The BCS

Since Notre Dame's regular season is complete, and we're still a few
weeks away from N.D.'s match-up with Louisiana State, this week the
focus turns to the Bowl Championship Series. This consortium of bowl
games and major football conferences has been a thorn in the side of
most college football fans since it debuted in 1998, replacing the Bowl
Alliance, which was a smaller version of the same system.

There seem to be two camps of college football fans. The first is
comprised of those who like the old system, where conference champions
were aligned to particular bowls and teams were matched up with little
regard for rankings. The chaos of New Year's Day, and the fact that
all the important games were played on that day, made it (for some) the
best day in sports. The other camp of college football fans thinks
there needs to be a championship tournament of some design to determine
a true national champion at season's end. Many Notre Dame fans in
particular seem to flock to this school of thought, as many think it
has become increasingly apparent that a widespread bias against the
Irish permeates the current system and will continue to undermine
N.D.'s ability to compete for the national title.

So, what might a system like this look like? Suspend your disbelief
for a few minutes, and discard considerations like the bowl game
traditions and so on.

Division I-A of the NCAA is comprised of 118 teams in 11 conferences. A
true national championship tournament should, theoretically at least,
give every team in Division I-A a chance to win the national
championship, just like in college basketball. The way to address this
would be to give each of the conference champions in Division I-A an
automatic berth into an NCAA-sanctioned college football tournament.
Since the 11 conference champions will not make for an even bracket, a
Selection Committee similar to the one the NCAA uses for its basketball
tournament would choose five at-large schools based upon a Ratings
Percentage Index (RPI) system comparable to the one used by the
selection committee in college basketball. (For those that don't know,
the RPI takes into account a team's own winning percentage, as well as
the winning percentage of its opponents and its opponents' opponents.)
Of course, there will be howls of protest from the teams who are passed
over for the final at-large spot, but I have less of a problem with a
team like 10-3 Arkansas being left out of the tournament, for example,
than an 11-1 Michigan squad not getting a shot at the national title in
the current system.

To facilitate a 16-team tournament, the NCAA would have to do several
things. First, they would have to take back the 12th game it gave to
schools, leaving teams to scale their schedules back to 10 or 11 games
in a season. Additionally, the NCAA could move the season up one
week, starting the weekend previous to Labor Day weekend, allowing the
regular season and conference championships to be completed by
Thanksgiving weekend. Then, a Division I-A championship tournament
sanctioned by the NCAA could commence during the first week of
December. During the first two weekends in December, games would be
staged at the home stadia of the higher-seeded teams in the bracket.
During the third week of December, the national semifinals could be
staged at any number of larger warm weather venues that the NCAA would
choose annually (e.g. the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and Dolphins Stadium
in Miami). Then, a bye would be provided (this could also be moved to
the third weekend, if final exams are a major concern) during the
fourth weekend in December. Finally, the national championship game
would be staged on January 1, at a venue determined by the NCAA (e.g.
University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where this year's
BCS title game is being played).

So what would a bracket like this look like? To the best of my
knowledge, there is no official RPI system for college football right
now, so I used one of Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings to facilitate
the seeding of the teams for this year's "tournament." (Sagarin has
been doing computer rankings for years, and was selected for no other
reason than he's probably the best-known college football
statistician/computer ratings person.) The teams would be seeded as
such:

(1) Ohio State (12-0), Big Ten Champions
(2) Michigan (11-1), Big Ten (At-Large)
(3) Florida (12-1), SEC Champions
(4) Southern California (10-2), Pac-10 Champions
(5) Louisiana State (10-2), SEC (At-Large)
(6) Boise State (12-0), WAC Champions
(7) Auburn (10-2), SEC (At-Large)
(8) Wisconsin (11-1), Big Ten (At-Large)
(9) Notre Dame (10-2), Independent (At-Large)
(10) Louisville (11-1), Big East Champions
(11) Oklahoma (10-2), Big XII Champions
(12) Wake Forest (11-2), ACC Champions
(13) Brigham Young (10-2), MWC Champions
(14) Houston (10-3), Conference USA Champions
(15) Central Michigan (9-4), MAC Champions
(16) Troy (7-5), Sun Belt Champions

A bracket of this year's "tournament" is attached to this email.

One can imagine the possibilities for such a system. Imagine how much
money the networks would pay for such a spectacle. In 1999, CBS paid
the NCAA $6 billion to cover the NCAA basketball tournament for 11
years. Given the "buzz" that a college football tournament would
create, one wonders how much the NCAA and its member institutions could
derive from it. Furthermore, conferences would benefit from the added
interest and ratings for their championship games. It is clear that
the current system is in place because it lines the coffers of athletic
departments throughout the country. An overhaul to the system,
however, might make everyone more money, which will ultimately benefit
student-athletes and universities, which is what it is supposed to be
about anyway.

Fans would be big beneficiaries as well, as the college football
champion would finally be determined on the playing field. This year,
if Michigan made it through its side of the bracket to play Ohio State
again, no one could refute the fact that they had earned a rematch.
What college football fan would miss any of these games, knowing that
any game's outcome could potentially have a bearing upon their team's
path to the national championship?

At any rate, this certainly isn't the only possible answer, but it
would help to allay the yearly arguments about who deserves to play
where and so on. If nothing else, consider it more grist for the mill
as the controversy in college football continues.

In the coming weeks, I'll touch upon the upcoming BCS games, in
particular Notre Dame's big match-up with Louisiana State, a team the
Irish have not played since 1998.

Go Irish! Beat Tigers!

Big Mike

originally published December 6, 2006

copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006