Free Bagel wrote: What the heck kind of a point is that? You're contending that BECAUSE the winner of the tournament gets the trophy that means they ARE in fact the best team.
Not much of a point, actually. And no, I'm not contending that. In fact I'm contending the exact opposite, if you relate it to “our discussion of the uses of irony.”
Free Bagel wrote:In such a case, how can anyone EVER complain about the BCS? It DOES match up the "two best teams" yet people complain that those aren't really the two best teams.
Of
course it does - that's why nobody was upset to see Nebraska play Miami in 2001, right?
Free Bagel wrote:You're saying one team is the best because the system used says so.
Mostly I’m saying that a playoff is the most fair system to determine the winner. The discussion of who is the “best” is irrelevant. Nobody really cares who the “best” team is in any sport. It’s who wins the championship. “Best” is a term best used in discussions like this amongst armchair quarterbacks and Mini Managers.
Free Bagel wrote:That's not even an argument especially in the context of the discussion. So if UF beats OSU can I just say they are obviously actually the best team otherwise they wouldn't give them the trophy? Nah.
Well you could, but you’re right – you’d be wrong. The BCS is an inherently flawed system (see 2001).
Free Bagel wrote:There is no system that always picks the best team, and playoffs are no exception. I've always said playoffs are the most fair, and least often correct system. To argue that the winner of a playoff is automatically the "best" team in reality just seems absurd to me. One team can be so much better than another that they'd beat them 99 out of 100 times, if that one loss happens to come at a certain time that makes them worse?
Agreed in total. But again, playoffs are not a way to determine who is “best,” just who won.
Free Bagel wrote:The St. Louis Cardinals were not the best team in baseball this past year. The Pittsburgh Steelers probably weren't the best team in the NFL. The Gators probably weren't the best team in NCAA basketball last year.
Teams go on winning streaks all-the-time.
Sorry if my farcical attitude threw you off totally. I’m cracking wise against the BCS because it’s such a joke. I apologize if that didn’t come through.
To be clear – Any system wherein opinions are used to determine a champion is flawed. At best polls should be used to determine who gets into a playoff, and even then it’s a screwy system.
The larger problem here in my opinion is the fact that Division I-A is too large. 117 schools in the pool is just far, far too many. A decision should have been made decades ago to pare that number down to something far more manageable. The reality is that when you have a group of teams that large, you’re never going to have a “clean” champion. Strength of schedule will be too large of a factor, with the disparity between conferences being too great to provide a decent litmus test of who should or shouldn’t go to the tourney.
The NCAA should have pared Division I-A down to no more than 50-60 teams long ago. Teams like USC, UCLA, Washington, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame, LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Miami, etc. (and I’m just forgetting tons here, forgive me) have built up programs that far exceed the rank-and-file of the NCAA.
There’s a billboard by Memorial Stadium that I drive by every day on my way to work. It says, “Every program has history. Few have Tradition.” I resent the fact that teams like Oklahoma and Notre Dame and USC and Michigan, who have built programs that have defined the term “excellence” in college football over several decades, whose longevity in the sport is unquestioned, whose commitment to creating this sport’s culture and mystique is unparalleled, have been forced through legislation to pare down their programs because of some arbitrary feeling of “unfairness” towards other schools.
Michigan is simply NOT comparable to Boise State. They’re not even in the same league, unless you handicap Michigan and artificially prop up Boise State. How, I ask anyone, is this fair? Why does Boise State deserve to be on the same “level” of playing field when they were doing NOTHING over the past 70 years to build a powerful, dominant program that defined excellence in college football?
The 1994 ruling limiting scholarships was a travesty of PC BS and has made a murky situation even murkier. What used to be a somewhat orderly group of 15-20 bowl games at season’s end has become a freakin’ mess of 30+ games, many of which are absolutely meaningless. Using my homer-ism, let’s look at the Cotton Bowl. A pairing of Auburn/Nebraska should have produced giddiness amongst college football aficionados, but the result thanks to “parity” was a relatively lackluster game with absolutely nothing compelling the average viewer to watch. The talent on both teams was severely lacking, and the product on the field showed this. There’s no way this happens without that 1994 ruling.
So that’s my rant against recruiting and scholarship limits, and the relative size of Division I-A. Thanks for reading.
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by knapplc » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:25 pm 
