Big Crap Shoot. That’s the phrase that many have come to use when referring to the BCS, which uses an average of various polls to devise its rankings. The three polls used are the Harris Poll, the USA Today Coaches Poll and then a computer ranking. Any time you have a computer helping to determine the national champion, then you should know something’s fishy.
Year-after-year controversy is inevitable. This year is no different, but one thing is for certain. The winner of the Ohio State vs. Michigan game will be playing for the national championship. Who their opponent will be, though, is up in the air.
There are two other unbeatens left in college football besides OSU and Michigan. One is Boise State, who has no chance of making the title game, sitting at No. 12 in the BCS standings. How can a team that will most likely go undefeated not have a chance of being in the championship game? Because they don’t play anyone good? Okay, maybe I’ll give you that. But then there’s Rutgers, the other unbeaten team. They have a much more BCS-friendly schedule than Boise State. They just knocked off another unbeaten team in Louisville last week. The BCS computers rank them No. 2, but they suffer from a lack of respect in the other two polls (No. 7 in the Harris Poll and No. 8 in the USA Today Poll) that factor into the overall BCS ranking, placing them back at No. 6 in the BCS. Their season finale against No. 8 West Virginia (another past undefeated team until Louisville beat them) could help in the Scarlet Knights’ BCS Championship Game bid.
Rutgers trails behind three one-loss teams in the BCS standings. They are USC, Florida and Notre Dame. The possibilities for these three teams scramble the BCS picture even more. USC and Notre Dame play each other in a game that will definitely knock the loser out of the running. USC also has to play No. 15 California and UCLA. Florida has to play Florida State and an SEC title game. Notre Dame has the easiest chance to finish with only one loss if it can get past USC. But when Michigan loses to OSU, will they be able to jump the Wolverines, a team that stomped them earlier this season? USC has the toughest path to finish with just one loss and thus the best opportunity of jumping to No. 2 in the standings if they do. Still, how do you decide which one-loss team is best? And do they deserve to play for the national championship more than an undefeated Rutgers? The BCS answers none of these questions.
Now, I might be biased and would love to watch a rematch of OSU and Michigan in the title game. But the truth is that the loser of this weekend’s game does not deserve to play the winner again in the national championship. This would be useless. If the winner won the rematch, that would prove what we already knew. If the loser won the rematch, then it would seem unfair to crown them as national champions when both teams actually beat each other once. The loser should not play in the national championship game. This could happen, though, with the Big Crap Shoot. That’s why we need at least a four team playoff (which would add only one more week to the season) in order to create a more legitimate national championship game.
