After today's BCS rankings and the bowl selections we see this from Yahoo!'s Pat Forde: "There is not a single scintilla of doubt that a playoff would be the best way to end this – or any – college football season. Sixteen teams, eight, four – whatever. Any of the above would beat the fraudulent BCS system we are stuck with in America...Bowls have to make business decisions, not necessarily football decisions. That’s why Virginia Tech gets rewarded and Boise State gets shafted." Read the entire, well-written article here.
But I really like the opinion of Dan Wetzel (also from Yahoo!) who could see this year's melee coming a few days ago when he wrote: "...the BCS is not a system designed to choose a championship match-up. It is merely a tool to stave off the inevitable playoff bowl directors fear will cut into their millions in tax-free profits, a casino-style distraction to placate the masses....It is a total disaster of a system. No one who cares about the game would ever invent such a thing....BCS executive director Bill Hancock likes to refer to the formula as “one part science, two parts art.” It’s actually just a wholly formed insult to intelligence."And his take on the formulas: “It’s just nonsense math. And that’s if the nonsense is accurate. The truth is, no one knows. Five of the six computer rankers protect their formulas, claiming proprietary rights to their algorithms. They refuse to share the formula with anyone, including the BCS, which, as such, is incapable of checking on the accuracy of the rankings. Repeat: Absolutely no one has any idea if the weekly BCS standings are true. No one. And they don’t seem to care. Only Wes Colley makes his formula public, which allows outside review. Last season, his rankings twice were found inaccurate because of improper data entry. Some of the scores he used weren't up to date....So those final rankings Sunday might be correct. Or they might not."
And his finale: "The current formula is nothing more than nonsense math and an unsound popular vote that gets polished up by television. Anyone who cares about college football should demand something better. If we can’t get a playoff, can they at least stop insulting our intelligence? Can we at least get some attempt at sanity?"
A G R E E D ! ! Read the whole article here.
EndZone: The Games
UCLA never really had a chance. Houston just wasn't ready...a little too over-confident. Boise and TCU made statements in their games...that fell on the deaf ears of the voters and BCS formulas. Georgia went into their game with only half a tank of gas and receivers with two-left hands. LSU was stuck in 1st gear but came out after the half in 5th gear and stayed there, but can you really give a #1 ranking to a team that went an entire half with 12 total yards of offense and zero 1st downs? And OSU made a great statement but it just wasn't enough (dang it...I really am not excited about that Tiger-Bama re-match). (And...BYU in its meaningless game did well).