The BCS is a disaster. Not for everyone, but certainly for the Pac 10. Every year, the Pac-10 goes around the country, plays more than its share of legitimate non-conference games, wins a huge share of those games, then settles into a grueling conference round-robin. Most years, there’s little real argument–the Pac-10 is one of the two or three best football conferences in the country.
Still, like the changing of the seasons, every December you can rely on the BCS snubbing the Pac 10. Let’s take a look:
1998: Snubbed Twice. 1998 Title Game: UCLA wins the Pac 10, 10-1 (8-0) and goes to the Rose Bowl. UCLA is passed over for the national title game by 11-1 (7-1) Florida State, who goes on to lose to undefeated Tennessee. In the 1998 BCS: 11-1 (7-1) Arizona is bypassed for an at-large BCS bid by 10-1 (7-1) Ohio State and a team with a worse record, 9-2 (7-1) Florida.
1999: Not Snubbed. The Pac-10 didn’t have a case for the national title, and only champion Stanford (8-3, 7-1) got an automatic berth. Oregon was the Pac-10’s next best team (8-3, 6-2) but didn’t deserve to move ahead of at-large 9-2 (6-2) Michigan or 9-2 (6-2) Tennessee.
2000: Snubbed Once. 2000 Title game: 10-1 (7-1) Washington was passed over for 11-1 (8-0) Florida State (Miami was snubbed–they’d beaten Florida State–but Washington beat Miami, who beat FSU–so you tell me who was snubbed worse). In the 2000 BCS, the Pac 10 had Washington in the Rose (automatic), and 10-1 (7-1) Oregon State got one of the two available at-large berths (9-2 Notre Dame got the other one).
2001: Snubbed Twice. 2001 Title game: 10-1 (7-1) Oregon is passed over for 11-1 (7-1) Nebraska, despite being ranked second in both the AP & Coaches polls (and despite Nebraska’s 30 point defeat in its final game of the season). In the 2001 BCS, Florida (9-2, 6-2) gets the at-large bid ahead of Washington State (9-2, 6-2).
2002: Not snubbed. 2002 Title game: Two undefeated teams (Ohio State and Miami) met in the championship game; the Pac-10 Champion (Washington State (9-2, 7-1) had no legitimate claim on the title. The BCS selects USC and Iowa (both 9-2, 7-1) for at-large bids.
2003: Snubbed once. 2003 Title game: LSU, Oklahoma, and USC finish with 11-1 records, but USC is dropped from the title game. The BCS at-large bid goes to Ohio State (10-2, 6-2); the Pac-10’s second-best team (Washington State) has three losses, and doesn’t deserve to be included.
2004: Snubbed once. 2004 Title game: USC (12-0, 8-0) goes to the title game against Oklahoma (12-0, 8-0). The Trojans entered the season as defending (co) national champions, held out of the national title game one year earlier, which helped them hold off undefeated teams from the SEC (Auburn) and two other non-BCS conferences. The BCS at-large bid went to Texas (10-1, 7-1) over Cal (10-1, 7-1).
2005: Snubbed once (by two teams). 2005 Title game: USC (12-0, 8-0) goes to the title game against Texas (12-0, 8-0)—there is no controversy there. The BCS at-large bids go to Ohio State (9-2, 7-1) and Notre Dame (9-2), bypassing a one-loss Pac-10 team, Oregon (10-1, 7-1).
2006: Snubbed twice. 2006 Title game: Florida (12-1) and Ohio State (12-0) face off in the title game, and the Pac-10 champion Trojans, with two losses, don’t deserve inclusion. BCS at-large bids go to Michigan (11-1), LSU (10-2), and Notre Dame (10-2). Cal (10-2, 7-2) is passed over for an SEC team and a Notre Dame team with equivalent records. (note that Wisconsin, 11-1, is also left out, but that’s because the Big 10 can only have two teams in the BCS.)
2007: Snubbed once. 2007 Title game: USC (10-2, 6-2) is left out of the national title game in favor of LSU (11-2, 7-2) and Ohio State (11-1, 7-1). I’ll say that’s not a snub (but it’s close). The BCS at-large bids go to Illinois (9-3, 6-2), Georgia (10-2, 6-2), and Kansas (11-1), meaning that one team with a record identical to the second-best Pac-10 team, Arizona State (10-2, 7-2), gets in, as does a Big 10 team with a worse record. (Note that 11-2 Missouri is also left out, but that’s because the Big 12 can only have two teams in the BCS.)
Through 2007, there have been 18 at-large berths in the BCS. The Pac 10 has put teams into those slots just twice (OSU in 2000 and USC in 2002). The Pac 10 has had qualified teams–since 2004, four teams with records identical to the Pac-10’s runner-up have received at-large berths, and two teams with *worse* records than the Pac-10’s runner-up have received at-large berths–the Pac 10’s teams just get overlooked.
What about those two occasions when the Pac 10’s runner up did not get overlooked?
In 2000, the only team other than one-loss OSU with fewer than two losses was Virginia Tech (10-1, 6-1) from the Big East. The BCS picked Notre Dame, with two losses, then was left with one slot for either the Pac-10’s runner up or the Big East’s runner-up. Other than a two-loss Nebraska team, no other non-conference champions from a BCS school had fewer than *three* losses. In short, the choice was to snub either the Big East or the Pac 10.
And 2002? Two at-large slots were again available. The non-championship contenders were Iowa (11-1, 8-0) from the Big Ten, Kansas State (10-2, 6-2) and Texas (10-2, 6-2) from Big 12, USC (11-2, 7-1) from the Pac 10, and a 10-2 Notre Dame team. The BCS took Iowa and USC–the latter having recently beaten Notre Dame. USC had six straight wins (after early losses to K State and WSU), and their record was marginally better than K State’s and Texas’, but, more significantly, K State had just been walloped 35-7 by Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game, and Texas hadn’t even qualified for that game. In short, the choice was either to snub a Big 12 team or USC from the Pac 10.
In summary, USC appears able to perturb the BCS machines so that it is treated like a Big 10 or SEC school and not rejected out of hand when competing against teams with equivalent records. But woe unto Pac 10 teams that are not USC: the only way such a team has ever gotten a BCS at-large bid was in a year when every Big 10 and SEC alternative had three or four losses, where they had to choose between OSU or a Big East team.
So here we are, 2007. Three at-large slots, but none for the Pac 10 runner-up. Instead, the Pac 10 is sending everyone but USC to relatively awful and obscure bowl games. Every BCS conference, the Pac 10 included, is guaranteed one $17 million payday for its conference champion (and an additional $4.5 million for additional teams). So, after sticking USC in it’s BCS Pac-10 Champion slot, none of the remaining five Pac-10 bowl teams will play on or after January 1, and together those five will make a total of $6.45 million this year. How does that compare?
The SEC: After subtracting its guaranteed $17 million payday, it is putting eight other teams in bowls (four of which are on or after January 1) and will make $22.15 million this bowl season.
The Big 10: After subtracting its guaranteed $17 million payday, it is putting seven other teams in bowls (two of which are on or after January 1), and will make $18.1 million this bowl season.
The Big 12: After subtracting its guaranteed $17 million payday, it is putting seven other teams in bowl games (three of which are on or after January 1), and will make $16.4 million this bowl season.
The ACC: After subtracting its guaranteed $17 million payday, it is putting seven other teams in bowl games (one of which is on January 1), and will make $12.2 million this bowl season.
The Big East: After subtracting its guaranteed $17 million payday, the eight team Big East puts four other teams in bowl games (none of which is on or after January 1), and will make $3.7 million this bowl season.
Comforting though it is to know the Pac 10 is not at the bottom of the pecking order, wouldn’t it just be better to have our Rose Bowl back?
Sources: various and sundry, including
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2006-12-06-bowl-payouts_x.htm
http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/2004_archive_standings.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NCAA_Division_I-A_football_season
December 8, 2008 at 10:20 pm |
Updated 12/2008: (One snub) A one-loss USC team is bypassed for the National Championship game for fellow one-loss teams Florida and Oklahoma (which, in fairness, had 12-1 records by virtue of the championship games, compared with USC’s 11-1 record). There were three at-large bowl games filled in 2008, Texas (11-1), Ohio State (10-2), and Utah (12-0). The Pac 10’s second best team, Oregon, had a 9-3 record and no real claim on a BCS game–although 9-3 Illinois went to the BCS last year.
December 12, 2008 at 7:35 am |
I agree, mostly.
The old bowl system was inefficient and ambiguous and often denied fans (and teams, for that matter) the opportunity to establish a clear champion, or even a matchup of clearly strongest candidates. It’s worth noting that we routinely now get a matchup of two of at least the top three or four teams. In some years past, each of the four or five best teams would be in separate bowl games against lesser foes. Witness, just to grab a top-of-mind example, the undefeated Penn State juggernaut being matched up against the scrappy but much lower-ranked 9-2 Ducks in the 1995 Rose Bowl. A great matchup for us, but a frustrating showcase for them.
The biggest problem with the BCS is that it carries expectations of being better than that. It was sold to us as the solution to the matchup problem, a reliable mechanism for sorting out the best teams and crowning a clear champion. The old system had no such pretensions, so we had different gripes: it was the wrong sort of system, not an incompetent version of the right one, which is somehow much more disappointing.
The flaws in the BCS system have been canonized at this point. The computer rankings lack common sense, sometimes get distracted by mediocre teams with interesting stats, and can be manipulated. The human rankings are worse, a showcase for the opinions of often partisan sportswriters who pay notoriously poor attention to games beyond their conference and the nationally televised games of the week, and as you point out have an annoying tendency to live back East and not stick around to watch the Pac-10, WAC, and Mountain West games in the late afternoon and evening.
I don’t think there is a great solution to this problem. The addition of a simple plus-one to the current system would likely replicate the problem we have now of too many teams with a reasonable claim to belong. Really, how many teams can make a good case for the top game right now? Florida looks the best, but they lost to an unheralded Ole Miss team. Alabama has lost to no one but Florida, and then just barely in a great game; should they really drop beneath other teams who lost to lesser opponents? Texas has been dominant and would be undefeated but for a very unlikely Michael Crabtree TD with one second on the clock, and besides Texas Tech, especially at that moment, was a worth opponent. USC is a mauling machine, tripping up only once fairly early in the season against a solid bowl team, and their defense is marvelous. Oklahoma, meh, I fucking hate Bob Stoops, but still. Boise State is undefeated, a pretty good argument, but who did they play? And give us five more minutes and we beat them with our fifth-string, true freshman QB running the same three pass plays (the only ones he had mastered so far, reportedly) over and over. Who should play for the national championship, or even a potential plus one? Who knows? We’d need a couple of rounds to play them off, right?
Adding on a playoff bracket at the end is more problematic, though. First there’s a massive scheduling problem. You have to extend the season well into the new year, cutting into players’ downtime and coaches’ recruiting time — although, as a non-hockey sports fan it must be noted, also improving the barren sports landscape of late winter. More importantly, by extending the season and raising the stakes, don’t you do substantially more damage to the battered ideas of NCAA players as student-athletes? They barely have time to get degrees as it is, and many of them don’t. Cut into study time by a few more weeks, stretching football into spring term, and that problem gets even worse.
So yes, I agree with you, if we can’t really fix the clear-national-champion problem, let’s fix the stop-screwing-the-Pac-10 problem. We are not the WAC or Mountain West, some formerly second-rate upstart league trying to sneak into the dance. We are, as you say, consistently in the top two or three leagues in achievements and quality of play. Indeed, one of the problems we have is that there’s no cakewalk to the conference crown: it’s not two real games and a bunch of pushovers, it’s quality opponent after quality opponent, with the annoying effect that we keep knocking each other off and keeping any of us from looking as dominant as we’d like at the national level. USC beats the hell out of their national-caliber out-of-league opponents. They just can’t usually survive Oregon and Oregon State and Stanford and the rest in the same season. Something’s got to give.
That said, it is also worth acknowledging that this is the weakest group of Pac-10 teams since the ’80s. The “Pac-1″ is lazy punditspeak for “I can’t be bothered to keep track of anyone but USC,” but there’s a reasonable case for the “Pac-3″ this year. The Oregon schools are very solid, though the only marquee wins were OSU over USC and UO over OSU. Beyond that? Mediocre Cal, Stanford, and Arizona schools. Really lousy ASU and UCLA squads, including in Kevin Craft the worst conference QB since Bobby Brothers. And then the Washington schools, shocking in how far they have fallen. Not since the days of perennial 2-9 Oregon schools has the Pac-10 seen that sort of incompetence. As a rival fan, it’s not funny or satisfying, it’s just pathetic. So, yes, the Pac-10 constantly gets screwed, and it’s wrong, except maybe this season it’s not so bad. Beating ourselves is not the accomplishment it usually would be.
One last note on the Civil War. It was shocking, right? The best offensive performance ever at a school with a long history of explosive offenses, and possibly the best one just last year, but now led by an inexperienced QB and an abnormally weak group of receivers who just weeks ago couldn’t mount a cohesive attack? Huge kudos for their accomplishments, way huger ones for maybe our best-ever offensive line and a fine pair of RBs. And a gutsy effort by a defense that played, what, 80% of our minutes this year? My last note, though, is this: Everyone was shocked that we put up 65 points in a rivalry game against a strong OSU team whose strength was its defense. Agreed, 100%. But the really shocking thing, if you remember, was that we SHOULD HAVE SCORED 72! Remember that play in mopup time when Moevao (I think it was) fumbled and who-dat Duck LB #88 scooped it up and looked downfield and there was nothing but green between him and 72 POINTS IN THE CIVIL WAR! He stutter stepped, and Moevao dove and caught him by a shoestring, but OH MY GOD, ADAM, to even have a chance at 72? Mind boggling.
December 12, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
Regarding the Civil War: In the time it took to see 88 pick up that ball and start back upfield, I knew that Bellotti was going to be obliged to pull back on the offensive reins in the final minutes with a four touchdown lead, and that if 88 didn’t get the ball in himself we weren’t going to reach 72. At the time, I wanted 72 points so much. My east-coast brother-in-law, with no particular allegiance to either team, seemed aghast/amused by my desire to pile on; I don’t blame him, I think his was a sane reaction.
This should perhaps be a new post, but unlike some fans (younger ones, I think), I don’t really have it in for the Beavers; I just love seeing my guys out there having fun and making history. While I won’t go so far as to say I like the Beavers… well, screw it, I actually do. I like them fine. I certainly would prefer to see them in the Rose Bowl ahead of the Trojans; I don’t really harbor ill will for the 2000 fiasco where they knocked us out of the Rose Bowl so that the Huskies (who we’d beaten and tied with as co-champions) went instead; or for the last couple of years. They’re a good, tough, well-coached football team that keeps Oregon honest. They ought to practice tackling before their bowl, though. You saw this?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDU_jAcmkS8
Regarding Mike Bellotti/Nick Alliotti: I believe that topic merits a new post; I will simply point out that the number of “L”s and “T”s in their names is a constant source of consternation to me.
Regarding the BCS: I think you frame it correctly. There’s no legitimate hope of making fiasco-free sense of which team is the champion in college football. Post to follow. And, if there’s not, then, hell, let’s go back to how it used to be: ironclad bowl matchups between conference champions. I’d love to win a national title, but I’d love every bit as much to win the Rose Bowl.
Also, when you consider how lousy the BCS is, don’t dismiss what is being exhibited in 2008: in pre-BCS days, the one-loss teams matching up in the Rose Bowl (USC & Penn State) would be considered very real candidates for the national title. Oklahoma would have played the ACC champion in the Orange Bowl, and Florida would have probably played the Big East champ or some undefeated team like Utah in the Sugar Bowl. Any one of those four one-loss teams would have had a chance to show the world what they’re capable of in a bowl game, elevating themselves to national champion. Hell, even Texas would have probably been slotted into the Fiesta Bowl against somebody like Ohio State, where they could make a claim on the national title with a win. That’s *more* interest, and *better* TV, and *more* fairness; this year, based on the hunches of sportswriters and computers, we’ve summarily disqualified all but two of the five or six contenders for the national title before the game is played. Just for fun, say USC beats Penn State 51-0 and Oklahoma & Florida is close; for heaven’s sakes, we’re going to (or should) get a split title again, anyway.