College Football is flawed. I know it, you know it. Hell, Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, and even Barack Obama know it.
There are five teams atop the BCS rankings, each of which is more than qualified to play for the National Championship.
Alabama, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and USC. There’s the fab five. If the season ended today, there would be no way to legitimately sort out who would play for the title.
Oklahoma will play Missouri in the Big 12 Championship game this week. Assuming they win, they would be given a shot to play for the National Championship.
Florida plays Alabama this Saturday for the SEC Championship. Not many people are giving Alabama a chance in this one and I can’t blame them. Despite Alabama being the nation’s lone BCS conference unbeaten team and ranked #1 in the polls, I don’t see anyone slowing Florida down right now. Even with Percy Harvin possibly sidelined, Florida is the team to beat going forward. Unless Tebow gets hurt, and that is a big rarity, Florida is my pick in that one – which would send Florida to the National Championship for a Florida-Oklahoma title game.
Florida-Oklahoma. Probably the two most talented teams in the country. I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But what about Texas? Texas has only one loss, like Florida and Oklahoma, and they beat Oklahoma. My gut tells me that the tiebreaker should be the head-to-head result, the Big 12 Conference differs.
But how about if Missouri upsets Oklahoma? Then the BCS has to pick which team would play Alabama or Florida, and I assume it would be USC, a team that has had a cake schedule and really flown under the national radar this year.
Would a playoff system cure college football’s ills? I don’t know. I want to say yes. But what we have right now is definitely exciting. With the current BCS structure, every single game is a playoff game because teams can’t afford any losses. Also, the cash that comes with a bowl game entrance is HUGE for school’s. It would be touch for the chancellor’s to vote for their conference to be in favor of a playoff if it means their athletic program is going to be down $8 million in next year’s budget.
BCS haters should be rooting for Missouri this week vs Oklahoma, because then there would be a backlash against the system by having to select only one of the one-beatens to play the SEC winner, and that could be enough to see some kind of playoff format next season.
It is a flawed system indeed, it isn’t perfect. But it generates more discussion that just about anything in sports, and as the stupid quote says, “Any press is good press.”
