Gene Chizik said something interesting on Monday night after Auburn won the national championship. This, in itself, is news, methinks.* I mean no disrespect: Chizik is obviously a terrific football coach, and I have no reason to believe he's anything other than a fine man, and Auburn had a marvelous football season -- but, I don't think even Chizik's most fervent supporter would confuse him with Oscar Wilde.
*I am getting involved in the campaign to bring back the useful word "methinks," which methinks is MUCH better than the unappealing abbreviation "imo" or the even more unwieldy "imho." Methinks has a grand Shakespearean flair, and even a 2-year-old can use it and know what it means, and it's just time to bring it back, methinks.
But Chizik did say something interesting Monday night ... specifically when someone asked him how he felt about the BCS system. This is an annual question presented to the mythical national champion coach and year after year the answers tend to be about as useless as the question.* The coach, armed with this year's shiny crystal bit of mythology, will usually blather on about how this is the system, and everyone knew the rules before the season began, and anyway there is no perfect system, and his team won its championship on the field and so on. I do not remember a winning coach taking the opportunity to say that the system doesn't seem fair, and I don't think it's fair to expect any winning coach to ever say it. Let's be honest: "College football needs a playoff" are the words of the unlucky, the discarded, the teams that did not make it into the big game.
*A similarly useless question/answer bit of patter is when reporters ask the star player immediately after the championship game if he will return to the school or go professional. Cam Newton was getting medical treatment after Monday's game and so was only asked three questions -- and one of those was the "Will you turn pro" question. This happens EVERY year in EVERY sport, and I have yet to hear the player say anything other than "I'm not thinking about that right now ... I'm focused on this victory/loss ... I have not made any decisions ... I will talk with my coach/family/friends/super agent." I know people will insist that we we have to ask the question, and maybe we do. I do know the answer is ALWAYS one big, fat "No comment."
You might have expected Gene Chizik to sputter the same sort of nonsense except for one thing: Chizik has been hurt by the BCS system. In 2004, Auburn went undefeated. Looking back at the talent of the players who were on that team -- just STARTING with running backs Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown -- it's quite likely that Auburn was the best team in college football, certainly one of the two best. Instead USC played Oklahoma in the BCS Championship, and Oklahoma was embarrassingly overmatched. Also: The SEC has won five of the six BCS titles since, specifically the last five. Yes, it seems quite likely Auburn was the best team in America, but they did not get to play in the biggest game because of the quirks of the BCS and the unavoidable mathematics of the BCS Championship Game only having two teams. Gene Chizik was an assistant coach on that Auburn staff. He remembers feeling agony because his team did not get to prove itself best on the field.
So, that afforded him a fascinating opportunity as he stood before the nation on Monday night, having won a National Championship (while undefeated TCU played the role of 2004 Auburn). Someone asked him about the BCS system because someone ALWAYS asks. I'll reprint the entire question and Chizik's instinctive response:
Q: Coach Chizik, congratulations on your national championship. Having said that, how do you like the BCS format?
Chizik: I like it today.
That was his response. And that was interesting. Chizik did expand just a bit. He said most of the time the system is probably right. He said, yes, every so often there might have been a BCS format "that's off here and there." He made sure to point out that 2004 was probably one of those off years (the only year?). And then -- because it's a coach's law -- he said that the system "is what it is" and that "for the most part, it works."
I think if you did a serious and binding poll of current college football coaches, the vast majority would overwhelmingly vote against a playoff. There have been unserious and non-binding polls that strongly suggest this -- just last year, the American Football Coaches Association released results of a poll that said 93% of coaches prefer the bowls to a playoff. Of course, that was just for fun -- nobody thought it would CHANGE anything. And I don't know how they did this particular poll, and am a bit skeptical about the results -- 93% seems high to me. But I think the feeling against playoffs for coaches is probably overwhelming.
Of course, coaches don't run college football and should not. But I think if you did a serious and binding poll of current athletic directors, the majority would vote against a playoff. I think if you did a serious and binding poll of college presidents, the vast majority would vote against a playoff. I think if you did a serious and binding poll of college football PLAYERS, the majority would vote against a playoff too. I'm not confident in saying that about the players, but it's my best bet. The polls I've seen of players seem to be unreliable based on how the questions are phrased, but they never suggest that players are united in their desire for a playoff. And I just I don't see players voting to add more games and more practices and more pressure to their already overcrowded lives. Seems to me that players with NFL aspirations don't want a playoff, and players at schools unlikely to get into a playoff don't want a playoff, and players who feel like they already do PLENTY for their scholarships don't want a playoff. I believe just those three categories would make a majority. The fact that nobody can say for sure what would happen to the current minor bowls in a playoff system could play a role in their vote as well. I think players would vote against.
So, basically I think the plurality of coaches, athletic directors, presidents and players would vote against ANY of the playoff systems offered (with the possible exception of the plus-one -- one more championship game after the bowls -- which does seem to have at least a little bit of traction). Why do I think this? Simple. People generally vote from self interest.
When Auburn was not given a chance to play in the 2004 BCS Championship game, Gene Chizik was against the BCS system.
But when Auburn wins the national title, Gene Chizik thinks the system mostly works, and anyway there's no better system out there. He states authoritatively that the Auburn Tigers are "the best football team in the United States." In two fairly wide ranging press conferences after the game, he does not say the letters "T-C-U," at least not together.
I don't think this makes Gene Chizik hypocritical or even inconsistent ... I think it makes him human. When the system shut him out, it was unfair. When the system gave his team an opportunity to prove their greatness, it is probably the best we could do. I would guess most of us are like this in a million of ways in day-to-day life. Chizik in spirit might still be for a playoff, and he might still be waiting for a great playoff format that he can get behind. But I think his answer after winning is pretty telling. Does he like the BCS? He does right now.
If the majority of coaches don't want a playoff, if presidents don't want a playoff, if athletic directors don't want a playoff, if players don't want a playoff -- if you accept this premise -- then it's fair to ask: Who DOES want a playoff? Well, fans do, at least television viewing fans do -- and by a pretty vast majority. But again, we get into self-interest: Do fans want a playoff so badly that they will stop watching bowl games on TV? No. Do fans want a playoff so badly that they will stop going to games? No. Do fans want a playoff so badly that they will simply reject the BCS Championship by boycotting the game? No. Ratings in the BCS title game were down 11% from last year -- was that a statement about BCS fairness? Probably not since last year there was MORE controversy about who was in last year's game (Boise State AND TCU were undefeated and left out). I'd say the ratings fall was due to the game being on cable instead of Fox, and Auburn and Oregon not being as popular nationally as Alabama and Texas last year.
I guess my point is that there's a lot of talk about a playoff in college -- there is a lot of fire on talk radio and in Internet chat rooms -- but there seems to me no genuine movement here. A large majority of college football fans -- myself included -- want a playoff because the system doesn't seem inclusive and it would be awesome to have a month of meaningful college football games on television in December. That would be so great.* The larger question, though, is this: Whose game is this? Is it our game, the fans game? Or is it the colleges' game and the players' game?
*Here's something I do find strange -- and I'm a playoff advocate: Many, many people, in their case for a playoff, point out that a television playoff would generate much, much, much more money for the schools. In the fascinating and convincing Death to the BCS, the number was as high as $750 million per year. I have every reason to believe it's true. But here's what bugs me: I'm not sure why we're supposed to believe this is a good thing. The theme seems to be that this extra money could help schools pay for things like other sports that have been cut for budgetary reasons and it could expand opportunities. Is this really what we think will happen with the money? Or will this just give schools opportunity and reason to spend even more money to hire Nick Saban and build larger stadiums and better workout facilities and pump up recruiting? I mean, college football makes a lot more money now from TV than it did 20 years ago, and all you hear is that schools don't have money to keep longtime wrestling or swimming programs going. I guess my point is: Since when did we as fans start to ROOT for more television influence and more money to be infused into college football?
Ted Williams used his stage at the Hall of Fame to call for the induction of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson and other worthy Negro Leaguers, and that helped create change. If Gene Chizik had gone up after the game and said: "I'm proud of this team, and have no doubt that we are the best team in college football, but I feel for teams like TCU that aren't here and would have preferred to settle it in a playoff system" -- well that might have been the sort of statement that might help create change. He had no responsibility to say anything like that and he didn't, and I don't blame him. This was a great moment for his school, his players, his family, and I didn't expect him to make a political statement. I have little doubt in my mind that Auburn was the best college football team in America, and they should celebrate themselves, and they do.
I also think that TCU fans have every right to declare THEMSELVES national champion. I have little doubt TCU could have given Auburn a great game. And while the screaming from us fans about the unfairness of the system and the desperate need for a playoff will only get louder, and while every so often there will be a protest (like an unnamed coach going against the rules and voting TCU No. 1 this year), and while there will be some high profile support from a playoff (such as when President Obama spoke out), I don't think there will be a playoff any time soon. There are too many people in the game who don't want one. And, there are too many people in the game who are just fine with the BCS system on their happy days..
Wake me up when College Football is over.
ReplyDeleteOh, it is?
Okay, thanks, I'm up.
"Do fans want a playoff so badly that they will stop watching bowl games on TV? No."
ReplyDeleteThis might be an accurate statement, but I think it's missing the point. Personally, I don't watch much college sports except March Madness. It is compelling TV, and it's fun to fill out a bracket and everything. I didn't watch any college football games this year beginning to end, except for the BCS title game. There is nothing in the other bowl games to hook in the casual fan like me. A playoff would do that for me.
Fans won't stop watching their sport because there isn't a playoff, but some fans would certainly start watching it if there was a playoff.
The problem with bringing back "methinks" is that there are already people using it a lot, and it's almost always used by over-the-hill D&D players that, in their own mind, they think they're sounding cool. But, to me, it always comes across really lame as if the writer is posing as an intellectual.
ReplyDeleteBTW, why'd you make it so much harder to post a comment?
No doubt, March Madness is compelling TV, but it has essentially wrecked the regular season for everyone who is not a) a fan of a basketball powerhouse, b) a hoops junkie, or c) a sports gambler. The first poster asked to woken up when college football is over, but for the vast majority of Americans it's "wake me when it's time to fill out my bracket".
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it's sad that the Plus-1 model has not gained more traction, because that is all that is needed. Play off the undefeated teams until one is left standing. If there are no undefeated teams, play off the 1 loss teams until one remains. If you lost more games than that, or beat a one loss team, too bad. Win your games, then complain about it.
A full 8, 16, or 32 team playoff is a train wreck waiting to happen. If you think college football is corrupt now, that ADs fire too many coaches after 9 win season, and game tickets that are too expensive for the common fan, just wait until Pandora comes out of the box. As Joe elloquently states: "Since when did we as fans start to ROOT for more television influence and more money to be infused into college football?"
The BCS is not perfect, but there no playoff system created is (bubble teams, Seattle Seahawks, etc). Why make things worse trying to make it better?
@Dave and Michelle
ReplyDeleteYou support arbitrarily eliminating teams from consideration for a national championship despite playing on the same level as other teams?
I am not a fan of the BCS, but it is for different reasons. Mostly, because the layoff between the end of the regular season and the BCS games is WAY too long.
ReplyDeleteAuburn had 37 days to prepare for Oregon's fast break offense. Auburn very well might have beaten Oregon if they played a week or two after the season, but I do think the game would have been much different. They had over a month to study film and dissect everything about that offense. If other teams had that luxury, perhaps Oregon wouldn't have been undefeated in the first place.
No other sport waits so long, and I think it greatly changes the games. Imagine instead of March Madness having May Madness, where the NCAA tourney tips off a month after the end of the conference tourneys. Or a World Series that starts in November.
I know that there has always been a long delay before the bowls. But playing on Jan 1 after the last regular season game the first week of December is a lot different than what we deal with now.
A couple points:
ReplyDelete1) The reason reporters have to ask those questions is the same reason you wrote about what Chizik said: sometimes they say something different. Even if 99-percent of the time you get that non-answer, that 1% is why you interview players and coaches in the first place.
2) I still don't understand how things will change under any suggested playoff system with "minor" bowls.
In any eight- or 12- or 16-team playoff, the impact on bowls between, say, the fourth-place ACC and seventh-place Big Ten teams will be nil. Those affected would be the small handful that extend invites to the champions of the non-BCS conferences. Otherwise, those bowl games will remain what they have been since at least the founding of the BCS: exhibition games with no relevance to the rest of the postseason.
3) The reason money is brought into the conversation is because it has become clear that the college presidents and conferences will bow to no authority other than the Almighty Dollar.
Think of it like a team going out and signing a big-money free agent. The fans, in most cases, would far prefer a winning team built with players from within the organization who legitimately care about the city. However, most have had enough naivety stripped away over the years to acknowledge the need for mercenary talent, and are willing to cheer for those players who are only there for the money in exchange for the wins.
If bringing money into the equation is what it takes to get the people in charge to implement a sensible postseason into the sport, then so be it.
P.S. Of the fruits listed, pineapple is the best. But just about every fruit salad I have ever eaten has included maraschino cherries, which are far and away the best fruit in a salad.
As someone who works at TCU (but did not get to go the game), the general mood has been that our team could have played and possibly beaten either Auburn or Oregon, but that the Rose Bowl was an amazing experience. All the students, faculty, staff, alums, and fans to whom I have spoken who had the chance to go have been uniformly thrilled. The Tank Carder knock down of the two-point conversion was still magical. Would I like to have seen TCU play for the championship? Probably. But I do love my Rose Bowl champion hat.
ReplyDeleteThose opposed to a playoff need to explain (to me, at least) why it is a bad idea to have a playoff in NCAA Division I FBS football when there is a playoff, every year, in EVERY OTHER NCAA-sanctioned sport at every level.
ReplyDeleteAre you suggesting that some sort of BCS-inspired stupidity should take the place of March Madness or the College World Series? If not, why not?
The problem with talking about money is that you are talking about potential money vs guaranteed money. You could have situations where the Rose Bowl would renew its contract with the PAC-10 and the BIG-10 and guarantee a payout to those conferences each year. The ADs and coaches and presidents from those schools know that they are guaranteed that payout every year, vs a playoff where they might not make anywhere close to that amount.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, what happens when teams have to play multiple games and their expenses go up. Many of the lower tier bowls don't pay enough to cover travel costs now. If a team has to travel multiple times (last minute bookings since you won't know who or where you are playing until that weeks games are done). So if a team plays two games (win the first and lose the second), then they have twice the travel expenses and might not earn enough to cover travel expenses.
The last thing this country needs is more football.
ReplyDeleteI assume that stretching the title game until the second week in january means the anti-0playoff people wont use the "student athletes will mis too muxh class if theres a playoff" argument anymore.
ReplyDeleteMethinks?
ReplyDeleteMy don't want to.
I watched part or all of 5 bowl games out of 35. 3 were because they were schools I root for. 2 were because of the matchup. If there were a 16 team playoff there would be 15 total games. I would watch all or part of all 15 if I could, and the last 7 would definitely be watched.
ReplyDeleteI know I would see alot more commercials with the playoff system.
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ReplyDeleteIs anyone seriously, seriously concerned about losing the papajohns.com bowl? The Meineke Bowl? The uDrove Humanitarian Bowl?
ReplyDeleteThese are travesties, mockeries of the way the system was set up.
A national playoff yields one winner and a bunch of losers.
ReplyDeleteA plethora of bowl games yields as many winners as losers (and the right to complain that there is no national playoffs).
I'm not saying that this is definitely a contributing factor, but methinks it might be. Does anyone else (who, I don't know, actually watches college sports since I don't) think this may be a valid reason?
I like the current system. The bowl system is part of what make college football different and special. For those that don't remember a time before the BCS they should know that getting ride of the BCS doesn't instantly mean a playoff.
ReplyDeleteWhy I'll never be able to take "methinks" seriously:
ReplyDeleteDiane: Methinks the man does protest too much.
Woody: Excuse me, Miss Chambers, but shouldn't it be "I thinks?"
Carla: Not in your case, Woody.
Source
The problem with bringing back "methinks" is that there are already people using it a lot, and it's almost always used by over-the-hill D&D players that, in their own mind, they think they're sounding cool. But, to me, it always comes across really lame as if the writer is posing as an intellectual.
ReplyDeleteMethinks you're mistook!
Methinks the 2004 USC team with Heisman winner Leinart, Bush*, Lendale White, Steve Smith, all-time Pac-10 TD reception leader Dwayne Jarrett,and at least 11 future NFLers on defense would have bested Auburn.
ReplyDelete(As the 2003 USC team did, at Auburn, 23-0.)
The fundamental flaw with the plus-one proposal is that, inevitably, in its first year of its implementation there will be just two undefeated teams and the winner of that game will wind up losing to a one-loss team in the championship game (a team that otherwise in any other BCS or non-BCS year would not have had an opportunity to be crowned champion). A 4-team playoff works better in such a scenario as the 2 undefeated teams would be seeded 1 and 2 (or at worst 1 and 3) and thus could not meet until the championship game.
ReplyDeleteI can't find the tape, but if I remember right, after Florida won the national championship, Urban Meyer's first championship, Urban said in an interview when asked the question that there needed a playoff and he felt bad for the teams that couldn't have been there. Of course he was put into another bowl when he was at Utah and they went undefeated, and rightly used the interview to say that even after he won the championship that there needed to be a playoff.
ReplyDeletePay the players, that's where the money should go.
ReplyDeleteIf we put the same intellectual capital into solving the country's economic problems as we do arguing about college football and the hall of fame, maybe we would be riding a strong recovery right now. I think the LAST thing Americans need is another excuse to sit in front of the TV to drown their brains in advertising.
ReplyDeleteAs an over-the-hill D&D player, I would like to invite Chuck to get bent.
ReplyDeleteSo here's how the BCS model would look applied to the 2010 NFL season:
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the regular season, the two teams with the best record in each division would meet at a neutral site in the vicinity of those two cities to crown a division champion. Those division championship games would be:
AFC East- Jets vs Patriots
AFC North- Ravens vs Steelers
AFC South- Jaguars vs Colts
AFC West- Chargers vs Chiefs (let's assume that the Pac 10 had a league championship game, rather than automatically awarding the Chiefs the division championship)
NFC East- Giants vs Eagles
NFC North- Packers vs Bears (as before, assume that the Big "10" had a championship game)
NFC South- Saints vs Falcons
NFC West- Rams vs Seahawks
The 8 division champions would then be seeded via a combination of coach/writer polls and computer rankings. The two top seeds would play in the Super Bowl over one month later. The 6 other division champs would compete in 3 neutral-site "BCS" games in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. The losers of the division championship games and just about any other team that won at least 8 regular season games would each play one game in the weeks leading up to the "BCS" games (more postseason teams + more postseason games = more league revenue versus the current system).
Based on 2010, we'd be just about guaranteed to get a Super Bowl of Patriots vs NFC South champion (Falcons or Saints). So in this hypothetical NFL BCS model, 5 division champs (AFC West, AFC South, NFC East, NFC North, NFC West) are already eliminated from Super Bowl contention on the day their regular season ended, with the would-be AFC North champion (Steelers/Ravens) needing a Jets upset in the AFC East championship to have a shot at getting voted into the AFC's Super Bowl spot (and I wouldn't like Baltimore's chances of being poll-rank-voted into the game over the slighty-poorer-recorded New York area division champion that just vanquished the prohibitive league favorite since Ravens' fans don't "travel well").
So, in a roundabout way, I think that about the best argument that one can make as to why the BCS should NOT exist is to facetiously argue the merits of implementing a BCS-style system into the NFL.
One exception to your rule on the turning pro question: Stephen Curry. After leading Davidson to the Elite Eight and very nearly the Final Four as a sophomore, he was asked that very question in the postgame press conference. He emphatically replied that he was returning to school. Of course, Steph is about 99 levels of awesome.
ReplyDeleteOne argument that BCS Championship status quo folks make repeatedly is they don't want too many student-athletes missing classes that would be created by going to some type of extended playoff system. However, do you see these same hypocritical idiots putting a stop to the ever-increasing length of the current bowl season? My God, this year we had to endure a bowl games on Jan 7th and 8th and the BCS game was not played until the 10th! That's 6 teams playing well beyond the traditional Jan1st. And c'mon...35 bowl games?! I guess the FBS has come to like the T-Ball strategy where ever player gets a trophy at the end of the season.
ReplyDeleteForget this article and lets talk about something that matters: pineapple vs. strawberry is one difficult decision.
ReplyDeletePineapple, hands down.
ReplyDeleteTwo receivers from that 2004 Auburn team are on current NFL playoff rosters - name them
ReplyDeleteMethinks, therefore I am.
ReplyDeleteI picked apple. In a regular setting I'd prefer pineapple or grapes or berries of any sort. But in a fruit salad you're moving along, enjoying the sort of mushy deliciousness of fruit and whipped cream when Snap! You bite into an apple. It's like going to Poland and seeing Naomi Campbell. Sure she's beautiful in the melting pot United States, but in a European white out she looks like, well, an apple in a fruit salad.
ReplyDelete@ Michael
ReplyDeleteMethinks, therefore me am?
Bitterness begins here. "Chizik is obviously a terrific football coach, and I have no reason to believe he's anything other than a fine man, and Auburn had a marvelous football season."
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: I'm an Iowa State alum. For that reason, I have plenty of evidence that Gene Chizik is far from a fine man (admittedly, most coaches have given the assurance that he wasn't in a job just to land another job, but Chizik did it up until the day he left) and has been a horrific coach in recent memory. But I disagree with the premise. The national title is great for him, but it doesn't prove that Gene Chizik is a terrific coach. He's got a 27-24 record as a head coach, and he did more harm than good to one of the two teams he's coached (and, hopefully, when the NCAA finishes its Cam Newton investigations, he'll be two for two). As an Iowa State alum, I'm astonished he managed to fall into a national title, but giving any credit to Chizik for anything but recruiting Cam Newton and Michael Dyer would be pretty questionable.
If you want to assess Chizik's impact, you have to consider what he really is -- a purported defensive maven. That's the one area where Auburn didn't even come close to excelling. Their defense was affirmatively bad at stretches during the season. Maybe not Kansas City Chiefs under Dick Vermeil bad, but bad enough to give up 43 points to Arkansas, 26 to powerhouse Arkansas State, 24 to an FCS school -- Chattanooga (who were playing without TO, I believe), 34 to Kentucky. They won a bunch of skin-of-their-teeth games thanks to a player who won the Heisman trophy unanimously.
It's all academic, of course, Chizik will now get the boon of recruiting people to a national champion, so he'll be guaranteed 5-star talent for a few years -- the kind of talent that only Charlie Weis could turn into a losing team, but calling Chizik great would be hyperbole of the highest order.
If there ever was a college football playoff system, I think there should be home games. I wouldn't mind seeing one of those SEC teams who play their games at 70 degrees every week go up to Wisconsin in late December or January.
ReplyDeleteBut, I know it won't ever happen so I probably shouldn't have even brought it up.
DJ said: "You support arbitrarily eliminating teams from consideration for a national championship despite playing on the same level as other teams?"
ReplyDeleteThe question is not whether one supports arbitrary elimination of teams for championship consideration, it's if there is any conceivable way (other than a Plus 1) to avoid it?
Take this year. You're seeding a 8 team playoff. Obviously, the 3 undefeated make it in, leaving 5 slots. But, there are 6 teams with one loss. Who is arbitrarily eliminated?
Okay, let's expand the playoff to 16 teams. We've got our 3 undefeateds, the 6 one loss teams, which leaves 7 slots. Oops! 8 teams with two losses. Again, who stays home? Maybe we expand the playoff again...
There is no perfect playoff system that includes all of the worthy contenders. Somebody with an argument is ALWAYS going to be left out.
@ Mark Daniel: While I agree that a southern school team would be at a significant disadvantage were they to be required to play a game in the cold north against a northern team that was more accustomed to practicing/playing in severely cold weather, but is that how we really wish to judge the overall superiority of one team over another? Is it not more fair to give each team reasonably equal playing conditions for them to compete? Now, if you want to argue that the games could at least be played in the general area of the northern team but in a dome so that playing conditions are equal for each team then I would accept that fully. If the "MoTown Bowl" was played each year at Detroit's Ford Field and a southern power (presumably SEC school) was required to travel north each year to play in that game against a non-southern school, there is no way that the southern school would win as often as they do the Sugar Bowl. They might still win more than half the time but not the 75-90% of time like it seems they do now with current system.
ReplyDeleteI get that the NFL plays the regular season to determine home field advantage for the playoffs and how weather conditions become a major factor in the type of game that is played, but no one can convince me that a game played on a neutral field in reasonably good conditions is not the more fair way to determine the better team.
On a related note, what was with everyone slipping on the grass turf in Glendale, AZ for the BCS Champ game? Did the same thing occur during the Fiesta Bowl a week earlier and I just missed it? I know they said it was entirely new turf for the BCS Champ game - Different kind of grass? Ice skates instead of cleats? It really created an underlying situation that probably neither team was prepared for.
I love the bowls. Not the bowl system, but I do love the bowls. All of em. In particular I love the non-BCS bowls that nevertheless have real history (Sun Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Independence Bowl). But I love the other bowls too. It is to my everlasting chagrin that the Citrus Bowl and the Peach Bowl have dropped Citrus and Peach from their names, going with sponsor name only (thus making it harder to keep track of them).
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't see why a playoff has to effect all those minor bowls. They have nothing to do with who wins the National Championship now anyway. Suppose we had a playoff this year. Why couldn't we still have had Miami vs. Notre Dame in the Sun Bowl or KSU vs. Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl? Those minor bowls are essentially the NIT now, and that's what they would be if a playoff were instituted.
And methinks USC would have whipped Auburn in 2004. But that was a very interesting year. 5 DIA teams went to the bowls undefeated, 3 emerged still undefeated after winning BCS bowl games. USC, OK, Auburn, Utah and Boise St were all perfect. USC hammered OK, Auburn beat VaTech and Utah thrashed Pitt in the Fiest Bowl. The only unbeated that didn't get into a BCS game was Boise St., and they lost a shootout to Lousiville in one of the better Liberty Bowls ever.
By the way, this is the poster formerly known as Bill C.
I've always wondered what makes playoff supporters so sure it would result in a better championship game. I kind of like a +1 format, but if you have an 8 or 16 team "tournament", I think you're going to see an upset or two result in inferior teams finding a path to the championship game far too often. The result will be lopsided championship games and/or championship game teams that everyone knows were not even close to the two best teams in college football. It happens too often in basketball already.
ReplyDeleteI like how critical it is to win every regular season game. The drama people would like to see in a tournament already exists all season long. There is absolutely no way you hold a tournament with 8 or 16 teams that wouldn't make the regular season games (not to mention the conference championship games) far less important.
Back when the Buffalo Bills were losing Super Bowls a friend of mine observed that although the losses were painful at least he got to see his favorite team keep playing long after everyone else was done. A similar sort of logic applies to the Bowl system. I suspect that most people are fans of a particular school's team, either because they attend or attended that school, or out of some regional affinity, or for some more obscure reason. I'm not so sure that people root for conferences per se-- it seems unlikely to me that an LSU fan will pull for the Crimson Tide, or that a Wolverine would want Ohio State to win the Rose Bowl-- but I suppose I could be wrong about this. The Bowl system lets fans of a particular team keep watching that team for one more game, often in an attractive setting.
ReplyDeleteI like the various bowl games because they give me a chance to watch a bunch of different teams play. It is not important to me to see a "national champion" because, frankly, I think that colleges should not be so heavily invested in the business of football-- or sport generally. Students should have an opportunity to participate in sports, and sports are a legitimate reason to furnish financial aid to students who might otherwise not be able to attend a particular college. As far as I am concerned this is as true for cross country and fencing as it is for football and hoops.
You know who wants a playoff system? Sportswriters. Evan at that you don't know when you have it good: the current setup is worth two or three columns a year. If there were a playoff system for D1 football I'd give it five years, tops, before the sporting press started writing about how the old bowl system was really better because -- I don't know, you'd make up something. It gave players from smaller schools a chance at national exposure, maybe. Maybe it will seem, through the obscuring lens of history, as though the bowl system was less corrupt.
There are a lot of serious things about college sports-- and especially football-- that should be debated. A national championship playoff system is not really one of them. Let's put it this way: does anyone really think that the NFL is a legitimate model for how our institutions of higher learning should conduct themselves?
@Bill: I would disagree with your comment about LSU/Alabama or Michigan/Ohio State fans. I believe a majority of them would root for their conference rival (if ever so placidly) once their own team is out of the picture. This seems even more so the past few decades as conference affiliation seems all the more important.
ReplyDelete@Bill and NMark W: I'm a Hawkeye fan and I root for the other BigTen schools (except OSU, a program so corrupt it belongs in the SEC) in any nonconference game. But I think Bill brings up a valid point. Right now, even if it's just for a day or two (if that), during the last 10 days of December, teams that would not be invited to the "playoff" are getting their 15 minutes of fame for the season. Even back in to November, national and local media writers alike are updating their "bowl projection" lists almost on a weekly basis. Most of those projections include all the bowls. It's the football equivalent of "bracketology".
ReplyDeleteA 8-16 team playoff system would drown out those discussions and focus virtually all attention on projecting who's going to be seeded where in the playoff. You'd see no attention given to any team not in the top 10-15 of the rankings and anyone who thinks "minor" bowls would survive is blowing smoke. The money simply would dry up as the media attention focused solely on the playoffs.
There's a reason that the people who actually participate in the game prefer the bowl set-up. It benefits a broader cross-section of the stakeholders. Bill is right... the playoff debate is being driven by the media and the Lemming fans who parrot what the media tells them they should believe.
There may be one chink in the armor for the current bowl set-up. The fact that participating schools are required to sell a great number of tickets to their alumni and other fans or otherwise eat the cost of unsold tix and pay that back to the bowl in question is growing increasingly objectionable. Fewer and fewer folks are following "their team" to some of these lesser bowls and even to some of the big BCS bowls.
ReplyDeleteThe U Michigan AD said that they actually kept more money in their coffers by not going to bowl games in 2008 and 2009. Ask the UConn bean counters how many years they'll want to be on the hook for thousands of overpriced unsold bowl game tickets. They might soon hope that their football program only qualified to play a bowl game at Yankee Stadium every few years rather than going to the Fiesta Bowl on a regular basis.
It's the media that wants a playoff more than anyone else. And because they control the conversation, they give the impression that everyone wants one.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that Mr. Posnanski misinterprets Chizik's response? Certainly, the guy didn't go an a 15-minute diatribe against the current system, but by answering "I like it today," isn't the unsaid second half, "but I didn't like it in 2004?"
ReplyDeleteSeems like it ends up he was damning the system with faint praise.
All voting is controlled by the hip-pocket nerve.
ReplyDeleteAnd never expect a disinterested* opinion from anyone who engages in a sporting activity. All sport, by its very nature, is fascist.
*does NOT mean uninterested
— the poster previously known as Graphite
Wouldn't a better question be, "what do players and coaches in the other divisions of college football think about playoffs." More specifically, would they prefer to go BACK to bowls or bowl-like games now that they DO have playoffs.
ReplyDeletePsychological and market research often show that people don't know what they like. You can't ask a coach what they think of their current situation and get a fair answer. They've never TRIED a playoff system.
Malcolm Gladwell covers it in Blink, as have many other authors in various publications. What a person thinks about their own current circumstance is not a reliable source of opinion. Think Coke vs. Pepsi taste test cliche.
"Ryan said...
ReplyDeleteTwo receivers from that 2004 Auburn team are on current NFL playoff rosters - name them
January 13, 2011 6:52 AM "
Obomanu and Aromoshudu - not sure of the spelling. Also had Courtney Taylor that played for the Seahawks for a couple years.
I lived in Auburn in 2002 and 2003. That 2004 team was really good. No sense of saying what could have been, but that team definitely had an easier time winning games compared to this years Auburn team.
@NMark W - I'd say you've got it exactly backwards. Football is supposed to be a sport for all weathers. By never having any reason to go north in the cold (conference season is going by the time anywhere goes chilly, and no bowls that matter are there) the SEC particularly has a ridiculous advantage of being able to ignore one of the elements in which football is best played.
ReplyDeleteThis allows the development of joke finesse offenses like the "Fun N Gun" which would have trouble at 40 degrees, much less 19 degrees and snow at Camp Randall. The SEC can win all the titles in the desert they want, but even beyond the cheating, they'll never get my respect until they show they can win some cold-weather games.