What are Oklahoma and Florida Playing For? - Vito's View - Comcast.net Sports

It’s all set.

The last two Heisman Trophy Winners. Two of the most dynamic offenses in college football. The champions of the season’s top conferences.

After weeks of hype, the BCS national championship game is ready to kick off as the top two teams in the country get to go at it for...absolutely nothing.

Oh, it looks like it’s going to be a great college football game. Oklahoma and Florida should entertain us for three-and-a-half hours. And when it’s all over, either the Sooners or the Gators will hoist the crystal football and scream through the confetti and into the TV cameras, “We’re No. 1!”

But are they?

Of course not.

The BCS national championship game is just another postseason exhibition. It does not determine the best team in college football.

That may be on what the BCS is selling, but every year, fewer and fewer people are buying it...or even watching it.

Still, the college presidents, the bowl officials, and TV executives insist on destroying everything about college football’s postseason. We all know that we need a playoff, and we all know that a playoff isn’t happening any time soon. (ESPN’s analysts used to yell and scream about the need for a playoff, but now that the network bought the BCS rights until 2014, it’s easy to wonder if they’ll suddenly hail the BCS as the perfect system for a deciding a national champ.)

But beyond muddling the national title picture, they’ve also managed to absolutely wipe out the once-rich tradition of New Year’s Day bowl games. The first day of the year used to be all about college football. Now, thanks to the BCS and a few “brilliant” TV producers, it’s tough to know which games are played on that day.

Years ago, no sport would dream of trying to compete with college football for eyeballs on Jan. 1. But the bowl system is so diluted and the games so spread out that the NHL—the NHL!—is staging a Winter Classic to go head-to-head with college football...and it’s succeeding.

Other sports are sure to follow. And why not? There are millions of people sitting home all day, too tired to do much because they were out late the night before. It’s a perfect day to capture the nation’s attention—and now it’s even more appealing because those who run college football weren’t smart enough to keep it.

So we have two problems: a broken system for deciding a national champion and a broken tradition that is in dire need of restoration.

But beyond our needs—you know the needs of the fans that have long been forgotten—this setup is completely unfair to the people who really matter in all of this...and who are equally forgotten.

The kids.

Yes, I’m serious.

Now, I know these kids get a free education, and get to play in front of millions every week, and are treated like rock stars on campus. Still, the system is completely unfair to them.

This may have been evident after the 2003 season when USC and LSU were forced to split the national title.

It may have been evident after the 2004 season when unbeaten Auburn was locked out of the national title game...yet for some reason didn’t get a share of the title.

But it has never been more evident than today.

As I watched USC dismantle Penn State in the Rose Bowl, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the Trojans. Even though they were beating up on my beloved alma mater, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the system robbed these kids of the chance to play for the championship.

Though they could have put up 60 on an opponent that came in at 11-1—and believe me, they would have put up 60 if Pete Carroll didn’t hold Joe Paterno in such high regard—there’s no way for the 12-1 Trojans to win an outright title.

The next night, I watched Utah embarrass Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to finish 13-0, and I felt the same empathy for the Utes. They were hammering an opponent that came in at 12-1 and was ranked No. 1 for a good part of the season. And yet an outright championship isn’t even a possibility for the lone unbeaten in major college football.

And then there’s Texas. As I watched Texas gut out a comeback win over Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, I wondered: Has there ever been a team that was robbed by the system more than Texas?

Even though the ‘Horns beat Oklahoma in October, the BCS rated the Sooners as the better team. That meant that that Oklahoma, and not Texas, got to play in the Big 12 title game (because Big 12 officials ridiculously decided to give the BCS some credibility and use it as a tie-breaker), which paved the way for Oklahoma, and not Texas, to reach the national title game.

There’s no way for the 12-1 Longhorns to win the outright national title.

Know who else is being robbed? Oklahoma and Florida.

They were the lucky pair that was selected to face off in the BCS national championship game, but few believe they truly belong. Why? Because, like me, people are angry that too made kids got burned by the process.

And all those kids who play in the so-called minor bowl games get robbed, too. The system has all but announced that their games don’t matter in the least. Most get jobbed a second time by stupid bowl officials and TV execs who believe that playing games on any day other than New Year's Day is the best way to attract more viewers. It does affect viewership, just not in the direction they were hoping.

As I’ve written in this space time and again, the BCS doesn't solve a thing. It just spreads the notion of a mythical national champion and creates an anticlimactic end to an otherwise exhilarating college football season.

The argument that the BCS is better than its processors, the Bowl Coalition and the Bowl Alliance, because it sets matchups they could not is complete nonsense. Replacing one flawed system with another is hardly an accomplishment.

I don’t care if Sam Bradford and Oklahoma beat Florida by three touchdowns, or if Tim Tebow and the Gators hang half-a-hundred on the Sooners. Neither should be crowned national champions. Because there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that makes either team any better than USC, Utah, or Texas.

The BCS was “established to determine a national champion while maintaining and enhancing the bowl system.”
   
It has proved, yet again, that it can’t do either.

Are Oklahoma and Florida playing for a legitimate title? Who should be No. 1? Click here to comment.


Message Edited by Vito_Forlenza on 01-07-2009 12:02 PM