I agree with all of these points made by Fisher: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10259155/jimbo-fisher-florida-state-seminoles-cautious-new-college-football-playoff?src=mobile One point in particular he makes I have long said.... in the NFL it's a player's full-time job to rehab.... heal up.... train.... practice....etc... The student athlete is still a student. Also.... the level of week in week out physicality is much more intense at the major college level than it is in lower division football where playoffs are longer and more inclusive.
I have always rather liked the bowl season and the matchups, and agree that for the most part the outcome of the final polls is pretty good. But here are most of the reasons that I am glad that the BCS is going away...not all these problems will be solved, but... Chuck The BCS
To me it sounds like the story is focused on Junker the crook ( and boy was he )..... rather than the system that was the BCS. It's like saying Wall Street should be dismantled because of a handful of bad... dishonest and greedy brokers/middlemen. Of course some would argue that dishonesty and greed on Wall Street is good.... greed is good..... everyone wins.... :twisted: :evil: In any event I agree also with Jimbo Fisher who says that even with a 4 team playoff nos. 5 and 6 etc. will feel slighted.... make their cases for controversy etc.... My favorite scenario would have the 4 major bowl games then two weeks later have a plus one championship. That way you could still have the bowl hoopla.... have them mean something.... and see which 2 of the 4 winners was most impressive in it's bowl "playoff" game.
While I agree with him that years ago when there were fewer bowls and the bowls didn't determine the Nat'l Champion that New Years day was special and who won the Rose/Sugar/Orange/Cotton bowls was a big deal. But times change and people want playoffs, hell here in Texas the HS playoffs go deep into Dec, and they are expanded so that we end up crowning something like 8-10 State Champs and I think maybe 4 teams from each district end up in the playoffs.
Wow that guy was a real crook. Sounds like he might be doing time. But that's one BCS game. Sort of painting with a broad brush arent they?
awww they are students in the FBS division? I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that they were students in the FCS, DII, DIII and NAIA.... I didn't realize they were semi-pro? The head coach at Florida State of all places playing the, 'they are STUDENT-athletes', card is just a crock of sh*t in my opinion. He mentioned the physical toll? What the hell does Jimbo know about 18 hour bus trips to play a game?! Those kids on the lower levels aren't flying on chartered jets. His argument over 'you're only arguing over who is 4 and 5, or 2 and 3' is a crock of sh*t as well. That's the entire point. Quite often you can make a case for 4 being every bit as deserving as 2.
Re the Wetzel article. He's been drumming against the BCS for years. He's written several articles on the subject and he's covered a whole lot more than the Fiesta Bowl. I believe it was a year or two ago, he laid out the lavish spending of the Sugar Bowl (which is less than the Fiesta, but still ridiculous) I think what is being lost in the 'oh you're just attacking one guy' is how Wetzel goes to great lengths to show just how far these bowl executives are willing to go in order to protect their cash cow.
Dave the article wasn't about one guy. You are doing selective reading (again). And does it matter if we argue about who's 4 and who's 5? (We will for sure). If it was 16 teams we'd argue about who is 16 and who is 17. It's still a better way of determining who is the champion. But I do love watching all the bowls and the matchups, etc. I suspect that some of the luster will be taken off, hopefully to be replaced by something compelling enough to make up for it.
Something compelling is now going to include 4 teams and not 2 so that's a good thing. We need to continue to make conference championships something of great value..... to have good non-conference matchups that fuel debate amongst fans about which conference is the best etc. and therefore make the bowls worth watching. Teams that don't play a good schedule need to continue to be left out when it comes to selecting the top 4.
Dave, We agree on something. So I propose, conference champions only. The only wildcard is an unbeaten Independent (which would be either ND or BYU, both of them play schedules that stacks up to any conference slate). What say you?
The only problem I see with conference champions only is that I might like a once beaten Oregon who lost the PAC 12 Title game over a twice beaten Va Tech who has managed to win the ACC Title game over a twice beaten Ga Tech etc....
I think even if you go with the consensus top 4 in the polls you would solve most arguments most years. That would cover the undefeated teams in almost every, if not every year. In the weird years where there are no undefeated teams then the polls would cover it. Notre Dame and maybe BYU, if they were undefeated would certainly be in so that would always take care of itself. Of course 8 team playoffs would cover it all even better. We have to remember, FBS football was the only collegiate sport without a playoff. Let me say that again, FBS football was the only collegiate sport without a playoff.
KP, Agreed. As someone who would categorize himself as 'ferociously anti-BCS and pro-playoff', I honestly would like to see the 4 team format leveraged into an 8 game playoff. While it is 4 team, I think your top 4 idea is a great one except that I'd still include the caveat about being a conference champion or unbeaten independent. Like Dave said, we have to protect those conference championship games. Now, we both know, there's no way in hell the SEC or Big12 are going to settle for that. If we get them to give us what we all seemingly want (an 8 team playoff), then we lead them to it. That would be my plan, and if I'm the Pac12, or B1G I dig in on that. Dave, I think you'll find a major difference between the 2 conferences, and there are a few, is that nearly every P12 fan I've ever known or talked to about this is fine with conference champions moving on before any runner-up teams are selected. The Pac had a long established history of believing that everyone in the conference had to play everyone else before we could declare a champion. The BCS power brokers said that wasn't good enough, a title game was needed. We kept playing everyone and scheduled more aggressively than anyone in the nation out of conference. Again, the BCS power brokers said "nope, it's about conference.. you need a conference title game and conference games mean more than OOC.' So the Pac12 said, okay.. we went to the super conference format. Instead of adding another OOC against Murray State or NE Missouri State, we added another conference game.. we were still getting the high hat but we narrowed the gap. We can chalk it up to cultural differences, but I think you'll find that we've been operating on the notion (silly or not) that you should be the champion of something before you can try to stake a claim to being a national champion. We don't want to change the way you think or operate. We haven't been afforded the same luxury. The BCS is finally dead. It will live on, in a sense, in the 4 team format. The faster the 4 team format goes away and we go to 8 teams, the faster we can all get to what we want while being able to maintain our respective perspectives without compromising ourselves further.
And of course FBS football makes more money than all the other sports combined and supports almost all the othe sports. Yeah, they're different. However, they must have been doing something right.
Pimps have a pretty nice profit margin, as well. Is it college athletics, or a business? That's what bothers me about FBS. They talk out of both sides of their mouth using fear of the alleged 'unknown' to keep their pockets fat.
So Gipper do you think that will change with the playoff? Should making money be the motivation? Did Imention that there was only one college league that didn't have a playoff? :wink:
Us older guys grew up in awe of the bowls. Those Orange coats worn by the Orange Bowl scouts and news that they were "in attendance" at your team's big game was always exciting and cool to me. So what they made money ( but not Junker kind of money ).... what kind of money will be handled by a select few if there was an 8 team playoff? The players going to share in it? The fans? Will not a handful of people get rich on the whole extravaganza? An 8 team playoff would kill the major bowls and transfer the wealth to someone else.
Since Title IX making as much from the football program has been the aim of many major universities. In order to have football teams, universities have to have comparable numbers of money draining womens sports teams.