Playoffs? No Way (for San) Jose.
Everyone is up in arms about playoffs again this season as the BCS continues to fail in unifying the country regarding who is or isn't the best teams and who deserves to play for the title of national champion. I think this is as good a time as any to bring up my own method of crowning a national champion: whoever wins the National-Champion Bowl (sponsered by the rental car company and the athletic wear manufacturer). But since playoff is on teh tip of everyone's tongue, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon today. Especially since ESPN and AccuScore have made it so easy to plug in scenarios and see who is likely to come out of a single-loss tournament unscathed. I plugged in the top 16 teams from Chaos Rankings as the 1-16 seeds and I think some of the matchups are great.
Other brackets I've seen using the BCS top 16 get fudged to avoid intra-conference matchups in the first round. This of course is no different than the NCAA Basketball tournament. They don't take the top 64 (okay, 65) teams and plug them in exactly that order. Apart from the fact that they don't take the top 65 teams, they also take into account regional matchups, travel, and attempt to avoid conference matchups or regular-season rematches in the early rounds. I suspect this tournament would be no different if such a thing were to ever occur (it won't). Anyway, I ran the simulation from AccuScore and got some results that I don't think are too far from the realm of possibility.
Oklahoma felt slighted not playing for the BCS championship, but here they ended up winning out and taking the crown afterall. Along the way, we got to see a Kansas-OU matchup that never occured this season since Mizzou beat Kansas to win the Big 12 North. We also got to see the LSU-USC matchup that everyone predicted pre-season would be for the national title. This scenarios also corrects the gross miscarriage of justice that is sending Mizzou to the Cotton Bowl instead of a BCS game and allowing the Illini to play in the Rose Bowl. Of course, the BCS could fix that themselves by allowing multiple teams from the same conference into BCS games provided they meet the same criteria as other at-large teams. This simple rule change would also have allowed Wisconsin to play in a BCS game last year. It's inane that this exclusionary rule still exists. Then of course you have to draw a line somewhere, but I would also like to see teams who won their divisions (notably BC and Tennessee) have a way to get into the tournament I outlined above. Maybe it would also encourage the other conferences to start holding their own championship games and put everyone on equal footing. I'm looking at you Pac 10, Big Te(leve)n, and Big East, as well as the remaining handful of mid-major conferences. If the MAC and CUSA can do it, surely so can you... In the words of Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, you're on notice.
Other brackets I've seen using the BCS top 16 get fudged to avoid intra-conference matchups in the first round. This of course is no different than the NCAA Basketball tournament. They don't take the top 64 (okay, 65) teams and plug them in exactly that order. Apart from the fact that they don't take the top 65 teams, they also take into account regional matchups, travel, and attempt to avoid conference matchups or regular-season rematches in the early rounds. I suspect this tournament would be no different if such a thing were to ever occur (it won't). Anyway, I ran the simulation from AccuScore and got some results that I don't think are too far from the realm of possibility.
Oklahoma felt slighted not playing for the BCS championship, but here they ended up winning out and taking the crown afterall. Along the way, we got to see a Kansas-OU matchup that never occured this season since Mizzou beat Kansas to win the Big 12 North. We also got to see the LSU-USC matchup that everyone predicted pre-season would be for the national title. This scenarios also corrects the gross miscarriage of justice that is sending Mizzou to the Cotton Bowl instead of a BCS game and allowing the Illini to play in the Rose Bowl. Of course, the BCS could fix that themselves by allowing multiple teams from the same conference into BCS games provided they meet the same criteria as other at-large teams. This simple rule change would also have allowed Wisconsin to play in a BCS game last year. It's inane that this exclusionary rule still exists. Then of course you have to draw a line somewhere, but I would also like to see teams who won their divisions (notably BC and Tennessee) have a way to get into the tournament I outlined above. Maybe it would also encourage the other conferences to start holding their own championship games and put everyone on equal footing. I'm looking at you Pac 10, Big Te(leve)n, and Big East, as well as the remaining handful of mid-major conferences. If the MAC and CUSA can do it, surely so can you... In the words of Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, you're on notice.
posted by Rev. Adam at
2:41 PM
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