Six months ago the "powers that be" voted to abolish the BCS system as we know it and move toward a playoff. That new structure begins with the 2014-2015 season which gives the BCS folks a couple more years to see just how screwed up they can make things - and boy are they taking this opportunity seriously.
A system that was designed to reward the best 8 or 10 teams in the country with more money, higher-profile bowl games and the prestige that goes with it has failed so miserably that you would barely recognize one of the games.
The national championship game is fine. #1 vs. #2. Just as it should be. Oregon and Kansas State will play in the Fiesta Bowl. Perfect. #4 and #5. Florida is ranked 3rd and they're in as an "at-large." No problem. Stanford is ranked 6th and won the PAC-19 or whatever. All good. The top 6 teams are in. The next 5, however, are not.
Never mind for a moment that Florida State has two losses and is ranked lower than 5 teams who will NOT get a BCS game. At least Florida State won one of the "real" conferences. Never mind that Louisville is ranked 21st in the latest polls or that the Big East really doesn't belong among the "real" conferences. They, also, won an automatic spot fair and square. Never mind that Ohio State was ineligible this year and instead we got an unranked Wisconsin team as the Big Ten champions even though there are two Big Ten teams ranked higher than Wisconsin. Again, the Big Ten champs get a spot. Those automatic qualifying conferences get a representative.
No, this post is about the final at-large selection. Congratulations to the folks in Miami who get the #12 Florida State Seminoles versus the #15 Northern Illinois Huskies. Wake me up when that grease fire has been put out.
You see, it seems that the BCS has an obscure clause to allow a team like Northern Illinois to crash the party. IF a non-qualifying conference has a conference champion that is the highest-ranked team among non-qualifiers... IF that team is ranked in the top 16 in the BCS poll... and IF that team is ranked higher than one of the automatic qualifying conference champs (in this case Louisville AND Wisconsin fit that bill) then this little upstart team gets a BCS bid. It's hilarious, really. You can only allow a joke team in if ANOTHER joke team is already in via a weak conference title.
I've heard a LOT of complaining about this selection, but it really wasn't a SELECTION. The rules made it so that Northern Illinois HAD to be taken. So probably the rule is bad, I get that. But part of the problem here is that it should never have happened because Northern Illinois shouldn't be ranked anywhere near the top 16.
I'm not hating on the Huskies here. If they had gone undefeated this year, they'd have a really good claim. But they didn't. They lost to Iowa - one of only two teams from real conferences that they played this year. Iowa was one of the worst teams in the Big Ten, finishing 4-8 overall and 2-6 in the conference. The other team from an automatic conference that NIU beat? Kansas. The Jayhawks went 1-11 this season. This Northern Illinois team also squeaked out a 1-point win over Army (2-9 this year).
Voters in the human polls are dropping the ball here. This "selection" doesn't happen if Northern Illinois is ranked 17th. How can you possibly think that a team that had to score in the final five minutes in order to beat Kansas and Army and who LOST to Iowa is a top 15 team nationally? Because they won the MAC? They needed two overtimes to beat Kent State to do it. Depending on which source you use to calculate strength of schedule, Northern Illinois either played the 100th or 123rd toughest schedule this year. Laughable.
There's another BCS rule out there that says that you can't take more than two teams from the same conference. Too bad for the teams ranked 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th since they're all from the SEC. And too bad for Oklahoma who would have been the next logical at-large selection due to that rule. But Georgia is the team that gets the worst of it here.
The Georgia Bulldogs are ranked #7. They battled Alabama in the SEC Championship game and came up about 6 feet short as time ran out on the 2-yard-line going in for the winning score. They were that close to playing for a national championship and now they get the Capital One Bowl. Why? Because of some obscure rules that never really made sense, but it's not until you see them in action that you understand the true damage they cause.
This year the rules cost Georgia (or Oklahoma) about $12 million. That's the difference in payouts between a BCS bowl and where the Bulldogs and Sooners will land. But more than that, you've cheated the players, coaches and fans. Moreso than ever you're creating the culture that WHO you play doesn't matter... just don't lose. Why would good teams want to schedule other good teams? It makes no sense anymore. So get used to teams like Texas A&M scheduling teams like Division I-AA Sam Houston State. It's better to play the sisters of the poor and get your wins than to test yourself against better competition... and that sucks.
Luckily this will all be over soon. But in the meantime we have to suffer through #12 vs. a dubious #15 in one of the sport's premiere contests while the teams ranked 7th-11th are left scratching their heads. Brutal. There's only one year left, guys. Change some rules and try and get it right once. That would be a great way to go out.
