The BCMess...2009 Edition.

(Originally written as an email to Mark McCarter, sportswriter and friend. Check out his writings (much more eloquent than mine) at the Huntsville Times)

Mark-

Forgive me. People in Baltimore don't appreciate college football. You're my outlet.

Okay, this is a long one. It's time for a great debate. While this would be better served to take place over a couple of pints and a big bucket of chicken wings, it will have to do. Maybe it's not quite Lincoln/Douglas, but it'll have to do.

Just found a query from a previous unsent email, albeit a moot one since the Utah game, but...Which do you think Bama would rather have now? The extra money in the coffers from playing the created-for-CBS cash grab game aka the SEC championship? Or a shot at national championship number whatever?

Hmmm..maybe those 'Bama players should have paid a little more attention in US history class when they talked about the whole Brigham Young --> Utah --> Mormon ---> No Alcohol thing.

Drink on Bourbon Street $12.00...Utah Utes Undefeated T-Shirt $22.00...Watching Nick $atan get his whiny ass kicked at the Sugar Bowl...PRICELESS.

Yeah, Brent was pretty much the slurpmeister. Him and Herbstreit. Although I will say that Daryll Clark (the PSU QB who spent most of the game running for his life and throwing dumpoffs while Mark Sanchez was carving up the Nitts like a surgeon) got a great deal of Musberger/Herbie slurpage until Sanchez blew up the 2nd quarter...I think I actually heard the phrase 'John Elway couldn't have done it any better' on Clark's QB draw TD. Are you kidding me?

Don't know if you caught it, but I'm pretty sure whoever called the Emerald Bowl needed to be rushed to the hospital afterwards to have his lips surgically removed from Jacory Harris' anatomy. Sorry, if your name is Vince Young, you rack 500 yards of TO in the Rose Bowl and singlehandedly beat arguably the greatest CFB team in a generation you deserve slurp love....you complete barely 50 %, fumble inside your own 20, get picked twice, and lose to Cal, you're not the next whoemever...you're a hack.

So Oregon hangs 42 and 600 yards of TO on OK State and Ole Miss lights up Texas Tech for 47 and 515...I'm beginning to think that this whole 'Big-12 offensive supremacy thing' is less due to amazing QB's, and more due to the fact that no one in that conference plays defense worth a crap.

Just a question (and let me preface this by saying I am NOT lumping you in with this), but watching the PAC-10 in bowl games this year (and listening to the commentaries/reading the articles), does anyone west of the Mississippi bother to stay up late and actually WATCH a PAC-10 game, or do they just write/comment based on their preconceived notions of the conference? They seem to discount USC's success by downplaying their Rose Bowl wins as home games, yet never seem to acknowledge that both of LSU's championships were won in the Sugar Bowl. Mike Bellotti never gets credit for what he has done at Oregon (nor Mike Riley for what he has done at Moo U.). The Pac-10 gets ripped for playing a weak schedule, yet look at their non-con? How many SEC or Big-12 teams have anywhere CLOSE to the number of non-con opponents that have played in BCS Bowls in the past 7 years when compared to the Pac-10? Yes, the Pac-10 has some weak sisters. Wazzu is on a bad run, and Keith Gilbertson and Ty have destroyed a once-marquee program, but I'm still pretty sure that UDub could beat The Citadel and Samford. A friend of mine was ripping USC for never leaving SoCal to play in a Bowl Game (apparently fogetting the Trojans 2 Orange Bowl wins), but why does noone ever seem to bring up the fact that Florida hasn't left the state for a non-conference game in a decade, Georgia crossed the Mississippi for a non-con this year for the first time in a half-century, and LSU has developed a proclivity for buying out the 'and home' part of the home-and-home series.

Now to the BCS. First, let's acknowledge what we agree on (I think)
The BCS goal is to bring the #1 and #2 teams together in a game. An (allegedly) truly noble idea.
That's it. (Should be used for NOTHING else...like deciding the Big 12 South rep in the Big 12 championship game)
First problem. It only works when there are two obvious choices for #1 and #2. The problem has been when there aren't...and invariably that will be the case. For every matchup that wouldn't happen under the old system (USC/Texas in the Rose Bowl, Miami/Ohio State in the Fiesta) there are fiascos like Miami and UDub in 2000 (The U beat FSU, UW beat the U in Miami), Oregon in 2001 (#2 in both polls, Nebraska loses it's final game), USC (#1 in both polls) in 2003. There are years when deserving teams don't get the opportunity to play in the game like Auburn and Utah in 2004, and then last year and this year. Look, I ain't gonna lie. In 2004 I thought the BCS had it right, I thought USC was the best team in the country, and Oklahoma was #2. I think if USC had played Auburn, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference...the Men of Troy would have kicked the crap out of them too. Same with Utah. My problem was not giving AU or UU the opportunity to play for it ON THE FIELD.

Flash forward to this year. I can't say with certainty that USC is/was one of the two best teams in the country and deserves a spot in the championship game. But then again, you can't say they're not. Same with Florida. And Oklahoma. And Texas. And Utah. And even Alabama. And that's where the BCS always gets it wrong; while it puts together the top two, it gets it right when there are ONLY two. Anything beyond that, it gives us the same mess we used to have, except with the added bonus of marginalizing the other major bowls.

So how do we fix it? The 'Plus 1'? Okay, maybe it works in 2004 if you get the bowls to ignore their traditional tie-ins and can arrange USC/Utah and Oklahoma/Auburn. I just can't see the Sugar Bowl letting Auburn go play in the Fiesta, and I can't see the Fiesta releasing OU (or OU playing essentially a road game against a lower ranked team), so your matchups would have been something like: ROSE: USC/Michigan. FIESTA: Oklahoma/Pitt. SUGAR: Auburn/Texas ORANGE: Virginia Tech/Utah. Say your winners are USC, Oklahoma, Auburn, and Utah. You have the same problem. Still four undefeated teams. Still two teams getting the shaft.

2008? Same problem. More teams.

Okay, how 'bout a playoff? Great idea in theory, in practice maybe not so much. First, how many teams. 16 makes sense, but I don't think the powers that be will go for more than 8. And therein lies the problem. How do you decide on the 8? Most traditional assumptions give automatics to the 6 'BCS' conferences. My question is, why? While I'll grant the SEC, Big 12, Pac-10, and Big 10 elite conference status, what have the ACC or Big East ever done to deserve such consideration? They're basketball conferences plain and simple. The reason the Big East got it's autobid (Miami and Va Tech) are now in the ACC, and the ACC's reason (Florida State) is now marginal at best. I can't see (based on its track record) why the ACC and Big East have bids, and the Mountain West doesn't. So reduce the number of autobids, or alter them, which still leaves the question of how you find the next four (or three, or two). How can you find an unbiased way of selecting them? You can't have the coaches vote; Mack Brown's lobbying of the BCS and the Big 12 (and Winston Brown) coaches manipulating the system/vote in 2004 to get Texas in and Cal out proves that that won't work. All you have to do is read the columns of sportswriters in various regions of the country to see how unbiased YOU lot can be, and the computers? My first computer teacher taught me a phrase. Garbage in, Garbage out. You can program a computer to say anything; if I wanted a Boise State/Ball State matchup in the BCS championship I could find a nerd with the program to do it.

So how do we solve it?

Better yet, does it even need to be solved?

How would these be for Bowl Games? (And by the way, ALL will be played on New Year's day. And there will be a rule. Nothing else on NYD, and nothing after the day either. Put the focus BACK on the majors).

Rose Bowl: USC vs. Penn State. Pete Carroll vs. Joe Pa.
Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Alabama.
Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Texas Tech
Orange Bowl: Texas vs. Utah

Sorry Big East and ACC. Cincinnati and Virginia Tech didn't cut the mustard. Enjoy your trips to the Whatever Bowl until you prove you deserve an annual invite to the Big Boys table.

Think of all the possible scenarios. Think of how many teams have a theoretical shot at being #1. Think of it; one day, four bowls, all matter. And if, at the end of the day, at the end of a great day, at the end of a celebration of the greatness of college football, a day starting with the Tournament of Roses Parade and ending with Up With People at the Orange Bowl halftime extravaganza, you have two teams with a claim to the national title? So what. So split it.

In the big scheme of life, is it that bad that two (or more) teams can claim a national championship? I don't see anyone from 'Bama devaluing their 1973 claimed championship, even though the majority of the polls picked Notre Dame as #1 (and the Irish beat them heads up in the Sugar Bowl. Auburn claims a share of the 1993 and 2004 titles in their media guides, even though no one else gives them credit for them. I look at it this way, if a kid has the opportunity to say 'I played on a National Champion team', or a fan can say 'We won the National Championship', do they (or we) really care that they had to share it with someone.

Well, that's that. Happy New Year. My college football watching for the year is over. The Ducks won the Holiday Bowl, SC beat JoePa, and in the Kornya Index they're your national champions. A month of putting up with the NFL, and I can enjoy sports again because spring training will be here.