the BCS = emporer's new clothes

rokrok
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
don't know if that analogy is perfect, but for all the "ooh, aah, the BCS will save us all" rhetoric we've listened to as they have trotted the regal BCS past our doorfronts for everyone to see and revere, this weekend's events have served as the little girl who was the one to point out that the BCS had no clothes.



USC #1 in both polls, BUT...



Oklahoma #2 vs. LSU #3 for the national championship, even though OU isn't even it's own CONFERENCE champion.



methinks they need to hire a few more mathematicians to tweak that BCS formula a bit, huh? or, as i contend, shorten all schedules to no longer than 11 games, and make a two round, four team playoff between the top four teamsin the BCS system. that way the season doesn't eat up even more school year, yet still should yield a team everyone is happy with.



pipe dream? sure, but i'm sticking to it...



p.s. i think i should maybe move away from the mad scene that's going to occur in new orleans as the home state LSU tigers fights for it all. talk about a friggin' madhouse.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 50
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Dude. I have no flinging idea what the meaning with your post is. Does it have something to do with math or sports?
  • Reply 2 of 50
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    Dude. I have no flinging idea what the meaning with your post is. Does it have something to do with math or sports?



    It's got almost nothing to do with math and only a marginal amount with sports. It the new-fangled way for money-grubbers to get more money off of athletes who work for free.
  • Reply 3 of 50
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    The BCS is a joke.



    How does the #2 team go to #3 after the #1 team loses? W T F...



    The west coast teams (Pac 10) get no respect!
  • Reply 4 of 50
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    USC should send the Tigers and Sooners a giant wooden horse at halftime of the Sugar Bowl.
  • Reply 5 of 50
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    This is about football and math.



    -

    As far as respect goes, USC was voted #1 by both human polls. The rest of the Pac10 just wasn't good this year. Wazzou is second best in the conference and they are a 3-loss squad, though they'll get their chance against my #6 Longhorns in the Holiday Bowl.



    USC was definitely screwed. I don't see how you lose your conference championship game by four touchdowns and still go to the national championship game.



    But then again, the Pac10, Big10 and ACC don't even have championship games.



    The margin between USC and LSU was .16

    What killed USC was the strength of schedule component, which is where being from a weak Pac10 got them.

    (lower score is better)

    human poll avg + cpu avg + sched.str + #losses - qual.win

    OU: 3 + 1.17 + 0.44 + 1 - 0.5 = 5.11

    LSU: 2 + 1.83 + 1.16 + 1 - 0.0 = 5.99

    USC: 1 + 2.67 + 1.48 + 1 - 0.0 = 6.15



    Insanity.
  • Reply 6 of 50
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    Dude. I have no flinging idea what the meaning with your post is. Does it have something to do with math or sports?



    BCS = Bowl Championship Series

    aka the system of computers, math formulas and some human votes to try to create an undisputed, completely unbiased, single national college football champion.



    every year it has been in existence since 1998, it has come under fire, but it always seemed to work out that the best team in the nation actually came out on top in the end. it was the #2 on down that seemed to get really head-scratching at times. and don't even get me started on some of the atrocities to bowl tradition it has allowed (like the rose bowl is no longer necessarily the big ten vs. pac-10 champions anymore, especially if it is for the national championship).



    but now, you've got a team in oklahoma university that, by the computer formulas, was so strong that even a loss, no matter how bad, in their final game would STILL send them to the championship bowl game. and voila! oklahoma laid an egg against kansas state in their conference championship game, losing, what, 35-7, and they STILL get to go to the championship game.



    now this is NOT to say the old system was a lot better. being totally decided by humans, things such as running up the score and regional bias could figure into strange rankings of teams at times, and sometimes you would have two teams where everyone agreed was the best in the nation ('90, when georgia tech and colorado both finished with the same records and won their bowl games, and GT won more convincingly, is a good example).



    like i said, someone's gotta remember these guys are supposed to kind of be IN SCHOOL, so i don't want a 16-game playoff to decide. but i have to think that pitting the four best teams would have to decide a national championship... unless you get a team do what texas christian university almost did and have a small school with a moderate schedule go undefeated. yeah, i know, they would probably be destroyed against a large school opponent, but you never know. there should be three major slots and one at-large to compensate for a small school with an insane record to decide it all. keep the regular season a bit shorter, and get back tot eh bowl season that i loved so much when i was a kid.
  • Reply 7 of 50
    pfflampfflam Posts: 5,053member
    I would have liked USC to play LSU . . . . it sounds right and doesn't take a comuter to figure it out . . . even if you are reading this on a computer . . .
  • Reply 8 of 50
    mcsjgsmcsjgs Posts: 244member
    BCS Nokia Sugar Bowl = "We're No. 2, We're No. 2."
  • Reply 9 of 50
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    Oklahoma lost to Kansas State

    USC lost to Cal





    still don't see why USC should be ahead of Oklahoma



    despite that, USC vs Michigan at the Rose Bowl is going to be awesome.
  • Reply 10 of 50
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by applenut

    Oklahoma lost to Kansas State

    USC lost to Cal



    still don't see why USC should be ahead of Oklahoma





    well, Cal didn't smear USC like KState did the Sooners.
  • Reply 11 of 50
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    well, Cal didn't smear USC like KState did the Sooners.



    I didn't see the KSU - OU game, so I don't know for sure, but did OU just quit? I mean, all the pundits were saying that OU would be in the Sugar Bowl regardless of the outcome, so did they just say "why the hell should we bust our butts here? Let's save it for the bowl game..." or did KSU really beat them that badly?
  • Reply 12 of 50
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the BCS. It's a flawed system that cannot be saved IMO.



    I'm not watching the game.



    Yes you can say both OU and USC lost but it was WHEN they lost that's important. OU should have won their conference ...they knew what was at stake. I don't give a rip about strength of schedule. No one gave the Pac 10 any credit in 2001 when the UW kicked Miami's ass. Oregon kicked UT's ass and Oregon State demolished Notre Dame.



    I'm disgusted.
  • Reply 13 of 50
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pensieve

    I didn't see the KSU - OU game, so I don't know for sure, but did OU just quit? I mean, all the pundits were saying that OU would be in the Sugar Bowl regardless of the outcome, so did they just say "why the hell should we bust our butts here? Let's save it for the bowl game..." or did KSU really beat them that badly?



    tough to say, but it was certainly a combo of kstate being a good team, and ou not giving a sh!t. it was also a neutral site, so it didn't figure as large in the bcs ranking as, say, a home loss.



    p.s. i think lots of people would have loved to see that LSU defense against the USC offense for all the marbles.
  • Reply 14 of 50
    cooopcooop Posts: 390member
    Needless to say, it was a fairly anticlimactic ending to a wonderful football season, but, at the very least, the BCS standings show the weaknesses of the current system and will (hopefully) give rise to a better system (a.k.a. playoffs) in the near future.

    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eugene

    USC should send the Tigers and Sooners a giant wooden horse at halftime of the Sugar Bowl.



    No, we learned our lesson the first time: do not trust giant wooden horses. Although I wouldn't mind seeing Tommy Trojan kick a little Sooner/Tiger ass.

    Quote:

    Originally posted by applenut

    despite that, USC vs Michigan at the Rose Bowl is going to be awesome.



    Damn right!
  • Reply 15 of 50
    As much as I'd like to see a west coast team in the championship, I'm not sure I agree with the sentiments presented here.



    First, to say that Oklahoma isn't deserving of playing in the Sugar Bowl based on one loss is ridiculous. Oklahoma was clearly the best team over the long haul. They beat the #6 team (Texas) by 53 points, and were no less dominant in any other game. (I mean, they beat A&M 77-0 and actually tried to not run-up the score). Oklahoma seems to be being penalized for being the last team to lose by the people on this board (and in the polls).



    Second, LSU's only loss was a close game to Florida, and they were the champion in a league that, allow though it pains me to say it, was much tougher than the Pac-10.



    Now, this doesn't mean I think that USC is undeserving. But, they have by far the ugliest lost (don't let the triple overtime aspect of that game confuse you; Cal manhandled USC for the most part, and only stayed in it due to an interception return for a touchdown early in the second half). And the Pac-10 is a much less powerful league this year than either the Big-12 and the SEC.



    Now, personally, I support an 8 team, 3 round playoff, for which I think there is time. But to rant and rave about USC being 1st in the polls and 3rd in the BCS is a bit ridiculous. Since when did the polls become the end-all of college football debate? The polls are extremely biased toward late season losses (which is very noticeable this year, and was even more noticeable two years ago, when one-loss FSU was #2, which had lost to #3 Miami (with one-loss), who had actually lost to #4 (one-loss Washington)). The polls are biased to the length of the season. I give the computers credit, actually. They rewarded Oklahoma for the long haul.
  • Reply 16 of 50
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    Sorry, but if you aren't a conference champion, you don't deserve to play for the national title. 'Nuff said.
  • Reply 17 of 50
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BR

    Sorry, but if you aren't a conference champion, you don't deserve to play for the national title. 'Nuff said.



    if all thing were equal and every conference played a championship game, then i would agree. unfortunately, as stated above, teams that loose late in the year are always penalized more heavily by the human polls than not, and there is a big difference between getting beat by the number 14 team in the nation and someone that's not even close to being in the top 25. that being said, i do think that it sucks that it came down like this and no matter how you slice it, one team was going to be slighted.
  • Reply 18 of 50
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    Quote:

    if all thing were equal and every conference played a championship game, then i would agree.



    Read:

    "If it was any team other than mine, I would agree."



    USC beat the crap out of everyone in their conference and only lost to a team not in contention in 3 overtimes. I agree that the Pac-10 should have a CCG, but that doesn't mean you keep a team out of the NC game who rightfully should be there.



    --



    I don't know why people are saying "teams are penalized for losing late" as if it's a bad thing. That's how it should work if we're going to have polls. Losing by 4 touchdowns in your last game of the season is very lame, especially when the team you get preference over beat the hell out of their last team.



    We're not looking for who the best team was on September 4th or October 28th, but right now.



    You've got three 1-loss teams:

    Team A won its conference championship and beat their last opponent (NR AP) by 24.

    Team B lost its conference championship and lost to their last opponent (#13 AP) by 28.

    Team C won its conference championship and beat their last opponent (#5 AP) by 21.



    I may be biased because I $$$$ing hate OU with every football bone in my body, but this is clear to anyone.



    USC was $$$$ed, hard. I think OU wins because I don't respect LSU or the SEC, but if USC rolls Michigan (I expect them to win) it's a bullshit title for whoever wins the Sugar Bowl.
  • Reply 19 of 50
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    Tony Kornheiser has a great article on the subject and asks the key question:

    Do you trust a machine over what you saw with your own eyes?



    Anyone who watched all three games (I watched USC then flipped between OU and LSU) will tell you who the best teams were. OU wasn't even in the top 4. LSU, USC, Georgia and K-State ALL played better than OU Saturday.



    "But we beat Texas 65-13."

    In October! And Mack Brown is more scared of OU than Michael Jackson is of heterosexual sex with a grown woman.



    That and OU's coach sends some 'roid-freak assistant coach who barely speaks English ("SOONERS GOOD! FOOTBALL YEAH!") to deal with the BCS ceremonies. Don't want to answer the tough, obvious question about how your squad loses by 4 $$$$ing touchdowns and walks into the championship game? I'm sure he would've been there doing the $$$$ed-up-pinky clap if they had managed to win.
  • Reply 20 of 50
    horse shit. currently, there is no playoff system, so every game is just as important as another, be it at the begining or end of the year. your just pissed because your team is now out of a BCS bowl. you know of course, that's the only reason we lost was to take a big dump on your parade. well... that and the fact that we did get our asses handed to us, but that's beside the point.
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