Mrs Corn Nation complains I don't listen to her. Nothing unusual about that, in fact, it's a pretty common complaint from women about their husbands. Honestly, I don't listen all that well. If it's more than 30 seconds, it trails off, as in "We have a soccer game tonight at 6:30, but there's a band concert and one of us.... you know, those breakfast hot pockets are a lot better than the pizza hot pockets, I wonder if we have any of those left because I could really go for one of those right now....", which is too bad because a lot of the times there's real information in what she's saying that I need to pay attention to.
Unfortunately, most of the time I tend to have this "here we go again" attitude and my brain turns to other more interesting items, like food. Or Battlefield 3.
What I'm really trying to say is - if there were a lot of BCS vs playoff system articles posted this week, I really didn't notice. I'm pretty sure that every possible combination of playoff scenario has been posted and I'm not sure if there's anything more to add other than retreading the same old ground in order to gain web traffic. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, it's retreading the same old ground for something that's nothing more than a pipe dream, and something a lot less noble than, say, peace in the Middle East. Ask yourself which is more likely - that the people who run college football are going to tear down the current system or that Israel and Palestine will come to peaceful terms that will last - and you have to conclude that this is a toss up (or might actually favor the Middle East).
Just face the facts. Nothing is going to happen that will blow up the current system and replace it with a playoff. Okay, nothing short of the country being torn apart by a zombie apocalypse and you and I promising that if we're part of the survivors that rebuild the world we'll remember to start a college football playoff system when we get to that point in the rebuilding process.
The possibility exists that things may evolve towards a playoff system with the BCS adding a "plus one" game, but evolution takes time, and most of us would like things changed by next week, especially since we don't want to watch LSU vs Alabama in a rematch for the national title.
If there's a certainty every year, it's that most college football fans won't be happy at the end of season and the same complaints come rolling out again (Here we go again). There's no playoff. There's no playoff in sight. There's too many bowls. Some of the bowls are really bad. The match ups are bad.... I'd really like a hot ham and cheese sandwich, and should I take over Hoover Dam myself or let the NCR have it?
I find the "too many bowls" complaint the most puzzling, because the bowls deliver us more college football, and they deliver it in a way that they never would during the regular season because if they had their way most college coaches would play high school teams during the non-conference season. It's unfortunate that the match ups come after teams have already had their hopes dashed and in many cases, their coaches fired, but, hey, you take what you can get, right?
Granted, there are some ugly match ups this year, including the big one, the national title game with LSU vs Alabama. And like you, I don't understand why Virginia Tech is in the BCS (although I'm certainly going to watch them against Michigan), or why anyone would want to watch Clemson vs West Virginia in the Orange Bowl (still going to watch it).
But at the same time, there are some pretty decent games in the next few weeks. Wisconsin vs. Oregon in the Rose Bowl doesn't suck. Neither does Michigan State vs. Georgia in the Outback Bowl. Oklahoma State and Brandon Weeden vs. Stanford and Andrew Luck in the Fiesta Bowl - tell me you're not going to watch that one.
I will be watching as many bowl games as possible because I know that a long, dark offseason waits once they're done, and you can bet that we will have game threads here for every one of them. Wyoming vs Temple in the New Mexico bowl? Hell, yes I'll be watching that. Wyoming started the season with so many question marks it's amazing they even made a bowl this year, so why not?
Purdue vs Western Michigan in the Little Caesars Bowl? Western Michigan's Jordan White will be playing that game, and I haven't seen him all year. Who's White? The leading receiver nationally with 127 receptions, 1,646 yards and 16 touchdowns - I think he's worth watching at least once. I don't care that the game is in Detroit, I'm not going.
Baylor's Robert Griffin III gets to shred a bad Washington secondary in the Alamo Bowl, while Houston's Case Keenum gets a weird match up against a tough Penn State defense in the Ticket City Bowl.
From December 20th to January 9th, there are only four days without bowl games - December 23rd and 25th, and January 1st (what?) and 5th. It should be college football heaven, right?
One thing I don't quite understand about Mrs Corn Nation is that she still gets angry when I don't listen to her. We've been married 22 years. I've at least trained myself to stop drooling when my mind trails off and I start thinking about food. Don't you think she would be used to this by now? Don't you think you just should enjoy the rest of the college football season for what it is right now instead of wishing for change that will never happen in your lifetime?
1 recs | 37 comments
Maybe it's heaven to you...
…but it’s a bunch of crappy games at the busiest time of the year.
Oh, I’ll watch some of them. SOME of them. Christmas and New Years will be full of NFL football. Christmas especially because ever since the Aloha Bowl went belly-up, we’ve been starved for something to watch (other than Aunt Minnie drooling into the fruit salad) that day.
But in this bowl season of crappy matchups, many of which occur while I’m at work, no thank you.
I remember the joy of past bowl seasons when if I come across a crappy bowl game, I can change the channel and find another…and another…and another. Now ESPN single-files them all over three weeks without the opportunity to change the channel to find something better.
Remember when New Years Day used to be college football nirvana? Now there’s only one game on broadcast networks, and usually the matchups royally suck. The NHL is starting to take it over with their outdoor winter classic.
(Yes this year is an exception, because two of the best matchups are on that day…plus the Husker game. But you get my point…)
Husker Mike - December 9, 2011
Then insititute a plus-one system in seasons with multiple undefeateds and limit conference contracts with bowl games.
I mean, here appears to be the chief complaints:
1) The rest of the bowl season is filled with crappy matchups most years due to conference tie-ins.
2) The BCS selection process is stupid mostly because of someone having to play an unranked Big East team every year.
3) There is no correction for seasons with multiple undefeateds despite the fact that with each team only playing 10% of the teams at the FBS level at most, you could, theoretically, have one undefeated team from EVERY conference who has never played each other nor has a common opponent by direct contact. (Degrees of Kevin Bacon, sure.)
- A quick note: I don’t think you can have corrections for the best SECOND PLACE team. That determination should be left to the selection process, albeit improved.
4) There are WAY too many bowl games.
So, limit each conference to a select number of bowl tie-ins and have the rest of the bowls assigned to teams on an at-large basis, to be determined by some combination of statistical and human rankings. Increase eligibility to seven wins minimum, eight if you played two FCS teams.
In seasons where bowl games are not able to be filled, cancel the bowl game. In seasons where more teams are eligible than bowl games, permit those teams the extra practices normally given to bowl teams.
Those teams also have the option (not required) of holding one exhibition match with another bowl eligible but not bowl bound team. For instance, this season Ball State and Western Kentucky would play an exhibition match with shared revenue (and risk).
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 9, 2011
I'm sure you knew this, but
There are no bowl games on New Year’s Day this year, because it falls on a Sunday. Just NFL games.
Cheeseandcorn - December 10, 2011
I'm not against the bowls for delivering mediocre football.
I like watching even mediocre football. The most basic problem with the bowl system is that nearly all of them suck money out of college football, and that just about every athletic department in the country could use that money better than the bowls. Going to the Fiesta Bowl last year lost UConn 1.8 million dollars; is that even remotely reasonable? The NCAA would be a better arbiter of a championship playoff system than the bowls are now.
Semicorrect - December 9, 2011
Bowl season is nothing but Valentine's Day for ESPN/ABC
35 bowl games – all but two of them are broadcast on ABC/ESPiN (Cotton on Fox and Sun on CBS)
- Leads to Husker Mike’s scheduling gripe above (which I agree with).
70 teams – out of 120 at the FBS level
- Too many undeserving teams, just to fill spots. There ARE too many bowls. Cut the list down between 25 and 30.
Other than the practices, teams don’t benefit that much
- Many teams lose money. Most of the bowl payouts go to the Conference, which are then spread out. And then since you generally have the same bowls every year, it’s the same payout to the schools. (Hence the importance of getting that second team into the BCS) It’s all for the bowl committee’s themselves. If we’re going to have this system, let’s make sure the money goes to the schools, and THEY benefit.
We all love college football. But we want good college football. The only thing we can do as consumers is NOT consume. Don’t watch them. But of course, enough of us will (Wyoming v Temple Jon…you have an addiction and it’s not healthy) that the system won’t change.
Wolvie - December 9, 2011
My biggest complaint is
the # of bowls. This dilutes the quality of the games.
JimmytheRed - December 9, 2011
I don't hate bowls so much as I hate the lack of playoffs.
I don’t care that western michigan stumbled into a bowl game, what I care about is I truly believe(rightly or wrongly) and OSU is a good enough team to give LSU a run for their money, if not beat them.
Think of when the giants brought down the pats in the superbowl a few years back. That’s why we need playoffs.
Fake Pelini - December 9, 2011 via mobile
Wouldn't that force a redefinition of a national champion?
I mean, right now, the MNC is defined as the winner of the MNC BCS game or the top ranked team in the AP poll at the end of the post-season. Usually the same but theoretically different. The BCS Nos. 1 and 2 are somewhat determined by subjective determination of the “best” teams, though the BCS would prefer to call them the “top rated” teams.
A playoff would redefine the national champion and basically make polls only important to seeding. But then we’ll just be filling up the post-season with SEC teams because for whatever reason, SEC teams never really fall very far if they lose and they jump eight spots if they win.
Is that really an improvement?
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 9, 2011
I think that's the perception right now because they really have been overall a better conference than the rest.
And that is partly due to the scheduling. Bama beating an early, sucky, penn st team that almost lost to temple could definitely lose to a wisconsin that earned its seed into the brackets. Same with LSU, dominating Oregon in the very first game of the season doesn’t mean they would necessarily beat a very good Oklahoma St at the end.
Fake Pelini - December 9, 2011
I'm sorry, Jon, what did you say?
I was thinking about how long it’ been since I’ve had Godfather’s or Valentino’s pizza, and the next thing I knew I was in the Comments section!
OhioHusker - December 9, 2011
oh
touche’
and Merry Christmas to you, too, sir.
Jon Johnston - December 9, 2011
Every playoff scenario, plus a couple more:
http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2011/12/5/2612164/bcs-championship-2011-2012-college-football-playoff
skandrewj62j - December 9, 2011
I've always been anti-playoff
But I actually like “Plus One B.”
jdhusker - December 9, 2011
I think Plus One B is good.
Because I think whenever possible the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange want the best teams possible coming to their game. It would get messy rotating two games, but I guess they could work it out like this:
Year 1: 1v4-Sugar, 2v3 Fiesta, Final Orange
Year 2: 1v4-Fiesta, 2v3 Rose, Final Sugar
Year 3: 1v4-Rose, 2v3-Orange, Final Fiesta
Year 4: 1v4-Orange, 2v3 Sugar. Final Rose
Or I guess they could shop the final around and it could be like the Super Bowl or the Final Four and cities make a bid to host the championship. Rotating the Semi-finals will affect the Conference tie-ins, but they already worked through that when they didn’t have the BCS MNC game.
skandrewj62j - December 9, 2011
Bowls will never work for semifinals...
The logistics and expenses with transporting tens of thousands of fans across the country to multiple bowl games means that fans won’t be following the team. No other sport tries to have a neutral site arrangement, except NCAA basketball and those are smaller arenas that count on the local fans to sell the place out.
Play the preliminary rounds at home stadiums. No reason not to…especially for those people who insist that a playoff weakens the regular season. You earn your home field advantage…
Husker Mike - December 12, 2011
i also have always been anti-playoff
but I too like the Plus One B model and actually have been advocating it for some time prior to seeing it on that link. I mean it gives a college fan everything the could possibly hope for, a meaningful college season not diluted by a long playoff bracket that would rarely deliver us the best final matchup anyways, it would maintain the integrity of the bowl season, and last but not least it would give us fans even more controversy at the end of the season to complain about on message boards (something I think is awesome about college football). That is not even mentioning the fact that we would get to put all of the BCS games (minus the Championship game) back on New Years day and get back the most exciting day of college football action ever thought of.
HuskerPhil - December 10, 2011
anti-playoff
Are you a sports fan?
I’ve never heard a reasonable explanation from a fan’s perspective for being anti-playoff. You don’t like good teams playing each other? You don’t want to decide a champion on the field? You like some teams seasons to effectively end in middle of season when they get 1 loss since they have no shot at title?
I just don’t get it. Why wouldn’t every football fan want a playoff?
The only reason not to have playoff is because it means more games for college playoffs and football is dangerous / rough sport so hard on the body compared to bball. But it is only 4 teams that would play 1 or 2 extra games in 8 team playoff and they do it at D2 level so as a fan (not a player) I can not see why they can’t make it work.
NY Chicago Fan - December 11, 2011
meant to say players not playoffs
“more games for college players”
NY Chicago Fan - December 11, 2011
I like Salt's idea of having some sort of trigger
Where a plus one or some other model kicks in if there are more than two legitimate title contenders at the end of the year (only problem here is the one we always have: what’s the definition of “legitimate title contender?”
The reality is that we’re never going to scrap the whole bowl system, nor should we. The bowls are a century long tradition of college football, and part of what makes the sport unique. It’s a great reward for the teams and the fans for a good year. Mind you, I strongly agree with the folks to who say we need to cut the number of bowl games down. Scanning over some of the bowl game rankings out there (not Spencer Hall’s though, CapOne Bowl #27 solely because of Martinez’s throwing motion….yeah that’s all I’m saying about that) I’d say the eye test puts a good cutoff point somewhere in the 20-25 bowls range. That allows the big 5 conferences (yes I cut out the Big East) to send the top half of their conference, filling around 30 of the 40-50 slots with fairly good teams, while still allowing the lower tier conferences to send their top 2 or 3 for a shot at one of the big boys. Discontinue the practice of conference tie ins (obvious exception: Big Ten/Pac 12-Rose Bowl) and I think that’d be a lot more interesting than it is now.
jdhusker - December 9, 2011
Old Man Delany will not allow that to happen!
He may of ushered in a new era for Husker sports but he is trapped in the past. Most of the big conferences are starting to get on board with the plus one model except Old Man Delany. Don’t get me wrong, Jim has done a great (but rather conservative) job as conference head, but 15 years, or even 10 years from now he will retire (hopefully) thus putting to bed the delusion that he is the emodiment of the B1G. Time to let go of the past and move forward. And it will happen with or without him.
BledRed - December 9, 2011
I think the CapOne bowl slight by Mr. Hall had more to do with the Head Ball Coach than with Nebraska.
Then again, Nebraska isn’t high on any Florida fans’ list of favorite teams.
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 9, 2011
I think Spencer Hall's ratings are pretty much for shits and giggles
As is most everything he does. Nobody should really take those seriously as an evaluation of the quality or watchability of the teams involved. They’re just for fun.
Cheeseandcorn - December 10, 2011
I still enjoy RAGING about it
jdhusker - December 10, 2011
You can definitely tell when Mr. Hall is being facetious and when he's being genuine.
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 10, 2011
Make the hurting stop
The current system is so outdated and Bss Aackwards that just about every blog writer and commenter in the world has legitimate concerns and solutions to the BCS tire fire.
Here are just a few of the absurdities that we have now:
Capital One Bowl! Little Caesars Bowl! Chick-fil-A Bowl! Kmart/Walmart Day of Peace Bowl! How hard is it to call the game: The Peach Bowl PRESENTED BY Little Caesars???
35 Bowl games?? 70 out of 120ish teams?? Lets just start handing out medals for season participation!! More football is a good thing but my God, lets not take something special and water it down so much that it tastes like melted ice.
January 9th?!? One of my greatest beefs with any sport is not being able to start and end the season in the same calendar year cough cough NBA cough. This is not rocket science people. Cut one cupcake game at the start of the season, cut the meaningless and National Champ blocking conference champ games and we could literally END a 4 team playoff and all the bowls before Christmas week so students could actually spend the holidays with family and not on our TV screens. Gee what a novel and humane concept! If the greedy corps had it their way, we would all be working 366 days a year!
There should be no human being on this planet that gets paid $100,000 a year to plan 1 football game. FIRE all of the bowl presenters and have the conferences create a new bowl system where all of the money goes to the schools and teams. Heck we could rename the bowls Peach, Motor City, etc just like they use to be called!
For Gods sakes do a 4 team playoff. This will easily be the smallest playoff in all of the major sports and will not take away any spark from the regular season. You really think a team is going to think to themselves…“hey the top 4 get into a playoff so we can just waltz through a season without a care in the world”! Give me a break and keep accepting those BCS checks in the mail.
Change will come once the outcry meter tops 99.98 percent. Until then we get to suffer through this circus that too many of us still accept.
BledRed - December 9, 2011
If you cut conference champ game, may as well get rid of conferences.
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 9, 2011
All the conferences got by just fine for decades without a conference champ game
Best record wins and higher ranking for a tie breaker. Plain and simple.
Again would you rather go to the conference champ game and risk losing or go straight to the national title game? Its one less thing to worry about for us getting to National Title # 6. Just ask the Sooners what a billion conference titles for the past 10 years gets you.
BledRed - December 9, 2011
The Big Ten has had co-champions most years over the last few months.
The Big Eight did fine because it was the winner of Nebraska-Oklahoma.
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 9, 2011
counterpoints
1 – Money. Do schools lose money? Yes, some do. Some might lose a lot.
Listen – no one stuck a gun to their head and forced them to go to a bowl game. And where did this idea come from that the schools are supposed to make money going to the games in the first place, and why do we even care?
Bowl games were invented for the purpose of giving people in cold weather climates to go on vacation and spend money in warm weather areas. That’s it. Teams/schools regard them as a reward to their student athletes for a decent/good season.
And whether you’d like to believe it or not (everyone gets to pay for the sins of John Junker that douche bag), bowls provide money to charities and scholarship funds. They have to – the bowls are non-profit organizations. They have to distribute a percentage of the money they take in.
Examples:
http://www.chick-fil-abowl.com/GivingBack/CharitableGiving/tabid/124/Default.aspx
http://www.alamobowl.com/main/community_outreach.php
2- Too many bowls. I don’t disagree with this. There are too many bowls.
3 – Playoff, including Jim Delany being against the Plus One.
Whether you like it or not, the BCS works. Their job is to put #1 vs #2 together so that we don’t have 1997 where Michigan and Nebraska never met on the field. They do their job.
The automatic qualifiers could go away – those have been the reason for some really crappy match ups, i.e. UConn vs Oklahoma last season.
And with regards to Delany being outdated …. the existing system works. It does. If it didn’t work, they’d change it.
Now, keep in mind the perspective from which it works. It works for THEM, the guys who run things. They’re fine. They get money, they get trips, they get to go on about tradition, they have something that is not broken, AND it works for a lot of schools, not just a few bigass schools that would benefit if we move to a playoff system (and this bullshit about the current bowl system staying in place is just that – bullshit, because no one would care about the Outback Bowl).
We won’t have a playoff when the outcry meter hits 99.98 percent because the .02 percent that remain are the people who run things. They’re not elected. You can’t walk into their office and fire them or vote them out.
Jon Johnston - December 9, 2011
All valid points
One counter point is that the BCS worked this year because and only because we ended up with 1 undefeated team. When all of those undefeated big time programs lost, the BCS backers took a big sigh of relief. You always have to play ‘what if’ because we will eventually see a season where Oklahoma, Oregon, Clemson, LSU, and Wisconsin all finish undefeated (Or other teams including the Huskers). What then? Can you imagine the outcry that will come without a playoff? Where the title game teams are hand selected by coaches, pundits, and computers?
This can not stand and is the reason why I really hope a playoff happens soon. I think it would appease the pitch-fork crowd that is getting larger every year. As for the .02 percent, you are correct. They have the power or that is how it seems. We the watchers ultimatly have the power, and can tune out, let their viewer numbers plumet and those dollor signs in their eyes disappear. Then perhaps real change will occur. But that is easier said than done for I too will be tuning in (except the title game which I am boycotting because the SEC lovefest makes me want to vomit)
BledRed - December 9, 2011
Not true...
ESPN owns about 1/4th of the bowls…
Husker Mike - December 12, 2011
Why I dislike the Bowls
For the most part they are meaningless. It’s watching a glorified exhibition game. There is a lot more money in a playoff system but teams from the lesser conferences would not be sharing in the profits.
Jim Delaney is 100% behind the B1G conference. He doesn’t care about National Championships. What is best for the overall conference and profitability is his only concern. I can’t say if I agree or disagree with his attitude.
Robsa - December 9, 2011
That's what bowls should be though.
They should be a celebration of football, not a money laundering scheme.
Salt Creek and Stadium - December 9, 2011
This would never ever happen
But, it’s fun to talk about, so I’ll give it a shot:
-What if we went to (4) 24 team conferences (football only… We’d have to move the MAC and SunBelt conferences to Div 1-AA, sorry… Or could be (8) 12 team conferences)
-Each conference is split in to two divisions of 12, you play all eleven teams in your division every year with 2 warm-up games before conference starts and for the big schools to get their home games for the money.
-The 8 winners of each division faces off in a conference championship.
-The 4 conference champions play in a 4 team playoff for the national championship
Works, right? Regular season still means a great deal and we still have a playoff. Everybody wins!
Lake_show - December 9, 2011
And then you could still keep the bowls for all the non-playoff teams.
Lake_show - December 9, 2011
If were moving towards to these Super conferences,,,
Why not take the winners of each conference, build a bracket system, and let them play down to the final 2! All they have to do is get rid of the cupcake non-conference games, and win your conference to get to the playoff’s. After we have a true Nat. Champ, then play the bowl games. This will eliminate all the meaningless bowls and the athletes can actually have some fun!!
sd.husker - December 9, 2011
College football..
is getting just about as corrupt, stupid and evil as NASCAR. If I didn’t have a Husker tattoo on my right leg, I’d walk away from even caring. Unfortunately, we all have it in our blood, and those media hocks over at ESPN love it.
Any time there’s voters or money involved that determines the final outcome of the sport, it’s time go to the mattresses…
BryanNbugaha - December 12, 2011
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