The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

For the rabid sports fan, late October, early November, is when the when the sun is at its apex above the sports landscape. The symmetry of alignment for all followers of the games men play is unequaled at any other time of the year. The Major League baseball season comes to a close with the crowning of a new champion. The NBA and the NHL launch their schedules, where each team has a renewed sense of hope and promise. College basketball kicks off with midnight madness. The NFL has reached its half-way point, and the playoff picture starts to come into focus. Not so in college football. This time of year brings with it deliberation and consternation. To playoff or not to playoff that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the BCS, or to take arms against the pollsters, and by opposing end them.
I fear this year there is a heightened sense of discourse relating to a college playoff format. No other than our newly elected President has fanned the flames of debate with an ill wind.
On the eve of the Presidential election, ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman, during the nationally televised Monday Night Football game, posed a question to both candidates. If they could change one thing about sports, what would it be? Like the true Republican that he is, John McCain wanted to rid sports of drugs. Lets give a shout out to Nancy Reagan. Since sports are a microcosm of society, his answer was a well meaning pipe dream. Barack Obama’s desire was no less daunting, but it's his timing that was timely. Obama would bring some sort of playoff system to college football. Does this mean the system as it is should undergo more finite scrutiny than past years just because our new President considers it a pressing sports issue? I don’t know how much more heated the argument for or against can rage.
Football is the only sport that NCAA Division I does not have a championship for. The BCS or Bowl Championship Series is a byproduct of the FBS, or Football Bowl Subdivision. The BCS was created to settle the matter of which team is the “real” champion because no selecting organization could ever reach a consensus; even though the NCAA declares, prior to the formation of the BCS, that there have been 49 Consensus National Champions from 1950 to 2003. The definition of consensus is a “general agreement.” But in 16 of those years previously stated, there were multiple teams “generally agreed upon” as National Champions. 2003 was a curious year since the BCS already existed and acknowledged LSU to be the National Champion, but the “consensus” champs were USC. Huh? You got all that? Yeah, me either.
In 1926,Illinois economics professor Frank G. Dickinson, devised a mathematical formula to, once and for all, determine a definitive National Champion. The “Dickinson System” was used as the “be all, end all” until 1936 when the Associated Press decided who was the country’s premier collegiate football. After 1949, the “consensus” system was implemented, even though each year up to five different governing bodies, (AP, UPI, FWAA, NFF, USA/CNN, USA/ESPN) weighed in with their results. That’s quite a consensus.
The blackest eye to the system(s) occurred in 1984, when the lightly regarded Mountain West Conference, anointed Brigham Young University its champion. They ended their less than daunting season with a Holiday Bowl win over a less than stellar Michigan team. BYU was the nation’s only undefeated team, though it didn’t qualify for any of the major bowl games. Almost by default, the NCAA in their infinite wisdom, made BYU National Champion. There was great unrest on several college campuses around the country. And look at the strides we made. Georgia was odd man out last year, and this year the BCS/NCAA could find themselves amid another conundrum.
Some teams have three games left, some have two. Some have conference championships, some don’t. The BCS can’t take more than two teams from any one conference for their bowl games. Somebody somewhere is going to be pissed. Utah, Boise State, and Ball State, if they finish the season undefeated, will cry foul, that no one gives them the respect they deserve, and that they merit consideration for the National title; wah, wah, wah; and the beat goes on.
Barack Obama may not be aware of the Pandora’s Box he unwittingly (or maybe not), has good naturedly put under the collegiate football microscope. How hard WOULD it be to rid sports of all drugs anyway?