There is one reason people are talking about a play off and that is because everyone tired of seeing Ohio ST and USC lose everytime they are in the NC game. Like everyone else, How did they get there? It not on SOS. There certain schools media like and they are going to get all the attention whether warranted or not. They are USC, ND, TX, OK, LSU, OH ST., MICH, FLA, TENN, AND GA. On the rare occassion Miami, FL ST, or VA Tech, might appear on that list too. You can count on those ten team every year being talked about. Usually those ten teams are ranked in the top 20 every year. It would be the first time the press every did something like that.

Navy got a paycheck for the OSU game, and its a home-home series with Navy's home game in Baltimore or DC. Not bad.

gdayre Wrote:There is one reason people are talking about a play off and that is because everyone tired of seeing Ohio ST and USC lose everytime they are in the NC game.

USC doesn't lose everytime they are in the NC game.

No. USC has won. But they've lost too.

Strength of Schedule is starting to get the same attention. How many times have we heard announcers bemoan the schedules of teams in The BEast? They're starting to give similar attention to the rest of the nation. It will bite them someday when they least expect it. We won't have similar problems because most teams in The BEast are taking steps to prevent this.

Something that we have to remember is that there will always be teams that have more fans than our schools.

Whether we are talking about Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas, etc... We are talking about teams that are special beyond their market. They have attendance at their stadiums and can still expand.

That understood, the challenge with Big East schools is that they can schedule with the best schools. West Virginia can schedule Buffalo and guarantee a nice payment (or a return game). The deal may be set but... If a Michigan calls and can offer a larger guarantee, Buffalo moves to Michigan and pays off West Virginia.

By the way, this is part of the argument for Big East football expansion. Scheduling smaller fan based schools is challenging because they jump to higher payouts because they NEED THE PAYMENTS. It is the schools that average 30K-60K that are at risk of losing their games to larger fan based schools.

A split is the only option. Things are a lot different today then they were in 2003. The automatic 12 game season and the increase in the costs of getting good OOC opponents for home games has sky-rocketed. When this cluster-f*ck was conceived it made sense; It just doesn't make sense anymore. The football schools are carrying too much of the burden of keeping the conference together as it is. The costs of keeping this mess together will soon out weigh the benefits for the football schools. Unless the basketball schools conceed to allowing a 9th, and possibly a 10th, football school into the mix, the Big East football schools will suffer.
CJ

USC whipped Michigan to claim the AP version of the 2003 national title and pimpslapped Oklahoma to claim every version of the 2004 national title. Only an incredible, and unexpected, final drive by Vince Young kept USC from beating Texas to take another national title in 2005.

Ohio State upset Miami to the shock of everyone to claim the 2002 national title. Returning to the final game four years later, Ohio State was thoroughly embarrassed by Florida in 2006, and a similar thing happened against LSU in 2007. Those two track records are not the same.

Whether USC loses by one or 100, they lost. Without the Immaculant Reception, would the Steelers have gone on to win 4 Super Bowls? Who knows? Who cares? It's irrelevant now.

The Immaculate Reception will never be irrelevant. Retract the statement and go to confession please and plead for forgiveness. Now.

You obviously know little about semantics. The irrelevant comment was for the speculation on whether or not the Steelers would have gone on to win 4 Super Bowls without it. That speculation is what is irrelevant, not the object of speculation.

Think before you speak.

The original implication was clearly that neither USC nor Ohio State deserves their top rankings or BCS title game appearances. History shows that the Trojans undoubtedly earned their final rankings every time. The Buckeyes appear to be a different story. While both programs are longtime media darlings which unfairly receive exalted levels of adoration at the start of every season, they do not both go on to prove unworthy of that love, and their results quite obviously demonstrate the difference.

Frankly, the Big Ten and PAC 10 have so screwed up the BCS that I say that the next time playoff talks come around if they don't want to have a playoff, go ahead and have one without them, and forbid all participating schools from scheduling teams that don't participate.

That would fix their wagon. Them and the Rose Bowl. I still get mad thinking about Illinois.

bitcruncher Wrote:Frankly, the Big Ten and PAC 10 have so screwed up the BCS that I say that the next time playoff talks come around if they don't want to have a playoff, go ahead and have one without them, and forbid all participating schools from scheduling teams that don't participate.

That would fix their wagon. Them and the Rose Bowl. I still get mad thinking about Illinois.

A few points here to be realistic:

(1) What you're advocating is essentially what the old Bowl Alliance in the mid-90s was where all of the major conferences participated except for the Big Ten and Pac-10. Whatever you may think of the Big Ten and Pac-10, the public didn't think it was legit at the time and the Rose Bowl had as much power as ever as a result. Thus, the BCS was created to bring the Big Ten and Pac-10 into the fold so that there would be a "legit" national championship game. Unless you're a delusional SEC fan that believes the SEC Championship Game should determine the national championship every year, a playoff system that doesn't include the Big Ten and Pac-10 will invariably lead even more second-guessing than the current BCS system. Isn't that what a playoff system is supposed to remove in the first place? The general public that sees a playoff system where USC, Ohio State and Michigan aren't participating is going to look at the national championship the same way as the rest of this year's golf majors without Tiger Woods participating - there's a huge asterisk next to the champion's name. So, when the main point of a playoff system is to supposedly remove doubt as to who is a national champion, but then two of the largest and most powerful conferences aren't participating, then that doubt is going to be even worse.

(2) The television networks are the ones that are going to drive any type of playoff system - once the major conferences can confirm without a doubt that they will make significantly more money from a playoff system than the bowl system, then the school presidents will have incentive to switch, plain and simple. TV networks don't do things out of the goodness of their own hearts, though - they are paying for ratings. Well, look at the bowl TV ratings from the past 6 years:

http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/tvratings

For each of the past six years, the three highest rated bowls involved either a Big Ten team or a Pac-10 team (except for 2006-07, when Notre Dame got an at-large berth in the Sugar Bowl, but note that the two highest-rated non-BCS bowls involved Big Ten teams). In that same time frame, the Big Ten also was involved in the highest rated non-BCS bowl game (except for 2002-03, which once again involved Notre Dame), and even this past year's Michigan-Florida Capital One Bowl handily beat every BCS bowl in the ratings except for the National Championship Game and the Rose Bowl (and those games both involved the Big Ten). In the only year within the past six years where the National Championship Game didn't involve a Big Ten or Pac-10 team, which was LSU-Oklahoma in 2003-04, the USC-Michigan Rose Bowl came within one-tenth of a point in the ratings. Also, Michigan-Ohio State, Michigan-Notre Dame and Notre Dame-USC are historically the three highest-rated regular season games every single year.

So, looking at those numbers, do you think any sane TV executive (i.e. one that wants to keep his or her job) is going to sign up for a playoff system that doesn't involve the Big Ten or Pac-10?

(3) I'm an unabashed Illini fan, but I'll try to keep this discussion at a purely bowl organizer level. The Rose Bowl relationship with the Big Ten and Pac-10 is not just some casual contract - it's the whole freaking reason why it's the most watched college game outside of the national championship game every single year because there's decades of history there. Even if you disregard that long-standing relationship, in this particular year, the Sugar Bowl had first dibs on Georgia and they were without a doubt going to take them since the bowl has a historical relationship with the SEC and they were at a disadvantage in ticket sales with being forced to take Hawaii. The Orange Bowl has a historical relationship with the Big 12, but decided to take Kansas over Mizzou for whatever reason. Oklahoma was the Big 12 champ and obligated to go to the Fiesta Bowl and LSU was placed in the national championship game. As a result, the Big 12 and SEC had their max 2 teams in the BCS even if the Rose Bowl had wanted to take someone other than Illinois. Out of the other BCS-eligible teams that were left out of the ACC and Big East (USC was already the Pac-10 rep, so they obviously wouldn't have an intra-conference matchup), who the heck was even remotely attractive over Illinois when putting together a matchup on the field (much less TV ratings and ticket sales off the field)? I know people always think their own teams or conferences are the greatest ever and most deserving, but the Sugar Bowl will always pick an SEC team or Notre Dame (as it did in 2006-07) over other supposedly "more deserving" teams and you can go down the line with all of the other bowls making similar actions. It's ridiculous that the Rose Bowl is the one that always gets hammered when it's the one bowl that actually keeps its long-standing relationships intact as opposed to being a mercenary free agent every year (i.e. the other bowls picking Notre Dame at every opportunity).

Frank, the Rose Bowl chose first last season, due to losing Ohio State to the BCS title game. The Sugar Bowl chose last due to hosting that event. I am not sure who chose second and third between the Fiesta Bowl and the Orange Bowl.

The Sugar Bowl did indeed have dibs on Georgia to replace LSU. Kansas/Missouri, West Virginia, and Hawaii were all still in play. The Rose Bowl could have chosen any of those teams if it wanted to do so. Saying no one was available is a lie.

People need to just come out and admit the Rose Bowl has no imagination. They were unable to envision the potential prolific offensive shootouts that could have resulted from USC going against any of those four squads. It is what it is.

Krocker Krapp Wrote:Frank, the Rose Bowl chose first last season, due to losing Ohio State to the BCS title game. The Sugar Bowl chose last due to hosting that event. I am not sure who chose second and third between the Fiesta Bowl and the Orange Bowl.

The Sugar Bowl did indeed have dibs on Georgia to replace LSU. Kansas/Missouri, West Virginia, and Hawaii were all still in play. The Rose Bowl could have chosen any of those teams if it wanted to do so. Saying no one was available is a lie.

People need to just come out and admit the Rose Bowl has no imagination. They were unable to envision the potential prolific offensive shootouts that could have resulted from USC going against any of those four squads. It is what it is.

Agree, Krocker. It could just as easily have been

Rose - USC vs. Kansas/Missouri
Fiesta - Oklahoma vs. Arizona State
Orange - VT vs. West Virginia
Sugar - Georgia vs. Hawaii (no way around this one)

Instead, the Rose had to have their Big Ten-Pac 10 match-up, which was their perogative. But there were alternatives. The Michigan/Texas Rose Bowl a few years back was quite entertaining. I think a USC/Kansas or Missouri game could have been almost as entertaining.

I pretty much agree with the rest of Frank's post.

Cheers,
Neil

USC-Hawaii would have been an even bigger rout than USC-Illinois.

I don't know. I think Hawai'i had a better defense than Illinois. Either way USC cleans house.

No one knew before the BCS selections how good or bad Hawaii, or any other team, would be. The point Bitcruncher, Omnicarrier, and I were making is that the Rose Bowl did have other options to choose from - all of which were ranked higher than Illinois - if the organizing committee cared about entering the 21st Century and providing some better match-ups for the fans. Of course they do not care about those two things so their modus operandi will stay the same for quite some time to come.