Tonight, the two top ranked college football teams in the country, the Auburn Tigers and the Oregon Fighting Ducks, are facing off in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) Title Game. The winner of this game will be crowned as college football's 2010-11 national champion. Both teams have had terrific seasons, both have accomplished amazing things in their respective conferences, and both are to be commended for getting this far. But whether these teams deserve to be playing in the title game is a question that I honestly can't answer. You see, they're here because of a complex computer program that takes into account all kinds of polls and factors in several mathematical models. To this day, I'm not even sure that anyone knows how it really works. Yet, this is the system that the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) uses to determine which two teams get to play for the national championship. Does it seem a bit shady? Could it be perceived as unfair? Could you see why this process might be viewed by some as questionable? If you answered "yes" to those three questions, then you answered correctly.
Let me start by saying that I am quite disillusioned by what has happened to college football over the years. As a child, I always looked forward to New Year's Day. After Christmas came and went and the gifts had all been unwrapped, the next thing I had to look forward to was sitting in front of the TV on January 1st to catch all of the big bowl games. I'd sit there from noon until bedtime, switching back and forth among the Cotton Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl. If one game wasn't as competitive as expected, I'd switch over to another one. By the end of the night, all the teams will have played and you'd have a general idea of who the national champion would be. I loved it. Still, I concede that the system was far from perfect, as the champ was not officially decided until the polls were released that following week.
But then at some point, everything changed. Suddenly, the Fiesta Bowl wasn't the Fiesta Bowl anymore. It became the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. The Orange Bowl became the FedEx Orange Bowl. The Sugar Bowl became the USF&G Sugar Bowl. Somewhere along the line, someone got the bright idea that corporate sponsors would fork over big bucks to have their names attached to the titles of college football's biggest bowl games. To me, this was where it all started to go wrong. As the system became more and more corrupted by money, the big schools began to shut out the smaller schools. Eventually a clique was formed, where the biggest schools in the biggest conferences stuck together and looked out for each other. This was all in the name of the almighty dollar, as they looked to keep the smaller schools from claiming their piece of the pie.
That mentality exists to this very day, and it is worse than ever. The BCS system is set up so that the major conferences get automatic qualifiers (AQs) to play in the most prominent bowl games for the biggest money and the coveted national championship trophy. Meanwhile, the little guys are left on the outside looking in, with virtually no shot at crashing the party. Dr. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, recently made comments that seem to reflect the mentality of the schools playing in the major conferences. He referred to the smaller conferences as "The Little Sisters of the Poor," and basically dismissed them as inferior to conferences such as the Big Ten, where his Buckeyes reside. Texas Christian University and Boise State University were two perfect examples of smaller schools who many believed could have competed for the national title this year. Yet Dr. Gee mocked them and laughed at the very idea of either team playing in the national championship game.
It is this mentality among the college presidents that makes it necessary for college football to once and for all implement a play-off system. Give all of the top teams, including the "Little Sisters of the Poor," a spot in the play-offs and a chance to compete for the title. If they really are as inferior as the highfalutin members of the power conferences think, then the Auburns and Ohio States of the world should have nothing to worry about. Right? Well, not really. The fact that TCU managed to beat Big 10 favorite Wisconsin in this year's Rose Bowl is more than enough to give the big boys the jitters. They may claim to be superior, but inside they know that there are teams in the smaller conferences that can go toe to toe with them.
The play-off system would be the surest, fairest way of determining a national champion in college football. But as of right now, there is one major obstacle standing in the way: the university presidents. When questioned about the prospects of a play-off system, they have decided to stick together and give the same dishonest, disingenuous, lame answer over and over again. They claim that it will have an adverse effect on the academics of the football players. A play-off system would interfere with final exams for the fall semester. They won't consider going to a play-off because they need to look out for their players and maintain academic integrity for their athletic programs. Huh?
If that is the case, then how come virtually every other intercollegiate sport (basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, etc.) has a play-off system? Let's especially take a closer look at basketball. The season seems to start earlier and earlier each year, as teams try to fit in more games against high-profile opponents on their schedules. Why? Because they need to build their resume. Why? Because it helps them get more consideration when the selections are made for the NCAA Tournament. Why are they so interested in making the tournament? One reason: M-O-N-E-Y. In the end, it all comes down to that.
Thus the basketball season starts in November, continues through December, January, and February, and then culminates with the NCAA Tournament in March. Gee, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like they play right through final exams for the fall semester. Hmm...so let me see. It's OK for NCAA basketball players to compete during final exams, but not OK for football players? What is the reasoning behind that? Answer: there is no reasoning. This alone shows how dishonest the university presidents have been in trying to avoid a play-off system for college football. The real reason they don't want the play-offs is because they want to use the BCS to continue shutting out the smaller schools and keeping the money all to themselves.
It's not too often that I see eye to eye with President Barack Obama. But he has made it clear that he wants to see college football's national champion determined through a play-off system. Before he took office, he even said that he was going to "throw his weight around" to get it done. To date, that hasn't happened. Last year, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah did make the call for the Justice Department to investigate the BCS as being in possible violation of anti-trust laws. He did so after the University of Utah got shut out of the BCS in 2009. But nothing has come of that either. It makes me wonder if the rest of the world is just going to stand back and let the university presidents in the power conferences do whatever they want.
President Obama was so quick to shove the healthcare bill down our throats using the shadiest of tactics. There were backroom deals, Cornhusker Kickbacks, and Louisiana Purchases. I wish he had instead used those tactics to shove a college football play-off system down the throats of the university presidents. At the very least, it may have jammed their windpipes and kept them from spewing their repeated lies. So much for raising the standards in higher education. As far as I'm concerned, this is as low as it gets.
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