Boise State and the BCS

By Scott Kornberg

As usual, Bowl Championship Series critics are condemning how the BCS process always seems to find a way to leave out the Cinderella’s of the sports. In this article by Tim Brando, Brando harps on the fact that the college football “National” Championship, is in fact, not “National” because teams like Boise State and TCU consistently get left out.

The one thing missing for college football is the Cinderella. The Cinderella is what makes college basketball great, and it could do the same for college football in the fall. Think back to 2006 when the #11 seed George Mason somehow danced to the Final Four. Or in 2008 when the #8 seed Davidson barely lost to the #1 seed Kansas in the Elite Eight. A more recent example is the #5 seed Butler Bulldogs coming within a missed half-court prayer of being the National Champion this past season.  Those teams made miraculous runs, and made each of those tournaments memorable to fans.

There is no miraculous run to be had in college football without a playoff system. Last year, Boise State was not given a chance to be the “National” Champion despite finishing undefeated. The Broncos were not given that chance either when they were undefeated in 2006, or in 2008, when Boise State had one loss. That one loss was the same amount of losses that the LSU Tigers and Ohio State Buckeyes had coming into their battle for the “National” Championship.

With no playoff system in place this year, the likelihood of a Cinderella crashing the BCS “National” Championship scene is slim. Boise State seems to be the most probable candidate, as they will likely enter the season ranked in the Top 5. The Broncos, however, will face only one team that finished with more than 8 wins last year (Virginia Tech). They played a slightly more difficult regular season schedule last year, with two teams on their slate that finished with 8 wins or more from the 2008 season (Oregon and Tulsa). The Broncos, or any other “Cinderella” team, are going to need to finish undefeated and hope that every other team in the country loses at least once in order to have a chance to play for the “National” Championship because the BCS computers will deem their schedule too weak to vault the major-conference teams with similar records. A playoff system is the only way to give these small-conference teams a fair chance at the BCS “National” Championship.

Scott Kornberg is a sportscaster for WMUC Sports (www.wmucsports.com). He hosts his own sports talk show, and announces baseball and softball games for the University of Maryland. He covers Maryland’s football and basketball writing for www.turtlesportsreport.com part of the scout.com network.

NCAA Basketball Expands Its Wallet

by Jeremiah Tittle

While all the discussion and opinion and argumentation and analysis of what expansion would do to or for or against the NCAA Tournament spiraled out of control, the reality was something altogether anticlimactic.

In a nutshell, the NCAA opted out of the last few years of its previous contract with CBS only to net an additional 4.8 billion dollars over the course of a 14 year deal – adding revenue of more than 2oo million per season – with both CBS and Turner in which the television host of the Final Four and National Championship will toggle back and forth following the 2015 season.

As if the TV networks agreeing to share wasn’t strange enough, the only expansion in terms of actual games played resulted in the addition of 3 play-in games on the Tuesday before the real bracketology starts. Despite the approval of the NABC to move forward with the much hyped 96-team bracket, the NCAA decided to take the money and minimize expansion to merely 4 play-in games resulting in a 68 team tournament.

Whether a team must win 6 games or 9 games straight, a playoff is the only true way to determine a champion. If only the BCS was taking notes when March Madness dwarfed the appeal and satisfaction of college football’s finale.

Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFansCoalition.org.

There are some who argue that the BCS is fair and just. It just so happens that they are the same people who happen to be paid by the BCS, BCS-affiliated conferences, or media companies who have million-dollar contracts with the organization. It’s uncanny. Really.

Furthermore, those proponents who get kick backs in one form or another have a laundry list of reasons why it’s so good for student-athletes and fans which needs to be cleaned on heavy duty permanent press spin cycle.

One major issue that stands out is the number of games NCAA football teams would be forced to play if a playoff was instituted. those poor souls. The argument from those in the BCS’ pocket stresses the importance of each game in the current system and how additional games would dilute and weaken the weight of games which are so potent under the current structure.

To borrow the title of the SNL skit hosted by Seth Meyers and Amy Pohler, the SFC counters this claim with a resounding and emphatic ‘REALLY?!?!’

Rather than provide a long list of reasons why the idiocy of the money-grubbing BCS’ arguments are just that, idiotic, let’s take a look at the Bleacher Report’s rankings of the Top Ten Most Cowardly Programs in College Football.

Notice any familiar faces or mascots?

It just so happens that many of these BCS don’t-call-it-a-National-Title contenders schedule cake walk games each year. While the teams themselves deserve some ridicule for padding their stats, it is obviously the system, the Bowl Championship Series - which rewards such behavior - that is truly to blame.

Sports fans deserve a playoff. Don’t let their henchmen fool you into thinking otherwise. Even if they hired 15 Ari Fleischers to spin the issue, we sports fans know a playoff is the only way to determine a true college football champion.

It’s over now. #1 played #2 and #1 was victorious.

It was a great game, with a little of everything in it for college football fans – interceptions, injuries, trick plays, and heartwarming stories of players who faced adversity and kept going.

However, there was something just not right about it.  This is not the game we should have had.

It has been over a month since the BCS, aided by computers (what would we do without them?), decided which two teams would face each other in its don’t-call-it-a-national-championship game. There were four more Saturdays of college football in which the fans could have had the playoff that included all of the best teams in football, not just those ordained by a group of insiders deadset on protecting their million dollar paychecks.

Joe Paterno said it best in a recent interview with ESPN. “We must have a championship game. We get forgotten after we finish the season. I don’t like the BCS. I think we need a playoff.”

The team with even one loss gets forgotten because their fate is decided immediately upon the regular season’s end. And what’s worse for teams that are not in an elite conference such as Penn State, even with a perfect season, a mid-major will be similarly exiled. Just ask Boise State how they felt after beating TCU in the anticlimactic Fiesta Bowl.

As responsible sports fans, we want the college football season to last with an eye toward keeping our school’s athletes healthy – but with meaningful games leading up to the crowning of a true champion.

Without a playoff in the month of December, we will never know. If that means Alabama doesn’t play Jack State in September, so be it. We’d rather see an Alabama-Florida playoff rematch then the Florida-Charleston Southern blowout in Week 1.

Picking the final two teams for NCAA Football’s top prize  shouldn’t include a debate of what clique they hang out in. In this new decade, let the champion be decided on the field.

The pressure is coming to bear on the BCS to change their ways. Momentum is building from fans and sports media and it is reaching the point where it is very likely that College Bowls will be “flushed” and playoffs will be instituted.

We are at a real tipping point. It has been said that there are 3 types of
people in the World; those people who make things happen; those people who watch things happen; and those people who never knew what happened. SFC needs people who make things happen and we need you now.

Together with your help, SFC can help put a stake in the heart of the BCS. We
need you to join SFC to help us help you make this happen. We are so close
to bringing equity and fairness to college football. A success in killing
off the bowl system will empower the fan to realize many more
accomplishments in areas like blackouts of games, ticket pricing, stadium
funding, etc.

Let’s double up our efforts today to help bring real change to college
football.