams? Only a few have a legitimate chance of actually winning the title.