BCS Tinkering
We've now come full circle.
Folks who once celebrated the fact that the BCS system lessened human subjectivity in the determination of the nation's best teams now have embraced a return to the greater subjectivity of human polls.
Berry Tramel explains the thinking:
A team on Labor Day is not the same as the team on Thanksgiving. The Oklahoma team of last October was not the same Oklahoma team of last December.
The polls saw it. The computers didn't.
In the cold, clean, factoid world of computers, OU's 35-7 loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 final was no high crime. But in the colorful landscape of the human brain, a 28-point defeat in December shouts loudly. This team deserved no Sugar Bowl.
Thus the BCS recast. Southern Cal, ranked No. 1 by traditional arbiters AP and the coaches, was barred from the national-championship Sugar bowl.
And suddenly the polls were in vogue again. What goes around comes around. If you lose, lose early. Makes sense to me.
I don't especially have a problem with it, but I did have a problem last year when so many people wanted to change the BCS rules in the middle of the game.
At some point in the next few years -- maybe even this season -- there will be a controversy over giving human voters so much sway, and we will swing back to greater reliance on formulas and equations. So it goes.
In some ways, we are all children of the Progressives. :)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/13/04 15:52 | Sports | Technorati
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Comments
I completely agree, both that the changes aren't bad and that it was quite annoying when people wanted to just throw the rules away with they didn't like the result.
Posted by R. Alex @ 17:40 on 06/13/04
The BCS is just BS no matter how they tinker with it. It is amazing the degree to which the college football morons try to stay from the P word.
Posted by Gary C. @ 20:33 on 06/13/04
As long as we can leave out teams with losing records, I'm open to anything.
The fact that so many teams with losing records got into the NCAA baseball tourney this year because they got hot on the right weekend and crowded out teams like Houston just chaps my arse. Urgh!
Posted by Kevin @ 23:24 on 06/13/04
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