Good night to the BCS; Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal
Jason Gay, like pretty much all sportswriters, is no expert on college football. Unlike most sportswriters, Jason Gay seems to understand his limitations in that regard.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Gay begins what starts out as the standard kissoff to years of what pretty much every other sportswriter has been whining about for as long as most young readers of MGoBlog have been alive; we have things called a "Beef O'Brady's Bowl," and we have a thing called the BCS.
Jason Gay is a pretty clever writer, so he makes that part at least funny, even if it is more of the same banal sportswriter-speak that has done so little to improve college football.
But then Gay gets to the end, and makes some really wonderful points at the about what is a terribly buried lead. He addresses concerns about what is now coming to replace the BCS; our new College Football Playoffs:
Are there worries? Sure. Will fans of a team trudge to a semifinal and then a championship game? (Pricey!) There are also concerns that a playoff format (and especially an expanded playoff format) could diminish the thing that makes college football college football: the weight of the regular season. This season a playoff would have impacted what was inarguably the best game of the year, when Auburn ran back that missed Alabama kick in an Iron Bowl that will never be forgotten. That game had such weight because of the stakes: Alabama was out, Auburn was in (I know Auburn still had to win the SEC title and hope that Ohio State lost, but work with me here, people). In a playoff environment, the Tigers and Crimson Tide probably both would have remained in the mix. The Game would have just been a game. (Endless comparisons are made to college basketball's March Madness, which truly is a delicious television feast, but its expansion has made a lot of regular-season college basketball as interesting as washing the dog.)
Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal, January 6,2014, Good Night to the Beleaguered BCS; the BCS was a reactive half-measure defined by Frustration.
So that's the link; read it and see what you think. (It's not a subscriber-link; at least I don't think so.
I want to go on the record now, and say that the "worries" Jason Gay expresses are real, and that they will be real problems. I guarantee, that the new College Football Playoff will bring unintended (bad) consequences. Some will be immediate, like the controversy which I now promise will occur, as The Committee tries to select a final four teams. I guarantee that college football will begin to feel different, more like the NFL, and that it will not be for the better. I guarantee that there will be writers (there's always writers) who will re-think the College Football Playoff device and tell us that there must be a better way to go about it. And I guarantee that the Big Ten title, the Rose Bowl, The Game, and a lot of what we have loved about college football will begin to feel less valued.
January 7th, 2014 at 1:58 AM ^
The B1G Championship Game is barely older than my infant. Its meaningfulness is not central to college football.
More generally, the argument that a 4-team playoff makes the regular season less important makes no sense to me. I mentioned some of the reasons above. But here's a different criticism: sure, you can point to some late season games and argue that they would be less important. You could, if you were silly, then commit the fallacy of composition by jumping to the conclusion that the whole regular season is somehow less important. But in doing that you'd have to ignore the fact that, if all you care about is who has a shot at a title at the season's end, the vast majority of regular season games are currently unimportant. Unless a game involves an undefeated team or a 1-loss titan late in the season, it has no title game implications. I fail to see how increasing the number of regular season games with title game implications can possibly render the regular season less important overall. It makes the entire body of work of many more teams much more important.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:37 PM ^
Under the current system, they're playing for a chance to win a championship until they lose a game, for the most part. From that point forward, we are dealing with a situation where the importance of every other game is factually diminished as we already have the results of the earlier games. How much the importance of a team's early games are actually diminished under a playoff system really all comes down to perception as the results of the rest of their games aren't in yet.
There's a pretty big difference there.
January 6th, 2014 at 6:45 PM ^
Also, all important games are not created equally. You are - apparently - using the term to refer to any game the result of which will realistically affect the chances of a team having the chance to play for the championship and taking all such games to be equal throughout time. More teams will have the chance to play for the championship, you say, and therefore more games are important. But this ignores the fact that all games are diminished in importance when their result has less input into whether a team can win the championship, as will necessarily be the case when - as you suggest - a two loss team now has a better chance to play for the title. The early loss is less important and the late win (or loss) is less important too. There are - accepting your presmise - more big games under the playoff system, but no games are as big under the playoff system as they are in the BCS system. More teams are close to hurdling the bar only because we've lowered it.
What we're looking at is a system in which - as you see during the end of the regular seasons of the NBA, NFL, and MLB - simply making the playoffs becomes the benchmark of a season. The fact that Clemson was 11-1 instead of 10-2 and therefore the No. 4 seed becomes the focus, while 12-0 Alabama and 12-0 Florida State (who beat Clemson already) are ignored and, worse yet, given no advantage over lesser-acheiving teams. Hooray!
January 6th, 2014 at 7:04 PM ^
The early game only feels less important after a loss actually happens, imo. Teams and their fans will still want their teams to win those games just as much going in. It will only seem that the game was less important when players, coaches, fans, etc. come to the realization that they have a shot after the fact.
Also, if you think about it, losing a game actually increases the importance of every game that follows. Hooray!
January 6th, 2014 at 7:10 PM ^
NFL fans simply don't feel about individual games the way college fans do. A four-team playoff will of course have less of an effect in that direction than a sixteen-team playoff, but the effect will be there.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:13 PM ^
They never have and they never will. That's got nothing to with playoff systems.
Any effect (none, imo) there may be won't even be noticeable. Twelve of thirty-two teams is a far cry from four of one hundred twenty-something. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, I guess.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:22 PM ^
NFL regular season games were a lot more important back in, say, 1940. You played eleven games in 1940, and then, only if you won your division, you played in the championship game. I'm not sure if it happened in 1940, but you could have had a regular season game decide whether you played for a title or went home. That's (obviously) not possible now, so of course regular season games aren't important...Your reference to the number of D-1 teams vs. the number of NFL teams is irrelevant. There aren't 32 college teams whose fans, in any given year, believe their teams have a shot at the national championship.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:35 PM ^
I hear the NFL was wildly popular in 1940. A lot of people really cared about those regular season games.
As for the last part, there will be fans of 32 teams who believe they have a shot if we have a playoff. That's a good thing.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:55 PM ^
Why worry about the NFL? The NFL is wildly popular now, and I think it is an abomination.
College football was wildly popular in the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. Without playoffs. In more cities, and in more places, than there were NFL franchises. In places where there were no professional sports of any kind.
Bob Ufer is famed within the safe confines of Michigan fandom for having said, "Ohio Stadium is 10,000 alums and 74,000 truck drivers." It was unfair and insulting when Ufer said it, and it is even less true now.
But Ufer could have said that about any NFL game you might want to choose, and he'd have been right.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:01 PM ^
I was being facetious when I said that about the NFL in 1940.
"College football was wildly popular in the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. Without playoffs. In more cities, and in more places, than there were NFL franchises. In places where there were no professional sports of any kind."
And it still is, and will continue to be, playoffs or not. I don't understand your point.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:47 PM ^
That's the point. College football was just fine, thank you, without playoffs. Who needed a playoff? Who, in any position of expertise and authority within college football demanded a playoff? Not Big Ten coaches. Not Bo Schembechler; not Lloyd Carr. Not Big Ten Athletic Directors. Not Don Canham; not Andy Geiger.
Of course there were some people, of vastly overrated credentials, who have campaigned for it. Sportswriters, commentators, fans.
But my point was simple. College football was fine without a playoff. Exactly why do we need a playoff system? To make more money? To settle arguments in bar rooms? Why? I don't think that it can be fairly said that there is no down-side; I think that there is a profound down-side to college football playoffs.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:00 PM ^
I want a playoff so that I can watch a few more great college football games. I also like the idea of having the champion determined on the field, as long as the number of teams included in the playoff doesn't get so large that we are likely including teams that have no reasonable argument for being the best. Personally, I am fine with four to eight teams. Sixteen would be too many, in my opinion.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^
You could watch playoff football, and leave college football alone.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:24 PM ^
Why don't you just watch synchronized swimming? You could watch a sport where judges determine the winner, which seems to be what you want.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:31 PM ^
Play on the field determines who wins the Big Ten Champion, who goes to the Rose Bowl and who wins the Rose Bowl. Not judges.
You seem to think that more is needed, after all of that. I don't. I think playing additional games would take away from the ones I just described.
You're just being snarky. I wasn't. What you want, is NFL-Lite.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:39 PM ^
You were being snarky. I gave my opinion as to what I want for college football and you asked me why I don't just go watch something else.
I don't want NFL-lite. I want the best college football possible. Next season, we finally move one step closer.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:58 PM ^
The point of the playoff is to find the best team, not find playoff teams.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:03 PM ^
The point of any playoff is not to determine the best team. Everyone knows that the best team doesn't always win. The point of a playoff is to determine a champion on the field.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:06 PM ^
It's just as absurd as the old system in that case, but the old system was more fun, because it allowed for more argument and more teams claiming they were the best. It's way more fun to say you're the Rose Bowl champion than it is to say, "We made the semifinals!"
January 6th, 2014 at 8:16 PM ^
What? Why have it? I just said why.
To determine a champion on the field. That's always been why people have wanted a playoff. This ain't figure skating.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:26 PM ^
...when you get to pick whom it is that's in the playoff. The NFL could say that a Lions-Texans game is to be held in a week and that it will determine the champion. That would be deciding the champion on the field, but we'd all agree it's ridiculous, and picking four teams out of 130 (or whatever) is almost as ridiculous. Maybe the No. 27 team would get hot and make a run like UConn did in basektball a couple of years ago. Why not give them the chance? Because it devalues the regular season so much, that's why.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:36 PM ^
Yeah, because the Lions and Texans just proved themselves to be anywhere near the two best teams in the NFL. That's totally close to the same thing.
Also, it's a good thing that absolutely not a single person on the face of the planet is asking to give #27 a chance then, isn't it?
Go ahead and keep being ridiculous. I'm done here.
January 6th, 2014 at 8:51 PM ^
Look at basketball...Also, you're admitting that the playoff does water down the game by conceding that having the No. 27 team in the playoff would be bad. You're just saying that it's a matter of degree. But why does going to four from two not have at least some effect? Is there a magic number where there is or is not any effect? It's less when you go to four than to, say, 48 of course, but it's still there. Again, why wouldn't it be?
I am also now walking off in a huff! A huff I say!
January 6th, 2014 at 11:45 PM ^
I'm not admiting any such thing. You're operating under the assumption that no playoff trumps all and that there is a straight line that runs from two team playoff=awesome to worse and worse the further you get from two teams. I make no such assumption. Obviously, it's completely possible for a two team playoff to be better than a twenty seven team playoff while still allowing for a four or eight team playoff to be better than both of those options.
Acting as though because someone believes that four or eight teams is better than two, they must therefore believe that much larger playoffs are also better than two is just silly.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:47 PM ^
but who cares who wins the national championship? If we had won the game against ohio it would have been phenomenal even though we had no shot at anything good about a season.
I feel like the attempt to get onyl 1 important game instead of valuing several of them for each team is dumb.
College football would be better if we got rid of the national championship.....
January 6th, 2014 at 6:05 PM ^
This isn't an attempt to get one important game. It's an attempt to get a whole bunch of important games.
January 6th, 2014 at 10:59 PM ^
See, I respectfully think you're wrong but in a way right on the above assertion. I think the ideal goal is to get down to the two best teams and attempt to get the most important game done in a proper way, unlike the BCS did but tried to do. However, the realistic goal is to make money and more games does that. You say you want some more games, above, and I don't argue that in theory as a college football fan; I get it. But the playoff should, again, ideally, be set up to get the two best teams to play each other. I'm not sure what a "Champion on the Field" means anymore; it goes back to being a process to grab as much money as possbile from fans.
January 7th, 2014 at 1:35 AM ^
The NC could have remained mythical forever as far as I'm concerned. For 100 or so years we had a college football system where every win meant something, and where a bowl was a sufficient reward for a great season, not just a decent or halfway decent season.
We have too many meaningless bowls - the BWW bowl is typical of bowls that don't mean much - and there is far too much meaning ascribed to a single game's outcome.
The playoffs further weaken the meaning of the conference championship games, and the traditional bowls.
College football was more fun a long time ago.
January 7th, 2014 at 2:05 AM ^
To me, it means it's fall, but nothing else. The home schedule next year totally sucks, and none of those games will mean anything unless we lose them. The only way to revive college football is to incentivize programs to schedule real games during the season, and a selection committee will do that.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:56 PM ^
No one seems to complain to much about March Madness and that they should start reducing the size of the tourney. I don't see a problem with a 2 or possibly 3 loss team getting in an 8 team playoff.
If they start expanding the the playoff from 4 teams to 8 or 16, I think there are a couple of bigger issues:
1) Do they scale back the 12 game regular season? If you're playing in a conference title game plus an 8 team playoff, you could be looking at 16 games. How does the NCAA schedule those 3 rounds? I don't think they want the playoff extending to far into January.
2) I think if the playoff expands beyond 4 teams, they'll have to give serious consideration to the top seeds getting a home game. Expecting fan bases to travel 3 straight weeks to fill 80,000 seat stadiums might be pushing it.
January 6th, 2014 at 6:48 PM ^
Fantastic. LSU/Alabama/Florida/etc. would crap their pants at this sight.
Bring it on!
January 6th, 2014 at 7:29 PM ^
Set up a craptastic fiasco in cold/snow/ice, just to be able to stick it to the SEC.
Maybe it's just me, but I think there's a reason why the University of Michigan and its rivals have played football in the fall months, for about 130 years. Something to do with glorious cool weather that is ideal for football outdoors under glorious autumn skies, with occasional/rare exceptions. Something to do with the fact that New Year's Day bowl games, played in warm southern climates, were a special reward for midwestern football players and their most devoted fans.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:11 PM ^
but it would be nice to flip the post-season home advantage against USC.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:16 PM ^
I'm a proponent of a true playoff system a la the FCS, DII, DIII, etc. where early round playoff games are hosted by the higher seed and the final game is played at a neutral site. That eliminates part of the travel issue (sure, the visiting team gets screwed out of seats, but that's life as the lower seed...although then we get into endless seeding arguments).
I realize that I'll never see this implemented at the FBS level, but it's my dream. I hate bowls and their behind-the-scenes bowl committee machinations, bowl officials that get paid ludicrous amounts of money to host one football game per year, and stupid bowls that shouldn't even exist.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 5:30 PM ^
where there's only a play-off if there needs to be one.
what constitutes "needs to be one" is determined by the same panel that currently only decides who gets into it. so their role is expanded to determining necessity for a playoff, number of teams in the playoff that year, and which teams those are. so some years there would be a 3-team playoff, sometimes 4, 5, up to 6.
because everything in life could use more chaos.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:31 PM ^
The true, best way to do it would be to regionalize the sport. Create 6/8 conferences and have them play only the teams within their conference (obviously quite a few teams would be left out of these conferences, but who cares, create two tiers). Conference champions then meet in a 6/8 team playoff.
This makes your conference championship right around as meaningful as winning your league in European football and the playoffs a bit like the Champions League.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:32 PM ^
College Football Playoff, which sounds like idea No. 1 in a one-idea meeting, from the people who brought you cat food and restroom.
Sorry I know it's terribly original, but I thought it was hilarious.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:39 PM ^
For all those who argue that a playoff will devalue the regular season, I say bull$^*##. The BCS devalues the regular season. Why the regular reason will be more important with a playoff:
1. Results on the field, not opinion polls, will more likely decide the national champion. Under the BCS, teams would go undefeated and have no chance to play for the national championship due to a lower initial ranking.
2. One loss will be less likely to destroy a team's chances at the national title. Under the BCS, one loss (no matter the opponent, the final score or the role of luck ) would most often would derail a team's shot at the national title.
3. Teams will be more likely to schedule difficult nonconference games rather than padding their record with blowouts against patsies. Early games will become more competitive and exciting with better matchups.
4. Teams will be unable to coast to a national title on the strength of their conference's inflated reputation. I'm calling out the SEC here which has been exposed as a paper tiger this bowl season and has won many so-called national titles on reputation alone.
In the first scenario, entire perfect seasons have been rendered meaningless. In the second scenario, great seasons are rendered meaningless by an early fluke loss.
I'm looking forward to a playoff where every game will now have meaning. It will be even better with a 6 or 8 team playoff where each major conference is represented.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:49 PM ^
I'm looking forward to a playoff where every game will now have meaning. It will be even better with a 6 or 8 team playoff where each major conference is represented.
Because who really cares about the players being students? What we need is a system that can make college football just as satisfying to the national television audience as the NFL.
January 6th, 2014 at 6:12 PM ^
Or we could just all go on pretending that the NCAA and major college football are something they're not. This all changed decades ago, like it or not. Whether or not there is a playoff is irrelevant in this context.
January 6th, 2014 at 6:17 PM ^
This all changed decades ago, like it or not.
Okay; I'll go with "Not."
"This all chang[ing]" is due to a hundred regrettable decisions that weren't all that wise when they were made. The BCS was one. Title IX was one. This is another. Another bad decision doesn't make the previous bad decisions any better.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:51 PM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 6:18 PM ^
of college football has a 16 team playoff. I have never heard a single complaint about harm to their academic pursuits. Not a single solitary one. And we're only talking about a smaller 6-8 team playoff. You could shave a game off the regular season if you're so concerned.
I could also mention how other sports like college basketball have a tournament that runs several weeks with many more teams involved. Again, I have heard no complaints about harm to academics. Not a single solitary one.
As for compensation for players??? It is a business if you haven't noticed. And everybody else involved is getting paid the market rate, some many many millions. So why not the performers? But that's a whole other debate.
January 6th, 2014 at 6:47 PM ^
Every other division...of college football has a 16 team playoff. I have never heard a single complaint about harm to their academic pursuits. Not a single solitary one. And we're only talking about a smaller 6-8 team playoff. You could shave a game off the regular season if you're so concerned.
Okay, so you know that they have ten or eleven game seasons. And no bye weeks that I am aware of. They begin playoffs in November, and finish them well before the end of December.
Those are the compromises that must be made for what is being promoted. And what happens to bowl games on New Year's Day?
So just maybe I'll agree to foreswear everything I've written in this thead, if we can agree that the Big Ten will go back to a ten-team league; we'll play every other team in the conference once (9 games) with two quality out-of-conference games (11 total) and the conference winner will go to the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day to play the winner of the Pac-whatever. And then they can have whatever sort of playoff they want, to satisfy the sportswriters. For every tradition-destroying gesture they care to invent, we have to restore an equal tradition.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:09 PM ^
Their playoffs end in the middle of December.
January 6th, 2014 at 5:53 PM ^
Some guy, who knows little about college football, points out that some things may be worse with a 4-team playoff and not a 2-team one. Who cares? This has been debated ad nauseam elsewhere and with more knowledgeable participants.
There are a thousand reasons 4 will be better than 2. There are very few reasons 2 is better than 4. Good riddance, stupid BCS.
I would even go so far as to say that Mike Greenberg's (from ESPN) comment on why the BCS was so great was the best one: it was guaranteed to generate controversy almost every year, and thus it was great for college football *talk shows*. It just repeatedly made people mad, and for good reason.
Even this year, it is not without controversy. Imagine if we had just completed the season Sparty did, with one (early) loss. How do you think we'd feel about being left out of the final two?
As for this comment: "I guarantee that the Big Ten title, the Rose Bowl, The Game, and a lot of what we have loved about college football will begin to feel less valued." Well, hard to believe. I bet you probably have to win the Big Ten title to get into the Final Four, so that probably matters a lot. Whether the Game diminishes is probably more going to be determined by whether Michigan ever gets really competitive again at a national level -- if so, then of course The Game will be what The Game used to be.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:56 PM ^
Greenberg would want to revert back to pre-1998. In fact, pre-1996 when the Fiesta Bowl, tired of being a 2nd tier bowl decided to host Florida and Nebraska in a game to decide the MNC.
1998 was the last year during which games the previous January were still being discussed and debated the first week of September as they related to which team was the best. Imagine if Tennessee had beat Nebraska and Wazzu got those final two seconds back.... January 1, 1998 also happens to be the last time both the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl had equal significance.
Greenberg wants it both ways, a definitive MNC with some debate about who should be the final two. This time tomorrow we won't be talking about who should be #1, that will have been settled. As far as anybody lower than 1, nobody will care.
January 6th, 2014 at 6:08 PM ^
Every winner of a major conference should be invited. Lets say Michigan wins the B1G in 2015 with an 11-1 record but we have a loss to an unranked B1G team on the road. I would be pissed if 2 SEC teams got in the playoff and Michigan was left out!