http://hoosierreport.blogspot......lemen.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....RmddkkybQF

I don’t think the need for a “winner” should be all that puzzling, though. We crown champions through playoff systems in every other major team sport in this country–professional, college, high school. That team may not always be truly the best team from a statistical standpoint. Major league baseball could easily do that–end the season after 162 games and give the trophy to the team with the most wins–but I don’t think anyone thinks that would improve the sport. Competition requires the possibility of upsets.

Incidentally, Brian at MGoBlog agrees the old bowl system would be better than the BCS system–although his preference is for a 6-team playoff.

http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/mailbag.html

(And you kids get off the lawn! Where’s my damn glasses?)

I dislike the need for a “winner” that seems to permeate college football today. I hate the overtime period. It’s insulting to the sport. If 60 minutes of playing football are insufficient to discern between two teams, the two teams are forced to play a different game (which involves no special teams play, changes the time-governed game into a downs-governed game, and consists instead of taking potshots at the endzone from 25 yards out) in order to ostensibly determine a winner in the original game of football. It doesn’t determine a true winner–it satisfies an obsession with calling someone a winner. If 60 minutes don’t do the trick, then call it what it is–a tied game.

Likewise I dislike the need fans seem to have for a national champion where this is equated with being the best team. I’m just skeptical of the possibility of determining such a thing with any reasonable chance of success without massively overhauling the conference seasons so that good teams start playing across conferences in November. A handful of games in January is simply not going to produce enough data so that we should be confident that the winner of an 8 team playoff is truly the best team in college football.

(Obviously this would differ from year to year. In some years, it might be abundantly clear which team is best. But then too, there were an awful lot of undisputed champions in the past.)

Anyway, I seem to have been ranting (Get off my lawn!) and I’m surely in the minority, but if one of the goals of the college football post-season is to entertain fans, then my vote is for a return to more or less the way bowls were 20 years ago. That would be more entertaining to me–I’d enjoy the games without having to hear people spew it-should-be-decided-on-the-field (when in fact it isn’t in OT games and probably wouldn’t be in any kind of playoff system under consideration anyway) and we-need-a-champion (why? I certainly don’t) crap. Thank goodness for mute buttons at least.

Regarding the two sports’ regular seasons, the do-or-die nature of the football regular season does provide some great drama, but I’d also note:

1) We get a lot more top-notch nonconference match-ups in basketball since one loss doesn’t end your national championship hopes.

2) For every great regular season game the BCS system creates, how many games are rendered completely meaningless on the national stage because a team lost a game in the first week or two of the regular season?

With an 8-game playoff system where a team basically has to win its conference to get in, I think you’d strike a balance. A regular season loss would strike a severe blow to a team’s chances, but not eliminate it completely. And there’d be an incentive to play good teams in the nonconference to try to earn one of the two at-large bids if a team didn’t end up as the conference champ.

Anyways, I’d say the BCS system is great for the college sports blogosphere . . .

I am still one of the few that support the current system. But good post. The only bit I don’t agree with is the excitement compared to basketball. Regular season basketball has become negligible because there is a tournament.

More here:

http://nittanywhiteout.com/200.....e-curtain/