Perfect Storm Makes Landfall

What now Mr. BCS Conference College Presidents?  Ohio St. is the “clear” number one team now by default, not because they are clearly the best team in the country.  And then determining who comes next is a less difficult problem to solve than I wish it was, but it’s still a conundrum.  LSU did win the toughest conference, was twice ranked number one during the season, and had the least convincing LOSSES (both in triple OT to good Bowl bound SEC teams) among all the 2 loss conference champions.  They also beat one of the other 2 loss BCS conference champions (Virginia Tech) very convincingly early in the season.

But, is LSU definitely better than Georgia?  I expect the the computer polls to disagree with the human pollsters on this, as coming out of last weekend they had the Dawgs 3 spots ahead of the Tigers.   They played several common opponents in the SEC and LSU had the better record against them.  But, if they had played in the SEC championship, Georgia very likely would have been favored, and very likely would have won, being widely recognized as one of the two hottest teams in the country at the close of the regular season.

The other hot team is USC, a team that started the season as the consensus number one, and stayed there until LSU passed them with their impressive win over VT.  Then the Trojans lost shockingly to lowly Stanford and later to Oregon.  The loss to Oregon was on par with the losses LSU suffered, but Stanford was uh, not?  However, if LSU and USC were matched up in the Rose bowl, who would bet against the Trojans now?

Speaking again of Virginia Tech, they avenged one of their losses with a convincing win over Boston College today in the ACC championship game, but again no one has forgotten how outclassed they were against LSU (or have they, as VT is actually currently AHEAD of LSU in the BCS rankings folks!).  They will likely play a spiritually wounded West Virginia team in the Orange Bowl, that with a win over Pitt tonight (at home), would have rendered this entire diatribe unnecessary.  Instead, they lost crushingly, just as nearly every other team ranked 2nd in the polls has seemingly done all season.  It seems so fitting then that we will now argue for the next month over who number two is, because literally no team has earned it, and therefore none of them really deserves it.

And that brings me to the Rainbow Warriors from the 50th state.  They are the only Div I team without a loss, and they last week beat the BCS Cinderella of 2006: Boise St.  You might remember that thrilling OT win Boise St. had over Oklahoma in last year’s Fiesta Bowl?  The only way a team like Hawaii will ever even have a shot at a national championship though is with at least an 8 team playoff.  And if we had that playoff how would Hawaii do?  They would likely lose in the first round (probably in the Rose Bowl against the number one seeded/ranked Ohio St. Buckeyes), but the way this season has gone would certainly make people watch it to make sure they didn’t miss yet another historic upset (Alas, Hawaii just went down by 3 touchdowns to Washington as I type, so nix that part of the fantasy).

Taking this hypothetical playoff even further who would Ohio St. play in the second round?  Maybe an Oklahoma team coming off a victory over either USC or Georgia in the Fiesta Bowl.  After watching Oklahoma dominate the number one Missouri Tigers tonight, I’m not sure Ohio St. could make it past the Sooners.  In fact, it’s not hard to imagine the Sooners beating LSU in the Championship game.  For that matter, why aren’t the Sooners being given more serious consideration as the number two team?  Their two losses were sqeakers against BCS conference bowl eligible teams, just like LSU’s were.  I’ll grant you the LSU’s were less worse, but so was their win over Tennessee today less convincing than OK’s was (over the number one team by the way).

So is it Georgia, LSU, USC, or Oklahoma who should be playing the Ohio State University in New Orleans on the night of January 7th?  The only way we can really answer that question is for them to all play each other between now and then, but, of course that isn’t going to happen, this year, or next year when the same thing happens all over again (and probably with the exact same teams).  But, two years from now, the current BCS contract with ABC expires, and 3 years from now, we may finally get our wish: an 8 team playoff or what we can then finally, and mercifully refer to as the real Bowl Championship Series.

Perfect Storm Forming

You didn’t really think South Florida was the 2nd best college football team in the country did you?  But if they weren’t who was/is?   The answer we don’t know now, and we won’t know it by the time the last BCS poll is published either.  Parity among the top 20 teams (and beyond with the App St./ Michigan and Stanford/USC upsets as exhibits A & B) in college football this year has never been so obvious and lead to such unpredictable results.  At this point no one can honestly say they have a clue who the top 10 teams in the final polls will be, much less the top 5, or the top 2!

So, again why must we argue over who is number 2, when a much better argument to have would be over who is number 7 or 8?  This way, we would be much less likely to exclude deserving teams from a shot at the national title.  What would it take to make this happen? Adding two very lucrative games to the current BCS bowl schedule, sandwiched between the the 4 traditional New Year’s Day games (or “around New Year’s Day” at least) and the national title game.

The final BCS poll would finalize college football’s Elite 8, and the 4 NYD bowls would suddenly have huge relevance every year in addition to then having the national title game every 4th year, just like it is now.  Except, 2 “Final Four” games would have to be played to determine the participants in the title game, and I say make them home field advantage games based on final BCS rankings.  In other words if you win in the BCS quarterfinal round and you’re ranked higher than the team you would be slotted to face in the semifinal round, you host it.  How freaking cool would this be if say a Michigan or a Florida hosted this kind of high stakes game.  I mean as great as the “around New Year’s” day quarterfinal round would be, this semifinal round would be as compelling as anything in sports…..ever!  And the end result is you almost can’t not wind up with the two best, or most deserving teams in the country playing for the trophy.

With another unpredictable Saturday of “upsets” bound to occur tomorrow, maybe I should pretend we’re already immersed in the playoffs I can now only dream of happening.  But the kind of storm it would take to make my dream a reality is taking shape, and it looks to get much stronger as it hovers and gains speed above a very warm gulf of convention……

Why Fox will make the BCS live up to its acronym

My first non-mobile technology post is predictably sports related. Some political posts may ensue too, but the sheer boredom of a Saturday with no football compelled me to offer Rupert Murdoch a suggestion on how he can make more money from his TV network.

The Bowl Championship Series is the much maligned title of the NCAA’s attempt to produce an undisputed champion of Division I college football teams. This year I think it’s hard to argue it didn’t succeed, as Florida thoroughly dominated Ohio St. in the BCS championship game to take the crown. This result, in addition to Michigan’s poor showing in the Rose Bowl against USC dampened the argument that Michigan was more deserving to be in championship game than Florida.

I would argue however that debating between the number 2 and 3 teams in the final BCS rankings year after year is a problem that can’t be continued, and it doesn’t have to be with minimal lawyerly involvement required. Here’s how:

This year was the first year of the 5th BCS bowl game, except it wasn’t a traditional bowl game, it was the “Tostitos BCS National Championship Game”, played a full week after New Year’s Day even. If this isn’t the perfect setup for at least a “plus 1” format to become possible initially, I don’t know what is. Fox’s 4 year BCS contract runs through 2010, and to not do this at least by the final 2 years of the contract would be foolish, especially if it’s as legally doable as one would think, given the current setup. At least in this format we’d be arguing about the who the number 4 team is instead of the the number 2: not a great argument to have but certainly better than what we have now. So what night have happened this year?

I’d bet Michigan might have retained their #2 BCS ranking, which would have put Florida 3rd and LSU 4th. So, the Michigan/Florida debate would have been settled on the field on New Year’s Day and LSU vs. Ohio State would have been a pretty savory match-up too huh?! If the BCS Championship can acceptably be a week after New Year’s Day now, then with a mini-playoff, why can’t it be 2 weeks after or even three……?

Which leads me to the smartest advice I’ve ever given anyone. Rupert listen closely now. Imagine last weekend again. It was of course highlighted for us football fans by the NFL conference championships (Thank God Peyton finally beat Bellicheck & Brady). Imagine last weekend again, excerpt insert the “BCS Final Four” on Saturday! My friends the 2nd or 3rd weekend in January would become the greatest weekend of the year immediately, and imagine the ratings Fox would get owning 3 of those 4 games! And oh by the way, their two biggest shows, 24 and American Idol, launch in January too providing ridiculous Promotional opportunities to draw even more viewers to those shows.

Of course, this would require an 8 team playoff and the 4 BCS bowls could finally become just what the acronym says: a true bowl championship series. The Rose Bowl is owned by ABC, and though they might have a thing or two to say about the current format being altered, I’m not sure why they would have a problem with their bowl game becoming must see TV every New Years Day? In fact it just occurred to me why the 5th BCS bowl game became necessary. When it’s the Rose Bowl’s turn to host the BCS National Championship, it can’t be the Rose Bowl anymore if Fox owns it yes?

Regardless, the 8 team playoff would also require a plus 3 format. Semifinal games could be hosted by the remaining high seeds and the BCS Championship would be the same as it was this year (a 2nd game for one of the 4 BCS bowl sites), just 2 weeks later than it was this year. Before you scoff at the likelihood of that development and call me greedy, consider how greedy Rupert is and how bored you’ve been today, which pales in comparison to how bored you’ll be tomorrow: the official black hole of sports Sundays created by the advertisement revenue sucking week off the NFL takes between the conference championships and the Super Bowl.

This weekend each year is desperately in need of a “College Football Super Bowl” and again the legal entity who stands to gain the most from this is the corporation most likely to engineer it: Fox!