With a three-way tie for first place in the Big 12 South, this is another desperate cry for change in College Football.
by Sam Thomas
photo by Manny Perez_SMALL.jpg)
At the end of the regular season for college football a major controversy swept the nation concerning the Big 12 Championship game. With the Big 12 separated into two divisions (the Big 12 North and South), the best team in each division faces off for all the marbles. This usually works, except there’s a three-way tie for the Big 12 South this year, and it just so happens that the three teams are all in the top ten best teams in the country. The plot thickens with the winner of the Big 12 having a birth in the National Championship game.
So what is to be done? Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and Texas are all tied at 11 wins and 1 loss. With all their hopes and dreams of making it to the National Championship game, who chooses the winner of the Big 12 South to face off with the winner of the Big 12 North, Missouri?
The answer is the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) rankings. But what is that, and how does it rank the best teams in the country? This answer isn’t simple. The BCS rankings are a combination of the points awarded from the Harris Interactive Poll, the USA Today Coaches, and six computer rankings run by Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey, Jeff Sagarin, and Peter Wolfe. The computers account for the schedule strength, points scored, and points allowed in its formula. The final number for each team is then divided by one hundred and the final results make up your rankings. At the end of the season Oklahoma was ranked second behind Alabama. Texas was placed third by only three thousandths of a point. So Oklahoma makes it to the Big 12 Championship game and is one win away from playing for a National Championship.
If this sounded confusing to you, don’t worry, it’s confusing to the majority of the country, too. This, in the end, is the problem that plagues the minds of college football fans all across the nation. The BCS is too confusing and it just doesn’t work. The NCAA division one football league is the only college division, junior college division, and community college division that doesn’t do a playoff system and it’s time that they joined the rest of the country and gave us all what we want: a 16 team playoff system to determine the national champion.
Right now in the top ten teams in the country, five of them have no chance of competing for a national championship. Not only is that not fair, but it’s just not right. Depriving teams of the opportunity to play to be the best team in the county isn’t fair and needs to be changed.
The BCS has had to change its formula four times in the last five years. With all these problems, changing the formula isn’t the answer; it’s time to change the infrastructure of college football. This problem is such widely know that even President Elect Barack Obama has mentioned bringing congress into the equation and fixing college football.
College football needs to change, and I mean right now. The ranking system needs to be overhauled and the BCS needs to be completely removed from Division One Football. A new ranking system needs to be put into place. And at the end of the regular season the top 16 teams need to engage in a regular playoff system like the NFL. After four rounds of intense playoffs, a true national champion will be crowned. In the end, the probability of a complete change isn’t likely, but controversies like this will continue to happen and teams will continues to be cheated, and sooner or later change will be the only option. And this change will be for the good. So, sorry Texas and Texas Tech, maybe next year will be the year for you.
