Armchair Quarterback: Small schools can’t win in BCS system
I’m not one to support frivolous lawsuits, since they tend to be a big waste of time and money; however, I hope Tulane University sues the fire out of the Bowl Championship Series and it’s monopolistic henchmen.
In recent meetings, the leaders of the major conferences voted against having a championship playoff, saying it could have an negative impact on the academic achievement of college athletes. This decision was made despite the fact that every other college sport, including the smaller divisions of college football, have some type of tournament to decide their champion.
Now I’m not going to go on the age-old diatribe about needing a college football championship tournament in Division 1-A, since I believe 99 percent of football fans are in agreement on that. Instead, what bothers me is that the six major conferences of the BCS have an exclusive stranglehold on the major bowls and national championship.
The BCS includes the champions of the Pac-10, the Big 12, the Big Ten, the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big East, who all get automatic bids, plus two at-large teams. These fill up the major bowls including the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and Rose, with one of those bowls hosting the national championship game each year on a rotating schedule.
To make the BCS as an at-large team, if you are not from one of these major conferences, you have to be ranked in the top six. Unless you are Notre Dame, this just doesn’t happen. For instance, look at Tulane a few years ago, the same year Tennessee won the national championship. They went undefeated but could only muster a rank of 11th so they ended up in the Liberty Bowl.
This whole system has teams like Tulane, who are from the non-major conferences, crying foul. They are essentially locked out of all major bowl contention because they are not from the elite six. It doesn’t matter if they have the best team in the nation since the polls traditionally lean toward the perennial powerhouses in their voting, meaning a non-major won’t get a top six ranking.
Presently, a meeting is planned for Sept. 8 at which time Tulane and some other teams from smaller conferences are threatening to file a federal lawsuit claiming the NCAA is violating competition laws as they apply to business.
Whether you want to face it or not, college football is big business. The BCS alone pays out $80 million each year to the member conferences while those of the lesser conferences are looking at a payday of around $8 million during bowl season. It appears the big six conferences have an old-boy network who enjoy big monetary dividends as part of their exclusive club.
Would a tournament ensure an even playing field for the smaller conferences? Probably not. However, mathematically, a eight or 16-team playoff field, without guarantees to the big conferences, would give these other teams a better shot. Right now there is virtually no way to for smaller conferences to get in the mix. This is demonstrating itself in the recent shake up in the Big East and ACC where the Big East is afraid of losing television and bowl money due to the departure of Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC.
If things aren’t changed, what we’ll be left with is six super conferences which will squash anyone not in their exclusive clubs. Actually, it’s pretty much that way already as colleges are trying to get onboard the super conference bandwagon.
It’s obvious the major bowls are rich enough to buy off any attempt at changing the present system.
Perhaps it’s time the courts get involved and make the big bullies play fair with the rest of the kids.