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Disclaimer: I am not defending the BCS. I am simply writing to provide information to individuals so they can make their own opinion. Question: What do the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and the U.S. economy have in common? Answer: They are both seriously flawed and it’s going to take time to repair them. Prior to the 1992 season, college football had no system that matched the top-ranked teams in a post-season championship game. The Bowl Coalition formed and was restructured in 1996 to become the Bowl Alliance (due to Penn State going undefeated and not playing Nebraska in the Championship game). Debate then intensified again after Nebraska and Michigan split the 1997 title. After conferences calls and meetings, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was formed in 1998. The BCS is currently comprised of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pacific10, and Southeastern Conference (SEC), and Notre Dame (even though they don’t win enough games for this to apply to them).
In the current BCS format, four bowl games and the National Championship Game are considered “BCS bowl games.”  The four bowl games are the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, CA), Sugar Bowl (New Orleans, LA), Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, AZ) and Orange Bowl (Miami Gardens, FL). So how do we determine who plays in the National championship game? I am sure you have heard the debate while listening to your dad complain about how his alma mater got screwed last season like Paris Hilton. I know many people fell alienated by the BCS’s complex formula , but it is relatively simple. Think of it as a recipe for a meal, but the meal is a ticket to play for a crystal football. The BCS is comprised of basically four components, with each having sub parts: 1. Polls: This is comprised of both the average of the Harris Poll (God only knows how this is calculated) and the USA Today coaches poll and the Computer Polls where an average of the rankings of a team in three different computer polls are gathered with a 50% adjusted maximum deviation factor. (For example, if the computers had ranked a team third, fifth, and twelfth, the poll which ranked the team twelfth would be adjusted to rank the team sixth.) 2. Strength of Schedule: Why is this important? Because the 133 year history of college football has proven to us repeatedly that teams with one or more losses on the season are indeed better than some undefeated teams that have played weaker schedules, the same way the 19 year history of Patrón has proven that if you have to many drinks you won’t remember anything you did the night before (sorry, everyone). A team’s strength of schedule is calculated by winloss record of opponents (66.6%) and cumulative win-loss record of team’s opponents’ opponents (33.3%). 3. Team Losses: For all you non-ESPNU alums, this basically means that if two or more teams are in competition for the top two places and all have played “comparable difficult” schedules, the team with the better record should have a slight advantage. 4. Quality Wins: This was instituted to ensure that teams who are playing and defeating other Top 15 BCS teams are receiving the proper credit that the overall strength of schedule may not reflect strongly enough, just like when your parents give you credit for taking out the trash, but not walking the dogs. So now that we know the four components how are they used? I know it’s been awhile since high school algebra, but here it goes: Poll Average + Strength of Schedule + Team Losses – Quality wins = BCS Rating. The lowest score total is ranked first. So where is the flaw? The flaw is in the decision by human and computer polls, which may not accurately reflect the merit or strength of team. Another criticism is many other sports have large post-season tournaments where as the BCS uses a tournament that only includes two teams (which does not make it a tournament at all). Another criticism is that the BCS is biased towards the six conferences and Notre Dame, but the only people complaining about that is Boise State and Hawaii, and nobody has a problem with that. President-elect Barack Obama even has his own view on how to fix the BCS. Presidentelect Obama said during a Monday Night Football interview, “I think it is about time we had playoffs… I’m fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams -- the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff.” It will be awhile before we have change, but just like democracy, the BCS is the best choice of all the evils until we have a playoff system installed.
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