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Do IT this week: Layering
Published on Thursday, Dec 06, 2007
The BCS is a mess.
There's a controversial statement.
Ranks right up there with the sun rises in the East and birds fly south for the winter.
What craziness can happen next? It's not as if we'd have a re-run of a Clinton and a former governor of Arkansas fighting to win an election now, would we.
Yes, the BCS is a mess, but the BCS' mess is not entirely its fault.
It's a mess because college football was a mess this year. There was no true, great team. Everyone would have been better served if the rankings started with 11.
Not to say that the BCS system isn't pretty goofy, what with its reliance on rankings and computers and complex algorithms or whatever it is they use to figure those ridiculous ranking points. It's just . . . confusing.
For instance, one week Missouri is No. 1 in the country.
The next week, it can't even get into a BCS bowl.
At the same time, Kansas, a team Missouri beat pretty handily, was selected for a BCS bowl.
Apparently, the best strategy is to lose and not reach your conference's championship game.
In common parlance, this is called a joke.
Which fits right into the BCS mess.
But no system would have figured this season's mess out.
Want a playoff? OK, pick the top four teams to take part in a ''plus-two'' system that Akron native and Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said he favored.
Think the fifth team might not get its knickers in an uproar?
What if it were the top eight?
Does Hawaii make it?
It was undefeated playing a Division I schedule. If Hawaii makes it, who doesn't? Missouri? Whoever made it, teams nine, 10, 11, 12 and 13 all would have been screaming.
And what about Hawaii for the national-title game? Seriously, why not?
Yes, its schedule was kind of comical. Teams it played won 31 percent of their games, or something like that. So it was not the best schedule, clearly.
But at last check, the Rainbows played 12 games and won all 12.
That's unbeaten in my book.
Which is hard to do, no matter the opponent.
Those who laugh at Hawaii's chances in a title game might want to remember Appalachian State over Michigan and SomethingWest Louisiana over Alabama. Oh, and Boise State last season beating Oklahoma. Upsets happen. They're the reason this college season turned the BCS into such a mess.
Why shouldn't Hawaii get a chance to prove its mettle against an Ohio State?
Because the big schools in the big conferences pretty much
effectively gerrymander the system to favor the big schools and the big conferences.
Sometimes, their greed hurts them.
See Missouri and the Big 12 title game. Ohio State benefited from not playing a title game. Missouri was hurt by it — though it's hard to counter the argument that all Mizzou had to do was win the game.
But it was still comical to hear Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe state how cool it would be for the conference to have Oklahoma win.
How's that? It's cool for Missouri to be knocked out of the national championship? Remind me to ask this guy to have my back next time I'm in an argument.
The Big 12 went for the money by adding a title game.
It's always about the money.
Players, coaches, conferences — they're always about money.
Les Miles probably was headed to Michigan until LSU upped its offer. More money meant Miles loved LSU a lot more, and he could then put on his self-righteous harangue about not leaving LSU.
That was touching.
Just like it's kind of touching to hear folks criticize Hawaii's schedule and then self-righteously state how Ohio State deserves to be in the national-title game.
Pardon me?
Before the season, several folks commented to me that Ohio State's nonconference schedule was a joke. Apologies to the University of Akron and Kent State, but playing them and Youngstown State wasn't exactly like bringing in Hawaii.
There were factors for the schedule that meant Ohio State was not stacking it, but it happened.
Right about now, though, everyone who criticized the schedule is probably pretty happy. Without that nonconference slate, Ohio State might not be playing two-loss LSU in the title game in New Orleans, which will pretty much be a home game for LSU.
Which is another joke.
Maybe the only thing that would have really saved this season's BCS mess would have been a Romeo Crennel coin flip. Choose the national champion that way.
It can't be any worse than what's in place.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com.
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