The BS of the BCS

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is the system put in place to decide on which two college football teams will compete in the National Championship Game at the end of each college football season. The system itself is comprised of a variety of polls with both computer and human elements. At the end of the season, the two top-ranked teams in the BCS system play each other for the national championship.

The issue, however, is that there's always an argument that one team that was left out of the championship game was more deserving than one of the teams that did make it into the game. For instance, this past year the Oklahoma Sooners played in the title game; the Texas Longhorns, however, were left outside looking in despite having an identical win-loss record as well as having beaten the Sooners on a neutral site earlier in the season. Other teams have been left out in the past as well with no chance to play for the national title even though the teams' bodies of work would indicate that they should have a shot. Auburn was left out of the title game several years ago after going undefeated in what is considered to be the toughest conference in college football. Plus, if a team is not a member of one of the six major conferences, they have pretty much absolutely no chance to play in the title game, regardless of their body of work.

One of the biggest calls for a change come from people in favor of a playoff system, not unlike the mega popular NCAA basketball tournament. The argument goes that it is better to let the teams compete on the field to decide the national champion as oppposed to letting "experts" and arbitrary rules decide. The Onion, as sharp as ever, recently published an article satirizing the BCS as compared to the NCAA basketball tournament. Despite being a "fake" article, the satire perfectly captures what many BCS opponents are feeling.

These days when the term BCS comes up, college sports fans (including myself) immediately think of a complicated and severely crippled system that hardly ever makes much sense. Unfortunately, the money involved will likely keep the BCS system in place for the foreseeable future. Only when fans stop buying what the BCS is selling will a serious change come about.