With another season of college football completed and enduring the Fiesta Bowl with number five ranked Boise State, many hold to the fact that the BCS isn’t very accurate.
For instance, Boise State went to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl against number four TCU. Boise State was in one of the lower rated, least favored conferences, Western Atlantic Conference. Their schedule was probably one of the easiest schedules in college football. For example, they played UC Davis, San Jose State, Nevada and other low-rated schools. Just because the Broncos won every game by large numbers they automatically got a BCS bid. In my opinion, they’ve only played one hard school on their schedule, 16th ranked Oregon, and they won 19-8. Despite their season record, it was ridiculous they went to the Fiesta Bowl. They should have gone to the Capital One Bowl, a bowl where traditionally teams that were one game short of going to a BCS bowl game end up.
“I don’t think Boise state should go to a BCS bowl game because of how weak their schedule is, where as a team with a tough schedule could lose two games and not go to a good game,” junior Kaleb Khan said.
On the other hand, a team like TCU should have gone to the national championship. For instance, the Horn Frogs won seven out of 12 games, putting up 40 or more points, beating three top 25 teams, two of them at their opponents’ home stadium. They were number three overall in scoring and number six in overall defense.
Another team that got the short end of the stick was Stanford. They should have gone to a BCS game because they beat three top 25 teams, including the ninth-ranked University of Southern California at their home stadium 55-21. The Cardinals also beat number eight Oregon at home, 51-42, and they beat number 24 Washington, 34-14.
Even the heavily-favored teams are not exempt from getting shorted by the BCS. Despite the University of Florida’s lost to the Crimson Tide in the Southeastern Conference Championship game, Florida should have gone to the national championship because all season long they beat every team by a large margin of points. The SEC is arguably the hardest conference in college football. The Gators beat every team in their conference by 10 points or more, except the University of Arkansas which they beat the Razorbacks by three points. However, Alabama almost lost a couple of really close games to non-ranked Tennessee (12-10) and Auburn (26-21).
Two seasons ago in 2009, Oklahoma had no business going to the national championship, and the 24-14 Gator victory showed it all. In the past 10 years, Oklahoma has been to seven BCS bowl games and have won two. They have won one non-BCS bowl game in ten years, which goes to show that they had no business being in a BCS bowl game.
Many agree, including ESPN analysts, that there should be some type of playoff situation, like Division I-AA and Division II and III have. One main reason is because playoffs decide who the real top teams are. When a high-ranking team earns a chance to play at a bowl game, the coach typically receives an achievement bonus — the bigger the bowl game, the larger the incentive. Players, coaches and fans know that if there was to be a playoff system, the teams that don’t make it to the championship would miss out on these monetary gains. This upsets most fans because college football isn’t about money, it’s about the love for the game, and that’s what they want to see.
“A coin toss doesn’t decide how good a team is,” sophomore Freddie Yebra said. “There should be playoffs to see who’s really good.”
