Do I own this kid?

Ellington: BCS should switch to playoff system
By Travis Ellington/ Daily Toreador Columnist

College football has kicked off another great season that will inevitably end in controversy due to the Bowl Championship Series that controls who gets to compete for the national title. We have heard it all before, but I can’t wait to see how the BCS system will screw up this year.

The BCS system is based on several computer-generated statistical analyses largely based on wins and losses, strength of schedule, opponents’ strength of schedule and other minor statistical measures such as defensive performance.

There are only six conferences in the country that have a guaranteed BCS game for their conference champion. The Big 12, the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Pacific-10, the Big Ten and the Big East Conference champions are given a Bowl Championship Series game regardless of how well their opponents were throughout the year.

This allows them to play any mediocre team prior to their conference schedule and not have to worry about “strength of schedule” being a determining factor when it comes time to decide which teams will play in each bowl game at the end of the year.

In regards to last year, there is no way Texas Tech should have been forced to play in the Cotton Bowl after the season they had (11-1, with their only loss being to Oklahoma, also 11-1). Whereas Penn State got to play in the Rose Bowl with a record of 11-1 with its loss coming from Iowa (9-4) the same week Tech blew out No. 9 Oklahoma State (56-20).

This young man prattles on like this for a while. If you want to read the whole thing, be my guest.

Here's my response that I posted on the Toreador website.

Kyle Clark Mon Sep 14 2009 14:22

A playoff system would take away from the importance of a regular season. Under an 8-team playoff logic the aforementioned Penn State team would have had an equal chance of winning the national title as Florida, Oklahoma, Texas or Texas Tech, despite the fact the Nittany Lions did nothing deserving of a shot at the national title.

The problem with BCS bashers is that they think of the remaining BCS bowls as a part of the national championship process. That's not the case. At the end of the day the Rose, Cotton, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls are an adaption of the classic bowl system, which rewards the champions of each conference. These bowls don't take into account which conferences are stronger and they shouldn't. Conference power is cyclical.

What the BCS does is attempt, to its best ability, is to select the top two teams in the nation based on the regular season (and strength of schedule is taken into account, by the subjective voters that make up 66% of the ratings.)

As for your take that there would be more games and more money, that simply isn't true. The creation of a playoff system would effectively end the bowl system. The playoff games would have to begin shortly after the regular season and lower-tier bowl games could not compete against playoff games in attendence or TV ratings. So the number of games would be diminished. There could possibly be more money, but it would be concentrated in the hands of fewer schools.

Under the current bowl system, teams are given a payout which they then share with their conference. Under a playoff system games would have to be played home/away and the playoff teams would be under no obligation to share revenue. Also, without the lower tier bowl payouts the disparity between power conference teams and mid-major teams would only be increased.

Finally, bowl games allow teams to reach out to fans who may not be located close enough to the school to go to home games. These games have been an avenue to tap into areas that are not closely connected to college football. These bowl games are important to the communities in which they are played. Last season TV ratings for bowl games, including the BCS games, were higher than ever. Why fix something that isn't broke? At the end of the day, college football isn't the NFL. It doesn't crown a champion. It attempts to reward the best team in the nation. NFL fans may be okay with a 9-7 team in the Super Bowl, but I'd prefer not to have an 9-3 team in the national title game.

So did I own this kid? Vote 'Made Me Think' for yes and 'Pure Douchebaggery' for no. You can also vote 'Comedic Genious' if you find it humorous that a 27-year-old man with a master's degree dedicates his time to posting on college newspaper websites while he floats in and out of a 'People's Court' re-run. Oh, my life.