War Eagle Extra has moved!

You should be automatically redirected in 4 seconds. If not, visit
http://www.wareagleextra.com
and update your bookmarks.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Friday links (12/11)

One more day until Auburn begins its bowl preparation (click here for practice times). These links will tide you over until then:
  • The Bearcats players are TICKED. Get over it. He's a college football coach. It's your fault if you believe everything that comes out of his mouth.
  • Tennessee's Lane Kiffin dug in his heels, claiming "people are going to come after us" after accusations that Vols' hostesses broke NCAA rules regarding recruiting.
  • Want to be infuriated about the BCS? Listen to this Bowl Championship Series coordinator Bill Hancock on Adam Gold and Joe Ovies' radio program in Raleigh, N.C. His arguments for the BCS are mostly indefensible, and he repeatedly says that we minions don't understand the BCS, like it's some complex system. The hosts brings up Auburn in 2004 as the perfect season for why it doesn't work and Hancock doesn't do a great job of defending the system other than saying nothing's perfect.

3 comments:

jdinmacon said...

If the outright travesty that occured in 2004 doesn't bring down the BCS, I'm not sure anything will.

The BCS is all about money, bowls making money, schools making money. This is an economic issue, not a philisophical one. You can make the philisophical arguments all day long, but until someone can show that a playoff will provide the leagues and schools with equal or greater amounts of cash for postseason play, then the BCS is here to stay.

There are several sticky wickets to deal with in order to institute a playoff:

1. The playoff structure (8 team, 16 team? etc)
2. Conference championships (either everyone does or no one does)
3. extended season (is a 12 game regular season really necessary? I think a 10 game season would be better honestly)
4. get rid of bowls or tie them into the playoffs?
5. money. can a playoff generate the same or more money than the current bowl system? (I say more, but I'm not an economist)

Andy Bitter said...

To answer some of jdinmacon's questions. here's what I would say:

1) 8-team playoff. This gets every undefeated team in the mix no matter what. It's the top 8 from a list of rankings. A conference championship doesn't automatically get you in (otherwise some winner of a weak sister conference could sneak in). First-round games are on home sites. Play the first round right after the season. The next two rounds closer to New Years. And the four teams that lose in the first round of the playoffs can still go to a bowl game. That way those fans can still have a postseason destination to look forward to.

2) Have conference championship games if you want. It shouldn't decide who gets into the playoff. If a conference wants to risk its best team losing that late in the year, fine. If a conference thinks that playing a round robin schedule is a better idea, that's fine too.

3) I think you'd be hard-pressed to have schools give up on the 12-game season, since it would mean a ton of lost revenue. I'd vote 11 games, but that won't happen.

4) Keep the bowls. Keep them separate from the playoffs. Only the four best teams would be separated from the bowl selections, so there are still plenty of good matchups out there.

5) I've always though the idea that a playoff system wouldn't generate more money is preposterous. How much money does the NCAA basketball tournament rake in a year just in TV deals alone? (I just checked. CBS signed an 11-year, $6 billion contract.) People and advertisers will pay for football games, regardless of whether it's a bowl or a playoff. Anybody who says otherwise is lying.

Anonymous said...

No.

16 team playoff, just like they do at every other level in the NCAA (FCS, Division II, and Division III all have 16 team playoffs).

This is the best article I have seen, and it shows how a playoff could be done:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-ncaafplayoff120709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

It's time for a playoff system.