Biased Football Opinions - 7
BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

In the last opinion, we straightened out the problems in the NFL post-season. Now it's time to tackle the college post-season.

As usual, there was considerable dissatisfaction with the BCS ending to the 2008 season.

  • Let's suppose the Plus One system proposed by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive had been in effect. In this system, teams play the major bowl games according to traditional conference affiliations. This might have produced a BCS lineup like this.
    • Rose Bowl: Penn State vs. USC
    • Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Texas
    • Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati
    • Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Utah
  • Since the Rose and Orange Bowls would have been the same as were actually played, we can say USC and Virginia Tech won those. However, Tech with four losses would have no chance for the Plus One game.
  • USC along with the winners of the other Sugar and Fiesta Bowls would have one loss – or, if Utah won, no losses. Which two do you select for the championship game? According to Slive's proposal, the BCS rankings would be updated to include the bowl games and the top two would be selected for the championship game. That would leave a one-loss bowl winner or even an undefeated bowl winner (Utah) on the outside looking in.

Another proposal that has surfaced is to play the bowl games and then choose a Final Four. This is referred to as the Plus Three because it requires two semifinals and a final beyond the bowls.

  • Using the same four bowl matchups as above, would you choose the winners of the four BCS bowls? In that case, Virginia Tech with four losses would make the Final Four.
  • That is why those who advocate the Plus Three want a fifth BCS bowl. If that had been the case this past season, we might have had this lineup.
    • Rose Bowl: Penn State vs. USC
    • Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Utah
    • Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati
    • Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Boise State
    • Cotton Bowl: Texas vs. Alabama
  • This would be a big improvement since the winner of the Orange Bowl would not advance to the Final Four. The other four BCS bowls would be quarterfinal games. The BCS rankings could be applied after the bowls and the top four paired up with 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3. Adding the fifth BCS bowl would also allow another non-BCS team, Boise State, to participate.

All this makes for fun fantasy. But here's a big problem with it.

  • Watching the Florida-Oklahoma game, I was struck by how hard each team had obviously prepared for the game, especially on D. How do you ask the winner of a game like that to play another game after spending a month preparing for the bowl?
  • An obvious way around this difficulty is to move up the five BCS bowls to around December 18-20. Then the Final Four participants could play the semifinals on January 1 with the finals in the January 8-15 period.

I used the word "fantasy" above because that's what the Plus Three is. The BCS presidents have considered the Plus One and rejected it and might consider it again. But there's no way they will give a second thought to a Plus Three. And which BCS bowl wants to move its game forward several weeks? Still, we can dream about a better way to end the college football season.

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

It's been interesting to note the contrast between the NFL post-season and the college post-season. Both need some changing.

First, the NFL. As this is written, Arizona and Pittsburgh have just qualified for the Super Bowl.

  • Pittsburgh was the #2 seed in the AFC with a 12-4 record, champions of the AFC North. They received a first round bye. Yet they still had to play the wild card Baltimore Ravens, who finished second in the AFC North. It didn't happen, but a Ravens win in the Conference Final would have vaulted them to the Super Bowl ahead of their own division's champion that had beaten them twice. The 11-5 Ravens reached the AFC Final by upsetting the 13-3 Titans, a team that had won by 3 at Baltimore in Week 5.
  • Arizona makes an even more compelling case for the relative lack of importance of the NFL regular season. After clinching the weak NFC West in Week 14, they tanked their next two games, losing by 21 at Minnesota and by 40 at New England. They pulled themselves together to beat 4-11 Seattle in the last game to salvage a winning record (9-7). Because they were a division champion, they hosted wild card Atlanta, which had an 11-5 record playing in the NFC South, a much tougher division than the NFC West. They defeated the Falcons, then upset 12-4 Carolina on the road. Since they were seeded higher than 9-6-1 Philadelphia, a wild card from the toughest division of all, the NFC East, and a team that had clobbered Arizona by 28 points Thanksgiving night, they hosted the NFC Championship Game.
  • Consider the plight of the Indianapolis Colts. They won their last nine games to finish 12-4. However, Tennessee won the NFC South at 13-3. Because of NFL seeding rules, Indy as a wild card could not be seeded higher than division winners Miami (11-5) and San Diego (8-8), the latter a team Indy beat in San Diego during their winning streak. As a result, the Colts had to go to San Diego for the first round. They lost in OT when SD won the toss and kicked a FG without Peyton Manning having a chance to take the field in the extra period. As a final point about Indy, the Colts met the Titans in the last game of the regular season. Since Tennessee had clinched the division and the #1 seed and the Colts couldn't improve their #5 seed, the two teams played the contest like a pre-season game. What might have been one of the best games of the season was rendered meaningless. (You don't have to check the Internet to know that the Colts didn't refund any ticket money.)

So what comes out of this review?

  • I love the NFL and am not proposing major changes in its playoff structure. I'll contrast the NFL approach to the BCS in Installment 2 of this lengthy opinion but will say now that COLLEGE FOOTBALL MUST NEVER CREATE A SYSTEM WHERE REGULAR SEASON GAMES ARE MEANINGLESS IN TERMS OF DETERMINING THE NATIONAL CHAMPION. There will be occasions such as the Alabama-Auburn game this past season where Bama had already clinched the SEC West. However, what made the game meaningful not just in Alabama, where the Iron Bowl will always be important, but across the nation is that the 12-0 Tide was ranked #1 and would have lost any chance of competing for the BCS Championship if it let down against its archrival. The only way Saban could have rested his starters for the SEC Championship Game was by getting a big lead.
  • The NFL setup, patterned after that of baseball, will always be prone to a team getting hot late in the season or in the playoffs after a mediocre year and defeating teams that were clearly superior over the course of the regular season. (In addition to Arizona this year, witness another Cardinals team winning the 2006 World Series. In both cases, teams had to win playoff games or series on the road because they had inferior records but managed to do so.)
  • Having said this, however, I think the NFL should make two changes to its system.
    • Seeding. I can understand reasons for placing the four division winners ahead of the wild cards. In general, I believe that if you're going to place teams in subdivisions and schedule accordingly, you should give importance to the division winners. It is difficult to compare records in different divisions for several reasons. You could have a team that was 9-7 in a tough division and a wild card that was 10-6 in an easy division. Also, each division plays a different combination of divisions in its own conference and the other conference. This past year, Indianapolis played both the AFC and NFC North Divisions. San Diego played the NFC South and the AFC East. You could argue as to which one had the harder slate. The NFC South was tougher than the NFC North, but the AFC North was harder than the AFC East. So I'm not proposing that teams be seeded simply based on their records. Instead, there ought to be exceptions for situations when a wild card team like Indianapolis has an 12-4 record and division winner San Diego is only 8-8. Specifically, a wild card team that is three or more games better than a division winner is seeded ahead of that division winner. Suppose this rule had been effect this past season.
      • Indy and SD would have swapped places, and the opening round game would have been at Indianapolis. Also Indy would have had incentive to win its final game against Tennessee in order to keep its three-game lead over a division winner. (Recall that 8-7 Denver played 7-8 San Diego that day for the AFC West crown.)
      • Arizona would have had incentive to win its last game in order to finish 9-7 and keep 11-5 Atlanta from moving ahead of it in the seeding. As it was, the Cardinals did win but only as a warm-up to get some momentum going again into the playoffs, not because it made a difference in their seeding.
    • Overtime. This topic has certainly been kicked around on the airwaves the last few weeks. Those who favor the current system, including Tony Dungy, who lost his last game as Colts coach because of the sudden death rule, argue that the team that loses the toss must play good defense and get the ball from the other team. If they don't, they "deserve" to lose. But the team that loses the flip may have a better defense than the other team, but the other team's defense doesn't get a chance to get exposed because its offense gets to the 35 and kicks a 52-yard FG. The offense that lost might have been able to score a TD if it had gotten the ball first. So I favor a change in the OT rule for the post-season only.

      If a playoff game goes to overtime, each team must get at least one possession. If, after each team has had a possession, one is in front, that team is the winner. If they are still tied, then go to sudden death.

Will LSU Lay a Bowl egg? (12/6/08)

There's a strong possibility that LSU will be embarrassed by its bowl performance this season. And I mean "embarrassed" in two senses.

  • The football team may give another lackluster effort as it did the last three games against Troy, Ole Miss, and Arkansas.
  • The fans may not purchase many tickets to the bowl game. There are several reasons why this might happen.
    • Many fans are fed up with this year's team. The huge exodus at halftime of the Troy game is ample evidence. This is a frustrating team to watch. The Arkansas game was yet another example – a game in which the Tigers clearly had the better team talent-wise but made crucial mistakes to give it away. Why pay good money in hard economic times to travel to Atlanta to watch this bunch of underachievers?
    • The fans are spoiled by the last three seasons.
      • 11-2 in 2005 and a Chick-fil-A Bowl rout of Miami.
      • 11-2 in 2006 and a Sugar Bowl win over Notre Dame.
      • 12-2 in 2007 and a BCS Championship Game victory over Ohio State.
    • After the excitement of the last three seasons, the Chick-Fil-A doesn't hold much luster. Finish 8-5 instead of 7-6 – big deal!
  • Les Miles has much fence-mending to do with the Tiger Nation. He can create some excitement by putting a big-time D coordinator in place in the next 7-10 days. (Inside dope has Vic Koenning of Clemson getting the job.) Fans will then have more optimism that the Tigers can win the bowl, and the game becomes more of a preview of 2009. Other staff changes would help also. Miles' announcement that Jordan Jefferson will start at QB is a step in the same direction.
  • Another point to be made concerning Miles' quick trip from the penthouse to the outhouse is that a new AD is in place in Tigerland. Since Joe Alleva didn't hire Miles, Joe doesn't have to worry about pointing the finger at himself if he fires Les. I'm not suggesting that Alleva will have a quick trigger but just observing that one traditional advantage an incumbent coach has with the AD who hired him, a greater amount of patience, is no longer in place at LSU.

Postscript
Since I wrote this opinion, I received an e-mail from Alleva sent to all members of the Tiger Athletic Foundation. (I'm not a member but do receive their e-mails.) The AD praises the great fan following he has come to appreciate in his five months on the job as evidenced by the fact that LSU has sold all its bowl game tickets for eight straight years and sold out its allotment for every road game this season. He then asks all members to purchase tickets for the bowl game in Atlanta and to encourage others to do so. I regard the e-mail as evidence that he too is worried about what I expressed above. Otherwise, why would the AD feel the need to encourage such a loyal fan base to purchase Chick-fil-A tickets?

Postscript #2
Article in the 12/11/08 Times Picayune about the difficulty LSU is having selling its allotment of bowl tickets. Only about 11,000 of the 15,000 allotment have been sold. Add to that Miles' announcement on 12/11 that no staff changes would be made until after the bowl game and you have a recipe for disaster in Atlanta. A staff that lost the players the last part of the regular season is somehow going to regain their confidence in the month before the bowl game?

Previous Football Biased Opinions

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

I'm concerned about ESPN's winning the rights to televise the BCS games starting in 2010. Here's why.

  • For many years, ESPN has had a huge impact on the Heisman race. If Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and company promote a candidate, he will usually win. Likewise, if they ignore a player, he won't have a chance.
  • With ESPN televising all five BCS games starting in 2010, will the network's commentators be under pressure to push a team like USC from a large population area or a "media darling" like Boise State in 2006 in order to improve ratings for the telecasts? Furthermore, every week of the season ESPN/ABC decides which games its will bring and at what time period.
  • Fox hasn't had this problem because it covers college football only through its regional sports networks (Fox Sports Midwest, Fox Sports Los Angeles, etc.) which don't have nearly the viewership that ESPN has.
  • Recall that the AP withdrew its poll from the BCS rankings several years ago because of "conflict of interest." The conflict involves influencing the outcome of the sport you're covering. Wouldn't that same reasoning apply to ESPN? Won't its commentators impact the selection of teams for the games ESPN will televise?
  • Of course, all this goes to the heart of the criticism of college football's method of determining its "national champion." In all other NCAA sports (and in the other divisions in football), an NCAA-appointed committee determines which schools participate in the post-season and where they are seeded. The committee uses polls and various statistical analyses in its deliberations, but votes as a group on who is placed where. Division IA college football, on the other hand, uses polls, human and computer. This is no better illustrated than by pointing to the Big 12's three-way tie-breaker rule that puts the team with the highest BCS ranking into the conference championship game. So we have Bob Stoops of Oklahoma and Mack Brown of Texas lobbying hard through the media for their teams to be ranked higher.

While I'm venting, I'll give my opinion about President-Elect Obama's much-publicized promise to push for an eight-team playoff. True to form, some BCS presidents and commissioners quickly replied in the negative. However, I hope that Obama's publicly espousing an 8-team playoff (with the possibility of Congress jumping on the bandwagon too) will at least have the effect of getting the BCS to adopt the "Plus One" format for its next four-year set of games. The new TV contract that goes into effect for the 2010 season calls for five BCS games each season, with the fifth being the championship game, as in the present setup. That does not preclude – or could easily be amended to include – selecting the participants in the championship game after the bowl games have been played, which is the "Plus One" system. I would think ESPN would love that modification because ratings for the four BCS bowl games would only increase because they are part of a de facto playoff to determine the two finalists.

Read a previous opinion favoring the Plus One format.

 

CONTENTS

BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

Will LSU Lay a Bowl Egg (12/6/08)

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

More Football Opinions

Golden Rankings Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

Will LSU Lay a Bowl Egg (12/6/08)

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

More Football Opinions

Golden Rankings Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

Will LSU Lay a Bowl Egg (12/6/08)

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

More Football Opinions

Golden Rankings Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

Will LSU Lay a Bowl Egg (12/6/08)

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

More Football Opinions

Golden Rankings Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

Will LSU Lay a Bowl Egg (12/6/08)

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

More Football Opinions

Golden Rankings Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

BCS Improvements [1/31/09]

NFL Playoff Rules Changes (1/19/09)

Will LSU Lay a Bowl Egg (12/6/08)

ESPN, Obama, and the BCS (11/24/08)

More Football Opinions

Golden Rankings Home