Farewell, BCS

[wizards8507]

I, for one, am going to miss it. I'd much rather let the results of a 12-game season determine the national champion than a single-elimination tournament where any team can win on any given Saturday. I think the playoff will greatly diminish the regular season and some of the craziness of college football that we've come to love.

College Football Final Exam Shootaround: Grantland Bids Adieu to the BCS - The Triangle Blog - Grantland

The primary advantage of a playoff is certainty, and after years of endless BCS debate — which followed decades of debate under the earlier bowl systems — certainty has real allure. But in most sports that have playoffs, like the NFL or the NBA, the criteria for getting to the playoffs is basically objective. Most playoff spots are decided based on win/loss records, with certain mechanical tiebreakers in place and known in advance. It's not that the playoff crowns the best or most deserving team — just ask the 10-6 New York Giants that knocked off the undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. It's that the loser has nothing to complain about: Everyone knows the rules.

Yet the new College Football Playoff lacks the very thing that makes playoffs in other sports so palatable, namely a semblance of objective certainty. While the defective BCS formula should have been interred long ago, it has been replaced by a Council of Platonic Guardians. The College Football Playoff selection committee will meet confidentially, then announce the identities of the playoff participants by edict. That's not exactly what I'd call "settling it on the field."

 

[RyCo1983]

You serious Clark???



GOOD RIDDANCE to the BCS
8 Team playoff would be better, but that will come.

 

[Irish Houstonian]

I, for one, am going to miss it. I'd much rather let the results of a 12-game season determine the national champion than a single-elimination tournament...

Well, but the results of the 12-game season determine the entrants into the single-elimination tournament. So the season is still pretty relevant. Unless Condi goes crazy.

 

[wizards8507]

You serious Clark???



GOOD RIDDANCE to the BCS
8 Team playoff would be better, but that will come.

I don't like the tournament setup at all. It's counterproductive if the goal is to crown the best team the champion. The 8 team could beat the 1 team on any given day, but over the course of the season those quirky wins and losses tend to work themselves out according to the law of averages. Playoffs work in hockey, baseball, and basketball because a five or seven game series is more likely to resolve who the better team really is.

Think about Pitt this year. Does anyone really think they were better than us? Well, they beat us head to head. If that game were a "playoff game", we'd be forced to accept the notion that they were the superior team, the rest of the season be damned.

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[BGIF]

Well, but the results of the 12-game season determine the entrants into the single-elimination tournament. So the season is still pretty relevant. Unless Condi goes crazy.

You think her Provost ties and current position are going to prevail?

 

[IrishRugger2013]

I don't like the tournament setup at all. It's counterproductive if the goal is to crown the best team the champion. The 8 team could beat the 1 team on any given day, but over the course of the season those quirky wins and losses tend to work themselves out according to the law of averages. Playoffs work in hockey, baseball, and basketball because a five or seven game series is more likely to resolve who the better team really is.

Think about Pitt this year. Does anyone really think they were better than us? Well, they beat us head to head. If that game were a "playoff game", we'd be forced to accept the notion that they were the superior team, the rest of the season be damned.

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So what are your thoughts on the NCAA basketball tournament? It's chock-full of upsets every year and people seem pretty happy with it. Same sort of thing regarding controversies over who gets in, though it's obviously different when it's a 64 team tournament compared to a 4 team tournament.

 

[wizards8507]

So what are your thoughts on the NCAA basketball tournament? It's chock-full of upsets every year and people seem pretty happy with it. Same sort of thing regarding controversies over who gets in, though it's obviously different when it's a 64 team tournament compared to a 4 team tournament.

I like the tournament in and of itself but I don't like it as a means of selecting the national champion. If a "Cinderella team" were to win the tournament after just an okay season, that shouldn't necessarily make them the #1 team in the country.

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[Irish YJ]

Hey BCS

 

[Black Irish]

If you want to be the champion, you have to win the games that matter. For a boxer, it doesn't matter if you were ahead on points for nine rounds; if you let your guard down and get KO'd in the 10th, you don't get the belt. If you get outplayed on Super Bowl Sunday or in the BCS championship, you don't get the trophy, and that's fine with me.

 

[ACamp1900]

If you want to be the champion, you have to win the games that matter. For a boxer, it doesn't matter if you were ahead on points for nine rounds; if you let your guard down and get KO'd in the 10th, you don't get the belt. If you get outplayed on Super Bowl Sunday or in the BCS championship, you don't get the trophy, and that's fine with me.

Every game should matter... Hate that argument. I'm with wizards.

 

[anarin]

Every game does matter. Especially the ones at the end

Its not too far off the model now, if you lose at the end of the year you're basically out of the running.

 

[wizards8507]

Its not too far off the model now, if you lose at the end of the year you're basically out of the running.

Well yeah but I'm not in love with the model now either. Let's consider this hypothetical championship game:

Michigan State, 13-0, Big-10 Champions
Stanford, 12-1, PAC-12 Champions

Stanford's one loss came to 5-7 UCLA at home, 38-16 in week 11.

In the championship game, Stanford beats Michigan State in double overtime, 34-31. Stanford is the National Champion.

But should they be? If National Champion = Best team that year, should it really be Stanford? Stanford has one loss, a blowout to a pretty bad UCLA team. Michigan State has one loss, to #2 Stanford, by only 3 points in overtime. In my poll (and probably every computer), Michigan State is #1, but the rules of the "Championship Game" bind us to Stanford getting that trophy. A playoff multiplies the potential for bullshit outcomes like this by three. It can happen in each semifinal and in the champsionship itself.

 

[Black Irish]

Well yeah but I'm not in love with the model now either. Let's consider this hypothetical championship game:

Michigan State, 13-0, Big-10 Champions
Stanford, 12-1, PAC-12 Champions

Stanford's one loss came to 5-7 UCLA at home, 38-16 in week 11.

In the championship game, Stanford beats Michigan State in double overtime, 34-31. Stanford is the National Champion.

But should they be? If National Champion = Best team that year, should it really be Stanford? Stanford has one loss, a blowout to a pretty bad UCLA team. Michigan State has one loss, to #2 Stanford, by only 3 points in overtime. In my poll (and probably every computer), Michigan State is #1, but the rules of the "Championship Game" bind us to Stanford getting that trophy. A playoff multiplies the potential for bullshit outcomes like this by three. It can happen in each semifinal and in the champsionship itself.

I follow your logic here, but what's the solution? You're never going to eliminate that "remember when that team had that bad loss in week 3?" logic. You don't have to stretch your argument too far before you get to "only teams with perfect records get to be the champions." Then you circle all the back to doing polls to determine which teams should be ranked higher or lower based on the quality of their wins and losses rather than playing playoff games at all.

 

[RyCo1983]

WELCOME TO SPORTS
Sometimes the best team DOESN'T WIN.

Kind of makes it worth watching.

 

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

The best team doesn't always win in any system. Undefeated teams are not guaranteed a shot to win. The BCS is stupid and defending it makes you look weird.