Is There More Parity in College Football?

Wow, what a weekend of upsets! Seven of the top 25 teams lost games they were expected to win. Almost all of the teams were favored by double digits except for Georgia. Let's not forget that just a few short weeks ago Georgia was ranked no. 1 in the country while Alabama was unranked. It looks like 2008 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2007's unpredictable turbulence in the rankings.

Does this mean there is more parity in college football today? In a post a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that increased television exposure for traditionally weaker programs has contributed to the decline of several of the traditional Northern school powerhouse programs (http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/Noplayoffs/168167) Today I examine the issue from another angle - undefeated teams and the National Championship.

I spent a little time this weekend with my trusty ESPN Encyclopedia of College Football. I went back to 1960 to check how many teams finished the regular season undefeated and near the top of the polls. Here's the breakdown:

60's - 23 undefeated teams
70's - 24 undefeated teams
80's - 14 undefeated teams
90's - 20 undefeated teams
00's - 10 undefeated teams with 2 years to go.

A little bump up there in the 90's, but overall it looks like a trend to me. It's getting harder and harder to go undefeated since the 70's. This coincides with increased television exposure via cable TV and expanded network coverage for lesser known teams, which helps their recruiting. There may be other reasons for the trend, but this seems to be a rational correlation.

This is one reason why the BCS is so controversial. Its original purpose was to set up a one game playoff at the end of the year between two undefeated teams. It had been the historical norm that in most years there were two undefeated teams at the end of the regular season. In fact, the top two teams in the country were undefeated in eight of the 10 years immediately preceding the introduction of the National Championship game in 1998.

Since then undefeated teams have met in the NC game only four times. It seems as if going forward, we are going to be lucky to get even one undefeated team into the game. This makes the BCS system dicey. While there appeared to be some justice in having two undefeated teams engage in a single decisive season ending match-up, it doesn't make much sense to hold a beauty contest among the six or seven one loss teams, then pick two to play a single elimination game for the national title.

If there are eight one loss teams in the top ten, you really need to have a playoff to decide which team is best. The polls won't satisfy anyone and a single NC game doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Personally, I'm against an eight team playoff because I think it will create more problems than it solves. If anyone is interested, here is an old post of mine addressing the issue. http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/Noplayoffs/126195