Is the BCS Controversy Good for College Football?

One of the biggest debates in college football is over the way the nation's champion is crowned. The BCS national championship game pits the two highest ranked teams against each other for a head to head matchup to decide who will be crowned the best team that year. 

Many teams that wish to argue their deservedness of a title are left out; from other undefeated teams to great one-loss teams. The argument for a playoff has been going on for a long time. 

It seems logical to the layman fan and many sportswriter’s alike for one simple reason, it allows teams to prove who is the winner on pure merit instead of by way of a supposed merit-based electoral process.

This debate over whether the BCS computer has a place in nationally recognized sports (and in some regions, NCAA basketball and football outpaces the NBA and NFL in overall audience) is going to rage for the entire existence of the current bowl process. 

Regardless of how "right" the system can become in a given year, it still takes human element of direct competition away. It is the only sport to do so. 

For every argument there is a counter. Some contend that the current system helps so that the season is not prolonged, since the players are, of course, student-athletes. This is shot down just as quickly by the contention that NCAA basketball loses far more time to the game than football. 

What is not mentioned is the possibility that the controversy over the system (not to be confused with the system itself) might just be an asset to college football. In its most raw form, the old adage "no such thing as bad press" applies. Extra attention is given to college football, extra debate time is gained on radios and televisions to discuss BCS standings and how right or wrong they are.

The debate over a team deserving its ranking and if they can hang onto it (or slip up and drop dramatically) is its own publicity monster. Hypotheticals, like "what if Alabama and Florida were not both SEC teams?" for example, can be made and discussed ad nauseum.

Beyond press, smaller programs can inadvertently benefit from the BCS system as well. Would a team like Boise State stack up against the Alabama in a direct matchup? Possible, football is a great game for upsets, but not likely. As long as they are hamstrung by a BCS computer ascribing a ranking based on its WAC locale, the Broncos can continue to hold that shoulder chip that they deserve recognition.

This can provide added prestige to teams like Cincinnati and Boise State, who will then benefit from the image boost that undefeated years can give to their programs. They will never match Pac-10 or SEC teams for recruiting, but can nonetheless stand to gain.

Until NCAA football relents and allows teams to fight through a playoff of the top 8-to-16 teams, it will have its methodology under fire. In a peculiar way, the great fault that can be found with the present system may just be one of college football’s greatest allies, and the attention given to, and debate raging over, the BCS rankings may ultimately be the best thing to keep college football in the national eye.