The Pros And Cons Of The Bowl Championship System

The Bowl Championship Series has created controversy in college football since it was created in 1998. This system was set in order for the top two BCS college football teams to meet in the national championship and there are 8 other teams that play in four other BCS bowl games. There was much debate for several years whether there should be a playoff system, which will allow many teams to qualify for the National championship, as opposed to just two teams. Now that the playoff system has been established the question arises regarding the overall effects of the change. Although extending the season with a playoff may create other concerns, it will be the best for college football fans and the school’s academic program. It will give more opportunities for many teams to prove their worth, make more money for their school and will create more excitement throughout the entire season.
The Bowl Championship Series factors in three different components
to decide who are the top two teams in the country and will play in the National Championship. The 1st two are determined by human intervention as oppose to the computer polls. The 1st one is based on the Harris Interactive College football poll which has 105 voters rank the teams and give 25 points for 1st place and 24 for 2nd place. The points are distributed in reverse order until the last team gets 1 point. The total number a team can get is 2625. We take that number as denominator and divide by number each team receives to arrive at a percentage that is less 1.00. The second one is the USA Coaches poll which is merely the same distribution as the previous but just has only 62 voters and therefore has fewer points. We once again divide total points received by the total points possible. The last factor is derived from six computer ranking each week. The BCS counts the 6 polls and gives 25 points for 1st place in each poll. 2nd place receives 24 and so on until the last team receives one point. The total percentage of each of the 3 factors is added up and divided by three to get to the team’s final BCS standings. The top two would play for the National championship.
The NCAA March madness tournament which has 64 teams in its post season tournament is very exciting and thrilling to watch. There has never been a number sixteen seed beat a number one seed. What if the number sixteen seed team in football played the number one teams in a football game? This would be a much better and exciting matchup. An example would be #1 duke university playing Hampton University in the 1st round in 2011 is not going to be much of an excitement but in College football #1 Alabama can very easily lose to a #16 team seed. The number sixteen may even be better than their ranking but play in less competitive conference.
A playoff system is great for college football teams and fans. Often teams early in the season play a lousy game and lose and their national title hopes are gone. The hype that the team was going to be able be a serious contender is out before they haven’t even played a conference game. If they lose a second game, then it will be unlikely for the team to be able to play in a BCS bowl game The rest of their games have less excitement and people won’t care to show up to the rest of the games. This decrees the revenue that the school makes on sales from the seats. The playoff system was introduced and in 2014-2015 the 39 postseason FBS games distributed $505.9 million to the participating conferences and schools. The schools spent $100.2 million to take part in bowl games. In previous year there were only 35 postseason bowl games and it distributed only 309.9 million and the school had to spend $97.8 million to participate in the bowl games. The playoff comes at a very good time since the majority of academic departments. Are having difficulty with the cost of attendance and raising money to support the athletes. College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said “The overall health of the bowl systems is so important to our game because of the opportunities it creates for student-athletes”.
The BCS polls have created a significant amount of problems since it was established.
It is subject to bias. For this reason, an undefeated Utah team was kept out of the 2004-2005 and 2008-2009 national title game instead of a one loss major conference team which played a more difficult schedule. The polls are a computer system which doesn’t take in to account all the details. In 2003 when the University of Oklahoma lost in the big 12 title game vs Kansas state they still managed to still finish in the top two and beat out the USC Trojans which also had one loss. In 2011 Alabama lost in its last game of the year when it was ranked number 1 at the time. The same very week undefeated number 2 Oklahoma state lost as well and Alabama remained in the two spot. Oklahoma State should have been ahead of Alabama because it had more top 25 wins. However, the committee wanted a rematch between LSU and Alabama who played in the Southeastern Conference Title game. In the rematch Alabama defeated LSU 21-0 to win the National
Championship.
The national champions in other major college sports are determined by some type of playoff system. The NCAA FCS (known as the Division 1-AA competes in a 16 team tournament. Playoffs are exciting to watch since it gives many more teams the opportunity to prove how good they are despite what conference they are in. A team that played a very easy schedule in a non-power conference and goes undefeated should have a chance to compete in a playoff for a chance to play in the national championship game. Boise State in 2006-2007 was undefeated but didn’t get to play in the title game and they even beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl in a back and forth and exciting game. Boise state's victory showed that they were able to