Death to the BCS: Totally Revised and Updated: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel;Josh Peter

Author:Dan Wetzel;Josh Peter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Coaching, Football, Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781101545171
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2011-10-13T18:04:53+00:00

Here’s how the 2006–10 seasons should have ended ...

2006 Bracket

2007 Bracket

2008 Bracket

2009 Bracket

2010 Bracket

11

Diluting the Regular Season

In the final weeks of the 2009 NFL season, the Indianapolis Colts eschewed the pursuit of a perfect record to protect the health of their best players. They had clinched home-field advantage in the playoffs and didn’t want a freak injury to torpedo their Super Bowl chances. So in late December against the New York Jets, quarterback Peyton Manning and others left in the third quarter with a lead and sat on the bench as the Colts blew the game and their unblemished season. A firestorm brewed soon thereafter, with Colts president Bill Polian and coach Jim Caldwell deemed pariahs for treating a potential 19-0 season as inconsequential. Fans across the country were merciless in their assessment: This was an awful way to end a season.

Of course, the Cartel was thrilled by the Colts’ decision to tank. Off went a lightbulb in its collective head, albeit one that shone with the false glow of ignorance. Somehow, it came up with this argument against a playoff: If a team like Indianapolis is throwing games, how long until Ohio State just gives up against Michigan because its spot in the college tournament is set?

There are dozens of reasons this would never happen in college football. The Cartel chose to exploit the Colts anyway, never allowing the truth to get in the way. Reality is borne out by history: Never has a scenario arisen in which it would make mathematical sense for a team to sandbag games if there were a playoff. And it never will. Ever.

Not that the Cartel would allow such fly-by-night disciplines as math or history to stop its scare tactics. The Colts’ argument, fallacious though it may be, became a centerpiece to the talking point that a playoff would irreparably harm the sport’s regular season. Never mind that the weekly drama leading up to a sixteen-team, fifteen-game college football bonanza would be palpable—the number of critical games would multiply, and schools big and small would benefit. More games would matter, and they would matter more.

Anyone with a simple understanding of probability knows that Indianapolis’ decision doesn’t have any relation to what could or would happen in college football. That didn’t stop BCS executive director Bill Hancock from sending out lengthy press releases and blog posts arguing the exact opposite.

“[The Colts’ decision] does offer a real-life illustration of what an NFL-style playoff could do to college football’s regular season,” Hancock wrote.

Here’s a real real-life illustration: The Colts compete with fifteen teams for the No. 1 seed in the AFC. Each team plays sixteen games, and barring a tie, overall record is the sole seeding criteria. In a college football playoff, 120 teams would vie for the No. 1 seed. Their bodies of work are twelve or thirteen games. The seeds would be based on myriad factors: record, strength of schedule, quality of victory, and how and when a team lost.

Only one scenario exists in

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