College football needs a playoff system

Introduction

The most popular NCAA sport is Division 1-A football. It is also the only sport not to have a tournament to determine the national champion. The BCS system determines the top two teams based on wins and strength of schedule. In theory this is a great system but the problems comes when there are more than only two clear cut teams to play in the national championship. There are two major reasons why a Division 1-A NCAA playoff system is needed to really determine who the best team in the nation is. There are plenty of people out there that are for a playoff system but there are also those who are opposed to such a system. There is also the option of having both a playoff and a bowl system.

The BCS determines who will play in the five major bowl games (it was four but a fifth was added this season). The selected teams are the champions from the six BCS conferences and two other schools. It takes into account polls of both associated press writers and coaches, polls from seven computer rankings methods, number of losses, strength of schedule, and whether or not a team has beaten other teams in the top ten (Bowl). The computers then sum all the numbers to create a total. The teams with the two lowest totals will play in the national title game. It has been in place since 1998 and was needed to determine using a system who should play for the national championship. The BCS replaced the bowl alliance which was in place from 1995-1997 (Bowl).

Problems

There are two major controversies with the BCS bowl standing. In 2003-2004 five teams finished the regular season with only one loss and there were no unbeaten teams. While in 2004-2005 the same number of teams finished with no loses. So in each year all three teams had a legitimate case to play for the national title. So it is up to the BCS to figure out which team really is worthy to play in the game. This is decided on by looking at the strength of schedule and point totals (Bowl). Another criticism of the BCS is that it is bias towards the six BCS conferences. Since the start of the BCS four non-BCS conference teams have finished with an undetected record and have been unable to play for the national title game. Those teams are Tulane in 1998, Marshall in 1999, with Utah and Boise State in 2004 (Bowl). This makes it impossible for any non-BCS conference team to make the national title game no matter how many wins of points they score.

How can this be the system in place when there are clearly problems with it? These are not minor problems they are very big ones that can ruin a teams entire season. Something needs to be done because how can you let a team work as hard as they do to not have a shot at the title game.

Many football fans argue that Rutgers and Boise State should be ranked higher than they really are. They feel that they should be number 3 or 4 in the BCS ranking rather than 6 and 12. They believe that since they have not lost a game that they deserve to win and rightfully so. People feel that it is all about winning and how can a team that lost a game be better than a team that is undefeated. More goes into the rankings than not losing a game. Also many people feel that the whole process of deciding a national champion should be different because they feel that there are certain parts that do not allow smaller division 1-A to compete for the title.

The Changing Process

The process of changing the current system starts with the coaches, players, and supporters of a football team and school. They need to bring the idea to their athletic director. He will than take it to the commissioner of their league. Only teams that are in the six BCS conferences can really bring attention to having a change made. If there are enough teams that suggest a change than the commissioner will take it to the other commissioners of the conferences. They will than take it to Myles Brand who is the president of NCAA athletics. He will than make a committee that will decide on specific changes or a totally new system all together. There needs to be strong support from every in the major conferences for this to be accomplished.

The way the BCS bowl championship works is that the champions of the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-10, and Southern eastern conferences are automatically in a BCS bowl game (Bowl). Those six teams will fill six of the eight spots in the bowl games. Those BCS games are Orange, Rose, Fiesta, and Sugar. The other two spots will be given to at-large schools. They will go on to their designated games unless they qualify for the championship game. There are also four additional games that go to at-large entries. A team outside the six conferences will be guaranteed a slot if it finishes in the top 12 of the BCS rankings or in the top 16 and higher than one of the six champions from those conferences. Notre Dame is not in anyone of those conferences but is guaranteed a spot if it finishes in the top 8. No conference may have more than two teams.

The BCS bowl rankings come out every week on Monday. They are updated based on a teams’ performance during the previous week. At the end of the season the teams at one and two on the poll play each other for the national championship. The four major components that contribute to a teams rank are subjective poll, computer rankings, strength of a team’s schedule, and number of losses. Each of those factors are given a numerical value to represent them. Teams are than assigned a certain number of points for their performance, and than the four totals are added together to find a teams final score. The team with the lowest point total is given the number one and so on from there.

How it Works

The first variable is a subjective poll. Both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches poll make up this variable (How). They are personal choices by both of them and the BCS incorporated their input by averaging the rankings from both polls. So if a team is number 7 in one poll and number 9 in the other they would be given 8 points in the category. For the computer ranking variable there are eight computer-generated rankings that make it what it is. The rankings are actually the output of computer programs that compute weekly game statistics. Their formulas factor in many variables including who won, to where a game was played. The teams get a point total from each computer poll and the lowest one is dropped. The remaining 7 totals are than added to produce a team’s score. That score is than divided by 7 and that is the teams BCS score. This is done so that one team’s championship chance will not be ruined from one computer (How). Many times the teams at the top of the BCS rankings can be separated by a few tenths of a point so every point counts. Each computer system is run by a different person or organizations that are highly trained. They each take in different very important variables to compute their score. A list of the computer rankings, which they are run by and their important variables are below.

The third variable is again computed by a computer and is the strength of a team’s schedule. The cumulative win and loss record of a team and their opponents’ opponents. A team’s strength of schedule is computed by the computer program giving a number for the strength of an opponents schedule (So) and one for the opponents’ opponents (Soo). The team’s individual strength (St) is than calculated using these numbers (How). The formula looks like this.

So+Soo=St

The resulting number is than set up against the other 119 division 1-A football programs. Once the have been placed in order they are divided into quartiles between 1-25, 25-50, 50-75, 75-100, and 100-115. That rank is than multiplied by 0.04 and allows a team to be ranked based on their placement within a given quartile (How).

The final variable is the number of losses. For every loss one point is added to a team’s total. Now remember the ranking is from lowest score to highest score. This is why losing one game can really make the difference between playing in the championship game or even in a BCS game.

The reason why Rutgers and Boise State being ranked so low is because of all of these variables are combined not just their win losses. Rutgers is ranked 7^th and 8^th in the AP top 25 and the Coaches poll (College). Than Rutgers will than receive 6.5 points toward their total. Boise State is ranked 13^th in both of them, so they would receive 13 points (College). Their strength of schedule is 81^st for Boise State and 31^st for Rutgers (College). They both do not have any loses but with these factors and their computer rating added together they are not in the top 4 in the nation (NCAA). One of the major factors that Boise State has going against is that it is not in one of the six BCS conferences. Rutgers is a part of the Big East conference.

The current system of determining a NCAA division 1 champion is not working the way that it is supposed to and that is to find the best two teams in the nation to play each other. There have been several controversies ranging from undefeated teams not making the championship teams to loosing their chances of playing with one loss.

Alternatives

There are several other alternatives to having the BCS. They could have March madness type playoff like basketball with 64 teams making it in and playing several games to decide the national champion. Some people feel that this would take to long and could cause major problems for some power house football teams. A playoff system like this would mean that there would be underdogs and people love to watch underdogs win. There could be major injuries that occur that could greatly decrease the chance for a title shot. The bowl games would than turn into the semi finals and finals games. That way they sponsor will still be happy with their games. The national championship will rotate between the 5 major bowl games still.

Another option is to still have a playoff system but to make it smaller and to include several bowl games. Have only the top 10 teams in the nation play in the tournament with a week and a half in between games. The top ten teams would be decided by the USA today and the Associated Press poll. Spread the games out through out the week so that they will each get their own hype. Than have the same type of bowl system with the other teams that they would normally get. The finals and championship game turn into the 5 major sponsorship games. With the championship game still is rotating between the five of them. That way the sponsors would still be happy because there games would still be the high profile games that they are not.

Conclusion

Every other football division has a playoff system and why should the most popular NCAA sport be any different? There needs to be a change with it and it needs to be done as soon as possible. No matter what happens there needs to be something done with the current system. It is not currently working the way that is it supposed to be. Some people say that if there is a playoff system that it would take way too long to complete. But if they NCAA would change the schedule to having teams play only conference games and 1 non-league game than there would be plenty of time for a playoff system and bowl games.