Posted on 01/09/2012 1:50:51 PM PST by kathsua
For the first time since the BCS held its first "national championship" game after the 1998 season, there won't be any bowl game that can realistically be portrayed as a "national championship" game.
This year's game can only be considered as giving the University of Alabama an opportunity to avenge its loss against Louisiana State University(LSU). The two schools can only play for the championship of the western division of the Southeast Conference(SEC). Alabama cannot even claim the championship of the SEC from a victory because that would require Alabama to defeat eastern division champion , the University of Georgia.
LSU cannot prove it deserves a national championship by defeating a school it has already defeated, particularly a school that mostly defeated the same schools that LSU defeated. LSU needs to defeat the champion of another conference in the championship game to prove it is the best team in the country
An Alabama victory would indicate the two schools are equal rather than that Alabama is the best because they would each have one victory over the other. A third game would be necessary to prove Alabama was the better team. In those sports in which the champion must win multiple games against the other team, the champion must win a majority of the games.
The SEC will be the big loser in the game because it will lose its undefeated record in the game regardless of which team wins. Alabama and LSU are both undefeated in the so-called championship game. One of them will lose that status.
The NCAA does allow a conference runner up to play the conference champion for the national basketball championship, but only after the challenger has defeated the other teams in its bracket to get into the championship game.
The NFL allows the runner up in a division to play the division winner in a conference championship but only after the runner up has defeated two other teams. Two teams in the same division cannot play each other in the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl participants must be from different conferences.
Those who suffer from the delusion that a computer or sports writers, etc can choose the best two teams ignore the fact that it isn't unusual for teams rated by writers or computers to lose to teams that are rated lower.
It's time for people to realize that the claim that a BCS bowl game is for a national championship is just a public relations gimmick. The only valid way to determine a national football champion is for teams to earn their way into a championship game by defeating other teams that aspire to be the national champion.
Determining a legitimate NCAA major college football champion wouldn't necessarily require extending the college football season longer than it is now with the phony BCS championship game. There would need to be a way to get the number of teams playing for the championship down to 8 for a 3-round tournament which could include some of the existing bowl games.
With the ongoing conference changes, the number of conferences could change in the next few years. Champions from smaller conferences could play qualifying games after the end of the season, possibly the same weekend some of the large conferences have their championship games. The extra game would provide money for the schools and their conferences.
The first round of the tournament could come just before Christmas or be part of the New Year's day bowl games. Having the first round on New Year's would be especially attractive for the Big 10 and Pac 12 because it would allow their champions to play in the Rose Bowl and still participate in a championship tournament.
The college bowl games aren't nearly as important as they used to be. Most of them are on cable because they don't attract sufficient advertising to be worth a bidding war among the broadcast networks like there is for the Super Bowl.
A true championship tournament could be as popular as the NCAA basketball tournament is. At the very least the schools participating in the tournament would make money for themselves and their conferences.
They won’t make any major changes any time soon, but there is a chance they’ll expand to four teams, which the SEC proposed a year or two back. Seeing Alabama, LSU, OSU and Stanford in a playoff would have been a great for fans this year, and for the money it would have brought in.
Surely you jest about Chokelahoma State!
The team that beat Alabama is playing for the national championship. Where is the team that beat OSU?
Actually, in a way, I almost wanted to see OSU against LSU-that would have put a stop to the BS once and for all. Face it-OSU couldn’t beat even a second tier SEC team...
That statement of mine was in response to your assertion that a larger field would end most disputes, which it would not. Your number #61 is off on a tangent and misinterprets my statment, and is not particularly relevant to my #59.
Let me guess: You are a fan of a team from another conference.....?
Yep. Sour grapes make for a bitter whine.
BTW OSU's QB would have connected on that long pass McCarron just overshot.
Try again. FCS was Division I-AA. FBS was Division I-A.
Six quarters, still no touchdowns.
LSU was out coached and out played. In fact, it looked so bad if I didn’t know better I’d think the game was thrown. I DON’T MEAN THAT LITERALLY! What I’m saying is LSU is better than they played tonight. I don’t understand why they all played so badly.
But, THE SEC WON! WOO PIG SOOIE!
4 of the top 10 will be SEC. But I’m not sure LSU will end up number 2. There is a “slight” possibility that OK State could jump them.
You were saying???
Sorry...hee hee...couldn't help myself ;^)
That's a false statement -- while LSU was a consensus #1 going into last night, Oklahoma State (0.950) was ranked higher than Alabama (0.930) by the computer rankings. It was the subjective rankings by the Harris and USA Today polls that put Alabama in that game, which only goes toward the argument of SEC bias in the polls.
Agreed. I seem to recall a similar argument was used against Texas a few years ago, with no one giving them a chance against USC. Funny how that turned out, though...
Except that the argument of the anti-playoff crowd is that "the regular season is the playoffs". But then they turn around and defend a intra-conference rematch and ignore the whole "playoff round" that occurred before. I'd just like some consistency.
Well, I've already heard discussion that one thing that will be considered at an NCAA meeting today is to allow more than two teams from the same conference in any expanded championship setup. The SEC and other major conferences will not agree to any arrangement that eliminates the best teams just because they happen to be from the same conference.
We could see more rematches in future championship determining games.
With a 2-team playoff (as we currently have), you have #3 and sometimes #4 claiming they were unfairly excluded from a shot at the title. There have been years when there have been 3-4 undefeated teams, for example, but major conference BCS bias kept out folks like Boise St.
With a 4-team playoff, you may have some cases where #5 whines about not getting a title shot, but they really have far less claim when you consider that under the current system (or even the pre-BCS system), it's fairly rare for #4 to have a legitimate claim that they should have been considered. No, at this point, it's about schools wanting a shot at the money more so than the title. Of course a lower-ranked team can always beat a higher-ranked one, so the lure of a title is still there, but you know #5 is going to have to do it as an underdog.
As the field size expands, the situation continues in this same vein. #9 complains, but they're an even longer shot. Ditto for #17. For them, it's about qualifying for the lucrative and high-prestige tournament, not because they have any real hope of winning it. (Q.v., the NCAA men's basketball tournament -- starting around the #13 seed or so in each bracket, you're dealing with schools who are just happy to make the tournament. A #13 or #14 might surprise enough to make the second weekend, but no one lower than a #12 has ever made a serious run at the title.)
Bearing all of that in mind, a 4-team or 8-team makes the most sense. After you get past 4 teams, you're starting to really increase the chance for a team with a "failed" regular season to have a chance to win the championship, but an 8-team playoff would allow someone who just had one off week or some really bad luck a chance at redemption. 16 would be overkill.
(For the record, I think the NFL currently allows too many teams in its playoffs. As much as it would have been to my own team's detriment this year, I despise wild card berths -- they were a necessity when there were three divisions per conference, but it's grown into a monstrosity.)
Probably so, with maybe a wildcard week to give some of the weaker conferences a chance to qualify a team or two. But I doubt it'll go beyond four this year, and there is a meeting to take place today to discuss these and other NCAA matters,
A four-team playoff this year would have been:
(1) LSU vs. (4) Stanford (2) Alabama vs. (3) Oklahoma StatePretty good stuff, actually, and likely would have drawn better ratings for both those games and the final, and we wouldn't have this debate over whether OSU should have gotten the nod over 'Bama -- they'd have played each other for the privilege.
An eight-team bracket would have been:
(1) LSU vs. Kansas State (2) Alabama vs. Boise State (3) Oklahoma State vs. Arkansas (4) Stanford vs. OregonA couple of interesting things here... LSU and Alabama shouldn't have been tested too hard by those teams, but neither could they look past them. Stanford and Oregon would be in secondary Pac-10 title game!But most interesting would be Oklahoma State. Their road to the championship would likely have taken them through the top 3 teams in the SEC (Arkansas, then Alabama, then LSU). No doubt they would have deserved the title if they could have pulled that off!
There was no debate on that except from OSU fans and folks who don't like the SEC. Would there have been a debate for Bama if we'd had one loss to Vanderbilt or Ole Miss rather than LSU.
OSU had a clear path to the championship game, but then lost to a third level team.
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