The bowl game between #1 and #2 is over. Auburn wins by just a field goal. So Auburn and TCU end the season with undefeated records. Yet, Auburn is #1 and TCU isn't? What silly methodology is this? Shouldn't the undefeated team be the only team to proclaim that they are #1? Only in America can you find such a stupid playoff system.
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is college football's profitable money making machine. Its purpose is to generate revenue for all the colleges and universities which it does by promoting the College Bowl games. However, the money that is received isn't divided equally. But money is another topic of discussion.
What irks me about the BCS isn't the money or the uneven disbursement of money. It is about the promotion of "unsportsmanlike" conduct. During the college football season, there are advertisements from the conferences that promote the good morals of the school and the conferences in order to entice future applicants. Morals? Where is the morality of powerhouse schools running up the score on weaker schools? In fact, I believe the BCS encourages teams to disregard any sense of common sense that was taught in youth sports. The ranking system lies at the heart of this problem.
I am positive it is every college football team's dream to play for the national championship title. To do so, there needs to be a ranking system. The BCS system was established in order to "properly" rank college teams in order to allow bowl committees from around the nation to choose who to invite to play at the committee's respective bowl game. The higher a team is ranked, the more prestigious of a bowl a team can play in.
The ranking system involves a combination of qualitative opinions (Coaches poll, Harris poll) as well as quantitative data from computer generated results based off various tangible data (win-loss, strength of schedule, location). Unfortunately, the methodology of combining qualitative and quantitative data places more weight on the qualitative opinions. Each of the polls are weighted equally. But since the two of the three polls are "opinion polls," opinion polls have a higher weight than the computer polls. In the end, the polls get weighted
I have three issues with this ranking system.
1) The weighting system places more emphasis on the two opinion polls (Coaches and Harris) instead of the computer polls. The computer polls only look at quantitative data such as win-loss of teams, the score differential and strength of schedule. Because of the more emphasis on the opinion polls, the "wow factors" like margin of victory, and personal preferences are factored more into the overall calculation which affects the weekly ranking.
I believe rankings should not be devoid of personal opinions. It should however not be over emphasized as it is currently with the BCS system. This would prevent teams from attempting to influence the opinion polls through their play against opponents.
For example, if Team A beats Team B by 40+ points, the qualitative polls will naturally assume that the Team A is better regardless if Team B is of even the same caliber as Team A. At the start of every new football season, many strong football teams invite weaker football teams to play. The net result is that the strong football team will win and win by a lot. If you look here at the 2009 BCS Champion Alabama, they played three schools that were hardly of the same caliber -- FIU (Florida International), Chattanooga, and North Texas. The combined record for all three teams were 11-24 for 2009. Chattanooga wasn't even a Division 1-A school and they had the best record at 6-5. Alabama beat these schools 40-14, 45-0 and 53-7. Alabama basically obtained three automatic victories playing against these lesser known and weaker schools. Is it possible that Alabama ran up the score in order to influence the Coaches and Harris polls? Yes I believe so.
2) The computer polls do not punish strong teams that play against weak teams. By punishing strong teams for playing weaker teams, it will force these strong schools to play other similar caliber schools which would lead to a more accurate ranking. Does Alabama really deserve the "National Champion" title even though they played three weak schools? If those three weak schools were replaced by USC, Boise State, and Ohio State, would Alabama still have an undefeated record? Could Alabama really handle the pressure situation of facing top ranked schools so early in the season?
3) The ranking system does not expand beyond 25 teams. There are over 100 Division 1-A teams. Why are only the top 25 teams considered in the ranking?
My solution isn't very revolutionary. In fact, I have two solutions -- one complicated and one simple.
The simple solution is to organize a single elimination tournament. Bowl season ended in the second weak of January 2010. The first bowl game started in the second week of December 2009. There are five weekends of play. If the tournament starts with 64 teams, after the first week, 32 teams remain. After the second week, 16 teams remain. After the third week, 8 teams remain. After the fourth week, 4 teams remain. After the fifth week, two remain. And on the sixth week, the championship game occurs. This is a total of 63 games. Thats more games than the current number of bowl games scheduled. More games should translate to more money.
The complicated solution is to revamp the BCS ranking system. It should include a few key points. I think the emphasis for the new ranking system should be to encourage teams to play similarly ranked teams.
First, the opinion poll contribution to the BCS ranking should be reduced to 20% total. The subjectivity of opinion polls allows the voters to be swayed by teams that run up the score against laughable opponents. This subjectivity should not be a major factor.
Second, the BCS should rank the top 100 schools. These top 100 schools should be subdivided into an upper tier and lower tier. These tiers should not be published as a ranked scale but only as a group. Only the top 25 should be ranked.
Third, teams that rank in the top 100 should be punished for playing teams that are either not in Division 1A or outside the top 100 excluding their own division. They should be punished regardless if they win and should be punished even more if they lose. This would prevent any "top team" from bottom feeding on weaker Division 1A and 2A teams.
Complicated right? I want to make the ranking system work in such a way that teams of equal strength should theoretically be at the similar ranks. By being able to weed out schools that play weak teams, the system should theoretically then be able to match up the best schools to play against each other come bowl games. Ideally, a team that plays all top tier schools and remains undefeated should be crowned #1 if it remains undefeated through such tough schedules. Unlike... teams that play 3 unranked division 2A schools for 3 easy wins.
No comments:
Post a Comment