I have nothing polite or profession to say...

[Wook]

...about the BCS.

Florida?!?!? FLORIDA?!?!?
:wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

That game should have been a rematch of U of M vs Ohio State.

<fumes>

[Parzival]

If you want to talk about bullshit, there are two undefeated teams in NCAA Division 1A football.
They should be playing each other for the championship.
Neither Michigan nor Florida should have a shot.

"Major" football schools, after all, don't get to give out any more scholarships than "mid-major" football schools under NCAA rules.
And the talent-level of recruits is notoriously difficult to gauge.

The only advantage "major" schools have, is that they bring in more revenue for the NCAA. So the NCAA turns a blind eye to their rules violations unless and until they become too flagrant to be ignored.

[Wook]

If you want to talk about bullshit, there are two undefeated teams in NCAA Division 1A football.
They should be playing each other for the championship.
Neither Michigan nor Florida should have a shot.

"Major" football schools, after all, don't get to give out any more scholarships than "mid-major" football schools under NCAA rules.
And the talent-level of recruits is notoriously difficult to gauge.

The only advantage "major" schools have, is that they bring in more revenue for the NCAA. So the NCAA turns a blind eye to their rules violations unless and until they become too flagrant to be ignored.

I disagree. The "major" schools as major have a de facto advantage in recruiting the best talent. This creates a distinct competitive advantage in pretty much any variety of college competition for the schools with the big reputations.

When I was in my Sr. Year of HS I would have tripped over myself just to be a walk on for the Wolverines, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, or Penn State. Not so much Central Michigan, N. Michigan, Albion, Alma, or any of the other schools I had the option of a potential football scholarship too...

What they actually need is a playoff sysetem for College that is subjective only so far as it includes all the potentially great teams. If you wanted to create as inclusive a system as possible you'd want to make sure that all of the following were included:

Any team that won it's conference.
Any team that went undefeated.
Any team from the top 25 not included by the above 2.

You have to have items one and two because there are some divisions where not everyone plays each other and there's no championship game like in the SEC so there's at least the potential for 2 teams from the same conference to go undefeated by way of not having each other on their respective schedules.

Then you take the last 40 years of college football seasons and figure out how many teams per year you're looking at and then bump it up to the next multiple of 2. I'm guessing that you'll be looking at a field of 64 as in the NCAA basketball tourney and with Football's once a week format that's 5 weeks. Start with the first weekend of december with the national championship on the 2nd weekend of January.

[Parzival]

If measuring talent was that easy, every NFL first rounder would be a star, and there would be few (if any) stars appearing from the later rounds.

<shrug> That doesn't happen. And they have a lot more data they can evaluate than college coaches, and a lot more personnel and scouts to do so.

<grin> While Rudy walking onto Notre Dame is a great story, he was going to school there, with or without making the team. But for the normal recruit who could possibly walk on to Michigan, or get a full-ride scholarship somewhere else (and start for much of his college career), the choice is a no-brainer.
(At least unless Michigan gives out a lot more football scholarships than it's allowed to. Funny how many academic scholarships football players in the "major" conferences recieve. Even with piss-poor graduation rates.)

[Wook]

If measuring talent was that easy, every NFL first rounder would be a star, and there would be few (if any) stars appearing from the later rounds.

<shrug> That doesn't happen. And they have a lot more data they can evaluate than college coaches, and a lot more personnel and scouts to do so.

<grin> While Rudy walking onto Notre Dame is a great story, he was going to school there, with or without making the team. But for the normal recruit who could possibly walk on to Michigan, or get a full-ride scholarship somewhere else (and start for much of his college career), the choice is a no-brainer.
(At least unless Michigan gives out a lot more football scholarships than it's allowed to. Funny how many academic scholarships football players in the "major" conferences recieve. Even with piss-poor graduation rates.)

Every NFL team gets only one pick. A major university can go after the equivalent of a dozen or more top shelf HS recruits every year. There is a vast world of difference between the two. HS is a lot more like college play than college play is like professional play.

[Detritus]

Lots of early sports chatter at the new place....

I think a playoff would be nice. I'd have to think the best implementation. A 12-13 game schedule followed by 2-3 (4?) rounds of playoffs is a bit much. That could be a big barrier obstructing implementation of a playoff system, because it's unlikely that the moderately successful programs would want to cut back on regular season games because of the revenue that would be lost, but at the same time I don't know if college presidents are going to want their football teams to play the equivalent of an NFL regular season (for teams who advance deep in the playoffs).

[Wook]

Lots of early sports chatter at the new place....

I think a playoff would be nice. I'd have to think the best implementation. A 12-13 game schedule followed by 2-3 (4?) rounds of playoffs is a bit much. That could be a big barrier obstructing implementation of a playoff system, because it's unlikely that the moderately successful programs would want to cut back on regular season games because of the revenue that would be lost, but at the same time I don't know if college presidents are going to want their football teams to play the equivalent of an NFL regular season (for teams who advance deep in the playoffs).

Given the revenues of making it deep into the playoffs vs the number of college students affected on a year in, year out, basis I think the impact is actually minimal. Set the regular season at 10-12 weeks starting in the 1st week of Sept and then you only have 2 teams that play that NFL length schedule. (Or at most 4.) That's a pretty low impact when weighted against the improved level of competition where all the teams that have any sort of merrit get a crack at the big dance.

[Detritus]

It's a nice thought, but there's definitely some institutional inertia in play. Teams play "kickoff classic" type games, they have another 11 games after that, there's conference championship games in some cases... Some of your big ticket schools can get to 13, even 14 games just in the current bowl system. Every game you decrement from the "default" schedule length is like 60 fewer games total in Division I. Not all of them are big-money games, but there would be enough that I could see terminal foot-dragging in implementing any such proposal.

Also, it might be the smaller schools that are hurt the worst. Are the power conferences going to shorten their league schedules if you contract the number of games played? I'm not sure, but I doubt it. Factor in non-conference rivalry games, and who gets cut out? The "directional"-type schools are who. If Eastern Michigan comes into The Big House, that's liable to be their cash cow for the season. Michigan's not dropping Notre Dame from the schedule, and they might like to play in some of the season kickoff games, and that leaves the E/W/C Michigans of the world out in the cold.

[LagomorphPrime]

You don't have to cut the regular season as it is played now in any way. You can still get a good 4 weeks of playoffs after everyone would already be done. That gives you a good 16 teams, which is all you really need to solve the issue.

Take undefeated teams and conference champs, plus however many spots left filled with highly ranked teams and you're set. Or just make it a straight ranking system, screw conferences.

[Wook]

There are more than 16 division I-A conferences. You'd need at least 32.

The institutional inertia of the existing bowl system is cash driven by the timing of the games. If you set the schedules up properly you have 12 weeks for the regular season which is as much as anyone does right now, and 5-6 weeks of playoffs if your team does well. There would be 4 quarterfinal games for what is normally christmas weekend, 2 semifinal games for new years day, and one championship game for the week after. That's 7 big bowl games which is about how the system works now and then you just rotate them through just like they do now and let the other bowl games in on the action with the earlier tiers.

[Detritus]

You don't have to cut the regular season as it is played now in any way. You can still get a good 4 weeks of playoffs after everyone would already be done. That gives you a good 16 teams, which is all you really need to solve the issue.
That's an extra month's worth of games after the regular season, though, for the teams that make it to the finals. That's a lot of extra traveling for at least one team per playoff game that you don't have when you are just preparing for a bowl game, which can be done on campus. I'm certain that would be the objection of the university presidents, and they are the people who need convincing.

[LagomorphPrime]

Basketball teams travel all the time during the school week, nobody seems to protest that. So the complaint that it keeps the students moving about more on a weekend is silly. And the University President can rest easy knowing how much more money each of those travel games is earning his school (lots and lots).

As for the # of 1A conferences, then just do it by ranking and ignore conferences. Who cares who won the mountain west conference? If that team also went 11-0, then surely they'll be ranked high. Or set it up by rankings with the exception that no team may be left out if a team with more losses is going in. So for example, BFE Uni is 10-1, while Notre Dame is 10-2. Notre Dame can't get an invite until BFE does, even though BFE may not even be ranked on the polls.

[Detritus]

Basketball teams travel all the time during the school week, nobody seems to protest that. So the complaint that it keeps the students moving about more on a weekend is silly. And the University President can rest easy knowing how much more money each of those travel games is earning his school (lots and lots).
College basketball teams also have somewhere around 13-15 players. College football teams will have upwards of 100 players. I'm sure part of the objection is grounded in students traveling, but there's also the sheer logistics of the situation.

I'm not sure how many players are on D-IAA/II/III teams, but that would be the model to follow, but, again, those teams only play like 9 regular season games.

[carmachu]

The BCS blows chucks. Michigan shouldnt have gotten a shot. Nor should Florida.....

[Wook]

The BCS blows chucks. Michigan shouldnt have gotten a shot. Nor should Florida.....

Well I don't think Boise St. deserves it and that's the other unbeaten team and I don't think USC deserves it really and those are the other teams that you could make an argument for IMHO.

Who do you think should've gotten the nod?

[Parzival]

Boise State. They went undefeated.
<shrug> It really is that simple.

[Wook]

Boise State. They went undefeated.
<shrug> It really is that simple.

Not really. This isn't exactly the schedule that campions are made of dude. (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/clubhouse?teamId=68) Drop me in a room with kindergarteners and I'm sure I'd kick all their asses to. It doesn't demonstrate much on their part given that they lack the recruiting power of say Florida, (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/clubhouse?teamId=57) Ohio State, (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/clubhouse?teamId=194) U of M, (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/clubhouse?teamId=130) Notre Dame, (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/clubhouse?teamId=87) or USC. (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/clubhouse?teamId=30) And in all of those cases when you look at their respective schedules you'll see that the first game Boise St is going to play this year against a ranked opponent is their bowl game against Oaklahoma.

I'd happily give you that they've earned a shot at a bowl game and a serious oppoent to prove their mettle but the national championship? I don't think so. If we had a real playoff system in Div I-A I'd even say that they should get a #1 or #2 seed in their bracket depending on which of the other elite teams was in there with them but in a system that factors for the strength of your schedule their's was just weak dude.