BCS: Changes Must Be Implemented to Ensure a Bright Future for the BCS

The BCS system is not fundamentally broken. It does however need some tweaks. The tweaks mainly involve eligibility for the National Championship game.

The first and most obvious change needed is that for any team to be eligible for the National Championship game they must win their conference. This rule change would ensure that the game truly is a National Championship game as opposed to a regional game. That would automatically give higher ratings to the games and more unique matchups. If there is a plus-one model, then all teams in that tournament must win their conference.

I also believe that no team can play a FCS team. The basic reason is that a team must play schools on par with themselves. In other words, other FBS schools. Basically the message is that a win against a FCS team should be counted as lower than a loss to a FBS team. This would help encourage teams to schedule against tougher teams and not Georgia Southern, for example.

I do not believe there should be a plus-one model because that would lower the prestige of winning those BCS bowl games and because of the traveling expenses for fans. Certain fan bases simply do not travel well, like every team in the Pac-12. This problem could be seen in last year’s NCAA men’s basketball final. UConn gave tickets to Rice students because not enough UConn fans took the tickets. I believe that it would be an even more exclusionary model because I don’t think the Pac-12 and Big 10 want to jeopardize the Rose Bowl, and would go to any lengths to prevent teams from non-AQ conferences entering.

In the end, the best changes are the least drastic changes, especially with the great product that college football is. All rule changes must ensure that there is a true national championship between two conference champions.