Can the Olympics Solve the BCS Crisis?

No, not again! The AP (stands for Almost Predictable) Top 25 and the Pre-season Coaches Poll were released this week. They were immediately followed by outcries from fans of the Big East, the Big 12 and the ACC calling for a college football playoff—and the season is still 23 days away!

Yes, folks, it looks like it’s going to be another loooong season.

Realistically, you would have a better chance of drawing water from a stone than convincing the commissioners of the BCS conferences to initiate a college football playoff. If you think that negotiating a permanent peace in the Middle East is tough, try changing the present Bowl Championship Series to anything that ends in the word "playoff."

That brings to mind Jim Mora’s immortal words that have become a daily mantra for the BCS commissioners: "Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs? You kidding me?"

So, if you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em.

Those may be strange words coming from someone who has been begging to see a college football playoff. On the other hand, however, I must admit that the present system, which makes every regular season game count, is rather exciting,

But then how do we really arrive at pitting the two best teams in college football against each other in the title match up.

The first thing the BCS must do is eliminate the Coaches Poll, which is completely Un-American. It harkens back to pre-Revolutionary days when the colonists revolted against taxation without representation and unfair levies on imports.

The facts are quite clear. Many coaches do not look at the competition outside of their conferences fairly. The good old boy stocking of the Top 20 and the Top 10 with schools from their conference does not give fair representation to out-of-conference rivals.

In a recent New York Times blog, The Quad points out this very fact with a link to a critical article from SportsByBrooks.com about a number of coaches whose bias and subjectivity preclude any sort of objective Coaches Poll.

The Quad also cites another article on InTheBleachers.net that criticizes pre-season polls in general.

During the season, the Coaches Poll is no more objective. In all actuality it is not even a true Coaches Poll. Instead, it is more like a graduate assistants’ poll as busy head coaches turn over their voting rights to their aides. Even those head coaches who do vote do so without viewing the games or the box scores and previous injury reports.

So, what is the solution? How can the BCS insure that the best two teams meet in head-to-head competition in the national title game?

To end the BCS dilemma, simply look to the Olympics. Not to the team sports, but to the individual competition like gymnastics, diving, figure skating and the like. In each competition, a panel of judges gives style points to the way a competitor performs a movement and to the difficulty involved. The votes are tallied and an average is given.

While my numbers may be a bit skewed, the process is this. Each week, a panel of 16-20 qualified judges will view the games of the nation’s top 30 teams. A three or four judge team will view four or five games, either live or on videotape, and give both the winning and the losing teams an average score.

The judges will study injury reports as well as the quality of play to determine the strength of each team at the time of their match up. This eliminates the fact that teams that lose early have a better chance for a title match up than teams that lose late. This insures that every game is just as important as the next or the last.

This also eliminates the scheduling of patsies so your team in essence can have an additional bye week.

For example, Team A schedules a Division 2 team or an OOC Division 1 inferior team and wins 61-0. Even though they played a perfect game, they receive little or no points for degree of difficulty. So, their highest score may only be 7.5.

At the same time Team B and Team C, both in the Top 10, go head-to-head. Team B wins 20-17 on a last minute field goal. Team B may receive a 9.0 score and Team C may get a 7.8 or even an 8.0. So, both Team B and Team C will receive higher scores that week than Team A.

Lesson: Don’t schedule OOC patsies. It’s a different case if it’s an In-Conference team that happens to be a perennial loser or in a rebuilding year. All of that is taken into account by the panel.

Judges on each panel will be selected from former references, coaches, and players. However, they may not judge the games of any team with the same conference affiliation. Example, Pac-10 judges will view ACC or Big East games. SEC judges will view Big Ten or Big-12 games, etc.

But how does the BCS arrive at a Top 20 in the first place? Well, the rule that is presently in effect is a good one. No polls that have any weight in the BCS standings should be released before Week 4. However, that won’t do with the new Olympic Voting System or OVS because important third week games like this year’s Ohio State vs. USC would not be judged and voted on properly.

One possibility with the OVS is to twist around that old adage and put your "mouth where your money is." In other words, odds-makers in Atlantic City and Las Vegas have a vested interest in how they rank the teams at the beginning of the season. Why not base the Pre-season Top 20 on their calculations?

Because the BCS and the NCAA would never agree to have any association with gambling in any way, that’s why. So, back to square one?

Not exactly. Let’s go back to our distinguished OVS panel. Each member will select his Top 30 teams, but will not rank them. Instead the teams will be listed alphabetically in a consensus Top 30 list. This will insure that the 30 best pre-season teams are covered in the judging from game one.

An actual ranked list will not appear until Week 4, and will take into account early bye weeks by ranking the teams on their PGA (Per Game Average).

A criticism (my own, of course) of the OVS is that a judge from one conference may purposely give low scores to a winning team from a rival conference. If this is found to be the case, that judge will be removed from the OVS and hung from a goalpost outside the College Football Hall of Shame.

Actually, the lowest score in each game tally will be eliminated and only the top scores averaged into a final Game Score.

There you have it! My Olympic Gold Medal solution to the BCS crisis. No messy computers. No, head coaches' - graduate assistants' - equipment managers' poles.

Okay, you can start the ridicule. But, remember, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have another BCS fix to criticize.