BCS Ranking System: How Can the Flaws Be Fixed?

If there was ever any doubt, this season removed it—the present BCS bowl system is broken and in desperate need of repair.  After watching a really boring championship game in which two uninspired teams played on January 10th, over five weeks after their last game of the "regular" season, I am convinced more than ever that BCS stands for Beyond Common Sense. 

Actually, I think the present system has multiple problems:

1)  The injustice of who gets selected to play in the championship game

The whole premise of the BCS National Championship Game is that it will give us the two best teams in the country.  More times than not, things have worked themselves out so that fans have been satisfied this is true.  But not always.

This year is a perfect example.  Who is to say that Auburn and Oregon really were both better than TCU?  From my vantage point, the Horned Frogs played more impressively in the Rose Bowl than either team performed in Glendale last night. The problem is that too much stock is placed in a ratings system that is flawed.

To begin with, it is biased towards high profile teams because they are more likley to start the season ranked highly.  If you begin the year at the top and keep winning, you are pretty much guaranteed to finish at the top.  So even if there are four or five teams with the same record, the two teams that began the season atop the polls are the ones rewarded.  Of course the ratings are extremely subjective and become a "beauty contest" with high-powered offenses more likely to generate votes than excellent defenses.

I can assure you that the 2002 Ohio State team would not have played for the title had there been another undefeated squad to choose from.  The fact that the Buckeyes won lots of close games and relied on defense made voters confident they weren't that good.  Of course, their victory over an "unstoppable" Miami team proved that OSU was for real and deserved to play for the title, even if they weren't "sexy" and didn't score 40 points a game. 

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2) The reduced importance of "lesser" bowl games

I am not talking about the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, the AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl, or the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl. Instead, I am talking about what used to be marquee games like the Fiesta, Orange, Cotton, Rose and Sugar bowls. 

While it is still a big deal to get into these games, some of the luster has been removed, because if you are an Ohio State or Oklahoma, your goal is to reach the championship game.  This year's Sugar Bowl pulled down weaker TV ratings than expected, and plenty of Buckeye fans who usually travel chose to stay home.  Why?  Because they wanted to be in Arizona, and felt deflated when that didn't happen. 

In a playoff system, there would be postseason excitement due to the possibility of playing one's way into the championship game rather than being assigned to a "nice" but somewhat undesired bowl. 

3) The rewarding of weak non-conference schedules

With the present set up, teams can't afford to lose even one game, which means excellent non-conference matchups are becoming a thing of the past.  Whereas basketball gives fans all kinds of juicy early season games like North Carolina-Kentucky and Duke-Michigan State, football gives us Oregon vs.Portland State and Auburn vs. Louisiana-Monroe.  Sure there are still a few good pre-conference games. but nothing like there were 15 or20 years ago. 

As fans, we are cheated because coaches and athletic directors understand that a non-conference loss all but eliminates a team from a chance at the ring.  Teams that play weak non-conference schedules and win by 40 or more points are rewarded in this ridiculous system.

4) The incredibly long layoff

It is absurd to make teams that play every seven days throughout the season wait five or six weeks to play in a bowl game.  I am convinced that the Auburn-Oregon game was tarnished by the layoff as both squads came out sluggish and lacked good execution.  It is also my contention that the 2006 Ohio State team would have played well had they not been forced to wait over six weeks between defeating Michigan and taking on Florida. 

Not only do rosters change in this lengthy period due to grades, kids getting in trouble, off the field injuries and the like, but momentum is also lost.  Can you imagine Major League Baseball playing 162 games and then making teams wait a month before beginning the playoffs?  it is absurd.

So, what is the solution? More and more fans and writers are calling for a "Plus One" format. Although there are variations of this proposal, it usually comes down to choosing the top four teams rather than the top two, which means that the national champion will have to win two big games to be crowned. 

For instance, this year, Auburn might have played Stanford in game one, with Oregon taking on TCU in game two.  Then, the winners would meet each other to decide the champion.  Not a bad idea, although not as complete as I would like. 

There are others who prefer a format in which the top two teams meet, with the winner then asked to play a wild card team that rose in the ranks during the bowl season.  This year, that would have meant that Auburn, after defeating Oregon, would be asked to go back out on the field and defeat TCU.  Honestly, I think that is insane, and takes the luster off of number one playing number two. 

The other alternative is a playoff system like we see in every other level of college football.  To me, the best way to do this would be to choose 16 teams, which would then be seeded in much the same fashion as the NCAA basketball tournament. 

Those who oppose this idea cite three main objections: 1) length of season; 2) ruination of the present bowl games; and 3) the fact that somebody still gets slighted.  All of those are weak arguments in my estimation. 

By playing an 11 game regular season, no team would have to play more than 15 games, and that is certainly manageable.  The present bowls could still exist as part of the playoff system, and good teams left out of the top 16 could still head to some of the lesser bowls.  I would love to see the top-seeded teams get to host a playoff game at home, and in truth, the first couple rounds should probably be played on the turf of the higher seeded team. 

However, there are many ways to utilize the various bowl games with a little thought and creativity. 

As for the teams left out (say numbers 17-20 in the polls), they will no doubt have an argument, but in truth, the eventual champion will almost certainly come from the top 8-10 teams anyway.  There is no perfect system, and there are always teams in March that feel snubbed by the NCAA, but they get over it.  At least this way, an excellent team that started a little slowly or had a hiccup during the season would still have a chance to prove they are the best.  I think fans would eat it up, and the ratings would be fantastic.

The big question is will this ever come to fruition, and if so, when? My guess is that some day we will see an alteration in the system, but probably not for quite some time.  In the meanwhile, we will be left to argue and debate.  That, and watch lousy national championship games like last night.