(12-11-2009 02:27 PM)Raider_ATO Wrote: There is no "team" to take a hit for. The BCS games don't want to help another one out. They want to become the game that everyone watches. They want the other teams to get unfavorable matchups.
There is no more of a conspiracy this year than any other. Remove your aluminum foil hat and open your eyes.
Fiesta/Orange/Rose/Sugar don't care if their game "proves" anything. They just want the most exciting matchup. They work like any other bowl game.
And in my eyes, Orange/Rose/Sugar picked some crappy matchups that I'm not interested in seeing. I would have been interested in both games with TCU and Boise. But now I just get one game that I'm really interested in because Fiesta took BOTH exciting teams, leaving the other games without an interesting matchup. Genius, Fiesta! Genius!
Here you go, found this on the MWC board...seems the bloggers are addressing my theory a heckuvalot more than the 'head in the sand' theory.
BCS Quarantines TCU, Boise in 'Separate But Equal' Bowl
12/07/2009 10:50 PM ET By Clay Travis
If you needed a sign that the BCS muckety-mucks are beginning to tremble behind the Big Six castle walls, a Fiesta Bowl matchup between Boise State and TCU is the latest evidence that something is rotten in Denmark.
I've written before about Congress's antitrust investigations and the fig-leaf design of the BCS entity -- it's not actually named -- that makes everyone gnash their teeth at the end of the season. The Fiesta Bowl matchup between Mountain West and WAC teams is the latest in a string of panicked moves that demonstrate true BCS fear.
First, the BCS named a new leader, then, and you can't even make this stuff up, they added Ari Fleisher, formerly the White House spokesperson for George W. Bush, to help with public relations. Next the BCS added a Twitter page that reads, strangely, as if the Iranian government joined Twitter. Finally, in perhaps the biggest snafu of all, they created a Web site called, wait for it, playoffproblem.com.
All of these moves reflected an inability to comprehend the rapidly shifting sands of social media in the modern era. So this isn't a column about why there should be a playoff -- those have been done plenty of times in the past. This is a column about the BCS's inability to prevent a playoff from happening. In fact, each of these moves has provided further evidence that the BCS will crumble before all is said and done. Why? Because each of these decisions is an attempt at pacification. And pacifiers only work for babies.
Let's begin with the web site which does for the BCS what MTV's Jersey Shore does for the state of New Jersey. That is, it confirms that all of your worst impressions about the state and the system are actually true. Don't believe me, read this language taken directly from the front page of the site:
"Just try to create an eight-team playoff based on latest rankings (December 6th). Should two-loss Oregon (10-2, #7) and Ohio State (10-2, #8) get in but not the other FOUR teams with two losses: Georgia Tech (11-2, #9), Iowa (10A2, #10), Penn State (10-2, #13), BYU (10-2, #14)? If you think the BCS is controversial, try sorting that out. A playoff would guarantee bigger problems, more controversy, more disappointed teams and more frustrated fans."
Read that last sentence again.
Seriously, read it again.
Let's break it down argument style. Keeping in mind, of course, that this is the BCS's official position on why there is no playoff.
Per their Web site, playoffproblem.com, which, by the way, looks as if was designed by eighth graders for a school assignment, the BCS anti-playoff rationale relies on four key points:
A playoff would:
A.) "guarantee bigger problems"
Such as?
If your son or daughter came up to you and said, "I have to get a new car or we're guaranteeing bigger problems," you'd laugh at them, right?
You'd be insulted that they thought so little of your intellect that merely saying, "guarantee bigger problems" would make you consider their situation anew.
Well, the BCS doesn't respect your intellect. That is their argument.
B.) "more controversy"
Again, if you take words that exist with a negative connotation, such as controversy, and put the word "more" in front of them, you aren't really making a constructive argument. You just sound like a lame politician used a charged word to elicit a reaction.
For instance, who is in favor of more robbery? More abortion?
Put simply, tossing the word more in front of a word like controversy is the last refuge of scoundrels.
C.) "more disappointed teams"
Here we go again with the use of the word more. This time it's paired with another negative word.
Who in the world could be in favor of more disappointment?
I'll tell you.
Proponents of genocide and playoffs.
As evidence for their argument, the BCS has once again, brought the strong intellectual capital. They capitalized FOUR in the paragraph, "the other FOUR teams with two losses." Presumably, these would be the disappointed teams, those that are narrowly left out of a playoff. Even if, you know, the teams that are left out include three teams that didn't win their conference and one, Georgia Tech, that not even Tech fans would defend in the wake of the Georgia loss.
Since they want to play the argument via capitalizing words game, I'll play along. Only, I'll raise them one all caps number.
FIVE.
As in: There are FIVE undefeated teams this season. That means THREE teams that haven't lost a game have nothing to play for.
d. "more frustrated fans"
Really?
Would the teams that are left out of the playoff really be more frustrated than they are now? Would teams like Boise State and TCU, who will never get a chance to play for a championship, really be more frustrated by this outcome?
Which brings me to this, matching Boise State and TCU proves that the BCS is running scared.
Why?
Because putting both these teams together eliminates any chance that the non-big six teams could run their record to 5-1 in BCS games. A record, mind you, that would be better than any other single big six conference's record in BCS games on a percentage basis. And a record that would crush the ACC's 2-9 overall performance in twice as many games.
Already Utah has twice proven they can stand toe-to-toe with the big conference teams. So has Boise State in their memorable Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma. Only Hawaii has been embarrassed. And ask Ohio State or Oklahoma if you think Hawaii is the only team with embarrassing losses in the BCS.
Matching either of these teams against big six conference foes would have put the BCS on trial, offering up ready-made proof, yet again, that non-big six teams can contend for the title and beat erstwhile favorites. Would it strike at the firmament of the BCS if both Boise State and TCU finished undefeated behind the winner of Alabama-Texas with wins over big six teams?
Definitely.
Putting them together in a game? Now no matter what happens these teams can't prove they belonged at the big boys table and one of them gets knocked off. With a nod to Dan Wetzel at Yahoo, the BCS has set up their own Plessy v. Ferguson matchup, separate but equal.
What a joke.
At this point, it's probably time to explain how this game happened. Of course, the BCS manipulators are probably hoping that we don't actually call them on what they did, intentionally bring about this game to be certain that the big six powers weren't challenged. How can we be certain of how the teams were picked? By the posted rules governing how the teams were selected.
Here's the story, when Alabama and Texas qualified for the national championship game, the Sugar and Fiesta bowls lost their tie-in teams, Alabama from the SEC and Texas from the Big 12, respectively. This mean that the Sugar and Fiesta bowls received first pick to replace those teams. The Sugar selected Florida, another SEC team. That left the Fiesta, given there was no other Big 12 team available, with a completely open selection.
They could take Cincinnati, they could take Iowa, they could take any team that was selectable. That means they got the team of their choice.
They took TCU.
Next pick went to the Orange Bowl as "the bowl played on the date nearest to the National Championship Game." The Orange Bowl selected Iowa.
Now it was the Fiesta Bowl's pick once again. Amazingly, the Fiesta Bowl had their pick of matchups. They took Boise State.
Voila, the two non-big six teams had, remarkably, been drafted to play against each other.
The Sugar Bowl then took their only remaining choice, Cincinnati, an automatic qualifier from the only conference, the Big East, without a definite tie to the bowl structure.
As if this weren't enough, the BCS cartel rules then permitted the bowls to consider other factors that might make these matchups more or less desirable. Among those considerations, "C. whether the same two teams will play against each other in a bowl game for two consecutive years; and D. whether alternative pairings may have greater or lesser appeal to college football fans as measured by expected ticket sales for the bowls and by expected television interest, and the consequent financial impact on Fox and the bowls."
Boise State and TCU also played last year.
But that's no big deal, the BCS fix was in.
Now when Congress reexamines the bowl structure, the BCS will trot out the bloody flag of the Fiesta Bowl 2010 and assert that the playing field is entirely equal. Even if you and I both know it isn't. But when Boise State-TCU turns into the second-highest rated bowl game of the season, an awful lot of football fans will be voting with their eyes. And once more, another brick on the BCS castle will come tumbling off the parapets. Because no matter how cynical the BCS suits are, we can all see right through them, they're the entity without a name that isn't wearing any clothes.
Right now all the BCS can do is keep attempting to defend a broken system and stave off all attacks. But with every defense of the system, their own position weakens, because you and I are smart enough to see that there's no basis whatsoever for that defense. Ultimately, the BCS can't win the modern era's war of ideas because their idea is plain wrong. And if you can't win the war of ideas in a 21st century media environment, you're as good as dead.
Coming soon the BCS's own Joshua, the evolving social media landscape that democritizes criticism and makes mass protest possible, is going to blow his horn. And on that day, the mealy-mouthed defenses of a broken system will magically cease as the BCS walls come crumbling down.
Until then, the BCS is foredoomed to failure.
It's a dead plan walking.
/
FB: House panel passes college football playoff bill
