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| Yes | 26% | 41 votes | Total: 159 votes | |
| No | 74% | 118 votes |
Yes
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College football is a great sport, but the way the national champion is determined has always been the subject of much scrutiny and debate. In a sport where teams play 12 regular-season games, and there are over 100 teams, it is not feasible to do the fairest thing of all, which is to have each team play each other team (even pro football doesn't do this). As a result, the best system for crowning the national championship will still be an unfair system in some ways. The current system, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a fair system.
The BCS is fair to the main group of schools that formed it. These schools from the six major conferences (Big East, ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac 10) are given a fair chance to play for the national championship if they win all their games and, by extension, their conference championship. They are also given a share of the BCS revenue, even if they don't appear in a BCS game. The BCS is a huge improvement over the previous system, which rewarded individual conferences with their champion's pre-determined bowl games, but often prevented the two best teams in the nation from competing on the field in a championship game. The BCS has simply given some central control to this process, and ensured that bowl matchups allow for top ranked teams to meet in bowl games. Again, there is always going to be a certain amount of unfairness inherent in the process, and the BCS is the fairest system that has ever been used.
What about the teams from non-BCS conferences? Isn't the BCS system unfair to them? For the most part, the champions from the six BCS conferences are those most likely to be championship-caliber teams. There are occasionally teams outside of the BCS conferences good enough to compete for the championship, and those teams are given consideration and not automatically excluded by the BCS process. The largest portion of the BCS championship formula is the human polls, and those polls are what typically exclude these non-BCS conference teams from championship game appearances, not the system itself. If the majority of sportswriters thought that a non-BCS conference team was one of the best in the country, it is likely they would end up in the championship game. Aside from an appearance in the championship game, the BCS is fair to the non-BCS conference teams in terms of revenue. Before the BCS was formed, these non-BCS conference teams would have had no realistic shot to play in a major bowl and therefore get a multi-million dollar major bowl payout. While it is true that the BCS generates a lot of money for BCS conference teams, it also generates money for non-BCS conference teams.
What about the recent controversies over the BCS system? Most of those controversies come when there are more than two teams with a legitimate claim to a championship game appearance. This doesn't always happen. When it does, no system would be able to fix that problem perfectly. If a plus-one format of an extra game after the bowls games was used, the 3rd team who didn't get invited to that game would have a legitimate gripe. Same for the 5th team in a four-team playoff, and the 9th team in an eight-team playoff. The BCS recognizes these challenges, and is continually tweaking the system to help please the greatest number of fans.
No system is or ever will be perfect, but the BCS is a fair and highly successful system that has improved college football and greatly increased its popularity in recent years.
Learn more about this author, Mark Schwartz.
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No
The problem with the BCS system is that it doesn't always pit the best two teams in the country. The two teams are always very good, but most times there is a sizable debate as to if they are the right teams. I realize that the current format is about making money for the schools and conferences, but I think money will be made in a playoff system. You could still have the bowl games, just rotate which bowls would be used as playoff games and which one will host the final championship game. They already rotate the Title game, so this wouldn't be that big of a deal.
If playing extra games is the big deal, then cut the schedule back to 10 or 11 games again. They keep adding regular season games, why not add a few games for the best 8-10 teams in the country for playoffs.
The BCS is format has been better than the old format, but now that college football has gotten so big, there is not a huge discrepancy between the big 6 conferences and the top teams from some "mid-major" conferences. Why not give the Utah's and Boise State's a chance to win it all.
I just do not understand why the NCAA can get it right in basketball, but can not get it right in football. Every major sport decides the champion this way. Why leave it up to voters and computers to try to figure out who the best two teams in the country are. Sometimes those teams might be in the same conference and they will never meet in the BCS title game. All the other bowl games will still go on. I mean the way the two teams are picked now is by what conferences voters "think" are the best. USC has a great team, but no one respects the PAC-10 this year. The Big 10 will never get a shot with how bad most of the teams in that conference have been. Teams like Utah can beat the Oklahoma's of the world every year and still would not get a shot at the national title. Sure they may never win, but at least give them the chance.
There will always be arguments as to teams getting snubbed, but I would rather the 9th or 11th ranked team complain than the third ranked team. I mean teams complain when they don't make the field of 65 for the NCAA Basketball Tourney. As long as I know the best 8-10 teams are in the football playoff, that covers all the teams who have a legitimate beef to be in.
There is no fool proof method to make everyone happy all of the time, but instituting a playoff in college football would make a lot more people happy than the current system, just as the current system is better than the old system. Everything has room for improvement.
Learn more about this author, Michael Agostino.
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