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It's un-American: BCS eliminates teams (like BYU) even before the season starts By
Kendall Schafer The Brigham Young University football program never had a chance for the national title this year as far as the Bowl Championship Series officials are concerned. Even before BYU finished the regular season, BCS coordinators scratched a then-undefeated Cougar team off the list of prestigious bowl games, saying the schedule played by BYU was too weak. A story by Tim Korte, sports writer for the Deseret News, voiced the frustration felt by BYU coach Gary Crowton. Crowton said, "In college athletics, every [team] has a chance to play for a national championship, every single one, except football." Being an advocate for a playoff system in Division I-A football, Crowton also said, "It's not just BYU, it's anybody. It's [for] the Cinderella teams that never get the chance." Crowton is referring to the fact that the four BCS bowl games have six automatic bids given to the first place teams from the nation's six largest conferences. The remaining two positions are at-large bids given to teams (usually a runner-up in the same six conferences) with a high BCS rating. Responding by e-mail to a Usenet post on Rec.sports.college.football, Marty McMahone, from University of Mary Hardin-Baylor said, "I despise the BCS. It has just about destroyed the bowl system without giving a legitimate national champion to make up for it." The current method for crowning the Division I-A football champion involves a complex formula. Points are accumulated throughout the season based on average standings in the media and computer-generated polls. The strength of schedule element determines how well the opponents of a team played. There is a penalty for team losses, and bonus points for quality wins over BCS ranked teams. Numbers are crunched at the end of the season. Then the two leading teams play for the national title. A watered down version of the BCS formula is available on ESPN.com to help fans fully understand how it works. The existing system is full of assumptions. Mainly, it is presumed that the best college football teams come from powerhouse conferences. College football fans have debated, petitioned, and dreamed of a playoff system for years, but there is still no plan for the future. Most feel like there is really no good reason for not having playoffs. As a matter of fact, Division II and III both use a playoff system to name a national champion. Cameron Reed, a football fan from Utah State University said, "It's all about the money that large conferences generate during the bowl season. They want to keep it for themselves." Some would disagree. Richard Billingsley, a writer for ESPN.COM, made this statement in a recent article: "The institution of the Bowl Championship Series may be exactly what we need to eventually ease into a playoff format at some point in the future. At least with this format in place, fans will be able to get used to a structure that uses the bowls to match the No. 1 vs. No. 2 teams." Reed said, "No one has ever said the bowl structure would have to be terminated to make room for playoffs. They could be used in each round of the playoffs to generate sponsorship and television coverage just like now. The less prestigious bowls could be used in the early rounds, and the elite bowl games could be used in the finals." In a playoff system, each of the 12 conference champions could participate and the major conferences would still get second and third place teams in the playoffs. Cash prizes could be awarded for each win similar to the Division I basketball playoffs. Teams that go deep in the tournament would naturally receive more money. For now BYU will have to settle with the Liberty Bowl that will pay them $1.25 million. It is a drop in the bucket compared with a $12 million BCS bowl that would have given the Cougars a shot at the national title. Bret Barnes from Utah State University said, "It's too bad, but maybe if more of these types of injustices occur, coaches and athletic directors will band together and exert pressure on the NCAA to implement playoffs."
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