College Football: How a Rose Bowl & AP Alliance Could Sink the BCS in 2015

Offering schools the opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day for a chance to win the AP trophy is a better package offer then the current BCS National Championship Game.

If we want a playoff in college football, it has to be a step by step process; and Step 1 is to make the BCS obsolete.

Since 1934, the AP poll has faced very little criticism on its determinations of the top teams in college football. Sure, there has always been speculation on how to create a better system for deciding the best team, such as a playoff, but when the AP names its No. 1 team, 99.9 percent of the time everyone in America is in agreement. Americans accept the AP poll's decisions over a computer.

While the AP Poll is not exactly the fairest system there is at least some accountability.

Unlike the BCS, the AP publishes each team's votes. They are held accountable to the public for their decisions. The BCS keeps voter’s decisions secret, then uses a complex computer program to crank out its shockingly unpopular decisions. That is why terms like "cartel," "corrupt" and "monopoly" are used to describe the BCS system. 

The BCS can’t seem to get far enough away from criticism and what is the value of a BCS National Championship Trophy without the Associated Press trophy sitting next to it? 

Without the AP Trophy, the BCS Trophy is not valid.

If you want to get rid of the BCS, then it would be better to offer schools a different option.

So, what is most prestigious bowl in the world of college football? Would you be willing to say that it is the Rose Bowl?

If you were No. 1 in the AP poll and were given an invitation to play in the Rose Bowl against the AP Poll's No. 2 team for a chance to win the honor of the Associated Press Collegiate Football National Champion, would you take that invitation over the BCS National Championship Game knowing that the only way to win the AP trophy would be by winning the Rose Bowl?

Would you feel like an illegitimate champion if you had the AP trophy and not the one from the coaches poll?

It would be a huge stretch, but let me break down why I think a team would take that offer:

First, the Rose Bowl is a Great American Event that is known by every American—sports fan or not. It is an ideal in American collegiate traditions free from major scandal or miserly illegal Bowl alliances. It was created organically a century ago with volunteers, who even today have to pay yearly dues to be a part of the decision making process. I wonder how much the Fiesta Bowl members have to pay?

Secondly, the AP trophy has been historically credible. Even 3,000 years from now when part-alien and part-human organisms are performing an archaeological dig at an American university and they come across the AP trophy, they will know the school they are digging at was that year's national champion. The same type of trophy that USC has from 2003 and LSU does not or Ohio State has from 1954 and UCLA does not.

Thirdly, your school gets a chance to take part in the greatest pep rally on earth which is  the Tournament of Roses Parade—with your marching band and a float—watched by millions world wide.

Lastly, if you want legitimacy, then it is a good idea to start at the top. Holding the AP National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl works the best for both the AP, the Rose Bowl and the schools involved because Americans would buy it.

Obviously the Rose Bowl would have to go way out on a limb to pull this off. All the other Bowls don't stand a chance financially without the BCS, but the Rose Bowl can do it.

While the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowls had to form a questionably legal "alliance" in order to stay liquid, the Rose Bowl did not. In fact, even today if the Rose Bowl pulled out of the BCS and and reverted to its traditional Big Ten/Pac-12 roots it would survive perfectly on its own. Schools are not contractually obligated to play in a BCS bowl unless they accept the BCS bid.

And if the AP poll is the only bowl that counts in the end, that is some serious leverage.

It is my feeling that if we can't get a playoff, then we look for the next best thing. If the most legitimate college football bowl game and the most credible college football ranking organization were to team up and offer America something better, not only would accept it, but they would accept it.