The Guru's Note: Beginning in June, the Guru will publish a
review of each of the 10 seasons since the Bowl Championship Series
came into existence in 1998. In this series --
Ten Years of BCS -- the Guru will examine the
results from these seasons -- who got lucky and who got robbed, what
could've been, what should've been and other controversies of the day.
The series will appear weekly leading up to the 2008 season.
========================
After two years of relative calm, controversy
exploded on the BCS in Year 3. For the first time, a team's presence
in the BCS title game was called into question. And the criticism went
unabated even after an undefeated champion was crowned.
But if anything, this was a self-inflicted wound.
Bowing more to an ignorant media than any real
pressure from public opinion, the BCS drastically changed its formula
to retroactively make amends for an outcome it was powerless to
change. Instead of defending its method and holding its ground, the
BCS capitulated. This knee-jerk reaction would bring far more serious
consequences in the years to come and compromise its claim to
legitimacy in the system's formative years.
Oklahoma finished the 2000 regular season as the
only undefeated team and its No.1 ranking was undisputed. But Florida
State, despite ranking No. 3 in both the AP and coaches polls,
leapfrogged No. 2 Miami in the final BCS standings to earn a date with
the Sooners in the Orange Bowl.
The media went berserk, more so than even Miami
coach Butch Davis. The credibility of BCS computers was called into
question because it was the computers' preference for the Seminoles
that carried the day. The main argument was this: Since both Miami and
Florida State each had one loss, and the Hurricanes beat the Seminoles
on the field, how could Florida State be ranked ahead of Miami?
The BCS panicked big time. Changes were promised
and then carried out in the offseason. The computer lineup was
reshuffled to de-emphasize margin of victory. And a dubious "quality
win" criteria was added to the formula -- as if the existing
arrangement wasn't convoluted enough.
But the BCS should've responded ith: "What's the
problem?" and vigorously defended the system.
Florida State was a worthy No. 2 team. If you lined
up FSU and Miami side-by-side, plenty could've been made in the
Seminoles' favor:
1. Strength of Schedule: Florida State and
Miami ranked Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, in the strength of schedule
compartment of the BCS standings. But upon further examination, that
was laughable. (the SoS, parroted from the RPI that the NCAA uses for
its basketball selections, would prove to be the most destructive part
of the formula -- but more on that later in the series.) Florida State
played in a tougher conference (ACC)- than Miami (Big East). Its
non-conference games consisted of Louisville, Brigham Young, Florida
and Miami. The 'Canes played I-AA McNeese State, Louisiana Tech,
Washington and FSU, plus Big East cupcakes such as Rutgers and Temple.
2. Losses: Florida State's
lone loss was to Miami, 27-24, at the Orange Bowl on Oct. 7. The
Seminoles rallied from a 17-0 halftime deficit to take a 24-20 lead
late in the game, only to lose on a Ken Dorsey-to-Jeremy Shockey pass
with 46 seconds left. The 'Canes' only defeat was a 34-29 loss at
Washington on Sept. 9.
3. The Washington Factor: If head-to-head
results were so paramount, then maybe Washington should've been ranked
ahead of Miami. After all, the Huskies beat Miami and also
only lost once -- a 23-16 defeat at two-loss Oregon.
4. Margin of Victory: If Washington was
discounted because it won lots of close games -- eight of its 11 games
were decided by seven or fewer points -- then the fact that Florida
State won its games, against a considerably tougher schedule, by a
wider margin than Miami (38.9 vs. 30.4) should not have been
overlooked. And the computers didn't.
5. Historic Precedent: Even before the birth
of BCS, there had been several instances that a team was ranked ahead
of another despite losing head-to-head and possessing the same record.
In 1993, Florida State finished ahead of Notre Dame in both polls even
though the Irish won, 31-24, at South Bend. In 1978, USC finished
second to Alabama (11-1) in the AP poll even though the Trojans (12-1)
beat the Tide, 24-14, in Birmingham, Ala.
See, the body of evidence is pretty strong in the
Seminoles' favor. Their presence in the BCS championship game was
easily defensible. That they laid an near-egg in an ugly 13-2 loss to
Oklahoma is immaterial. And that Miami defeated a Florida team in the
Sugar Bowl -- a team that the 'Noles walloped -- is irrelevant.
And one more thing: Even if today's BCS formula,
which gives two-thirds of its weight to the human polls, were applied
to the 2000 season, you'd still end up with the same result. Florida
State would've finished second, ahead of Miami (1.1093 vs. 1.1025).
* Using present day BCS formula: 1. Oklahoma, 2. Florida State.
* Using human polls only: 1. Oklahoma, 2. Miami
(Fla.)
* Plus-One: Oklahoma vs. Washington; Florida State vs. Miami (Fla.).
Controversy:
* Notre Dame windfall: The Fiesta Bowl
passed on four teams ahead of Notre Dame in the BCS standings to take
the two-loss No. 10 Irish. Virginia Tech, ranked No. 5 with its only
loss to Miami, fell just outside of the Kansas State-mandate and was
ignored. Three other two-loss teams were also swept aside -- Oregon
(out because two other Pac-10 teams were already taken), Kansas State
(they're pretty used to this by now) and Nebraska. The Huskers also
had a beef because they had defeated Notre Dame in South Bend, 27-24,
earlier in the season. This occurred at a time when the Irish received
a windfall of $13 million for a BCS bowl appearance -- as opposed to
today's more balanced payouts. Notre Dame was promptly exposed as a
fraud as it was annihilated by Dennis Erickson's Oregon State Beavers,
41-9.
BCS formula review: No change to the formula
was made between the 1999 and 2000 seasons. And that's about to
change, as the formula would be tweaked or overhauled in four of the
next five years.
Analysis: The changes to the BCS formula
prior to the 2001 season would prove to be simply reactionary and
solved nothing. And while an argument may be stated on Miami's behalf,
the results of the bowl games really made a case for Washington. The
Huskies went 7-1 in easily the toughest conference in 2000. They beat
Purdue in the Rose Bowl; and bowl wins by Oregon State and Oregon gave
the Pac-10 three teams in the top seven in the final AP poll. The BCS
was rocked by its first real crisis and another one would erupt the
following season.
The Guru's Note: Beginning in June, the Guru will publish a
review of each of the 10 seasons since the Bowl Championship Series
came into existence in 1998. In this series --
Ten Years of BCS -- the Guru will examine the
results from these seasons -- who got lucky and who got robbed, what
could've been, what should've been and other controversies of the day.
The series will appear weekly leading up to the 2008 season.
=========================
Give yourself a big pat on the back, BCS. You
deserve it. You got it right.
You matched up the only two undefeated major conference teams in the
national championship game. Brilliant! Couldn't have done it without
ya!
What's was left unsaid was: "Whew!"
Despite the obvious -- only Florida State and Virginia Tech emerged
from the regular season unbeaten -- there were doubts about whether
they'd face each other in the Sugar Bowl for the national title. At
the end, Virginia Tech had a barely comfortable margin to hold off
one-loss No. 3 Nebraska to play in the title game.
In the 10-year history of the BCS, 1999 had to be one of the most
uneventful. The Seminoles went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team, their
place in New Orleans never in question. Upset losses by Penn State and
Tennessee in the first two weeks of November paved the way for
Virginia Tech to seize the No. 2 ranking.
The Hokies, led by redshirt freshman quarterback Michael Vick, had to
sweat out the final four weeks of the regular season mostly because of
a soft schedule. With strength of schedule a separate component
accounting for nearly one-third of the BCS standings, Virginia Tech
had a hard time gaining breathing room from the Cornhuskers, finishing
just 1.30 points ahead in the final standings.
Just as in 1998, an undefeated non-BCS conference team finished
the regular season unbeaten. And just like Tulane, a 12-0 Marshall
team was shut out of a BCS bowl despite finishing No. 12 in the final
standings. And one more thing like the Green Wave: The Thundering
Herd, quarterbacked by Chad Pennington, completed a perfect season
with a victory over BYU, in the Motor City Bowl.
In the Sugar Bowl, Vick rallied the Hokies to take a 29-28 lead at the
end of the third quarter. But the Seminoles scored the game's final 18
points in the fourth quarter, giving Bobby Bowden his only, and
perhaps final, national championship.
Final BCS Standings: 1. Florida State, 2. Virginia Tech, 3.
Nebraska, 4. Alabama.
Alternative Methods:
* Using present day BCS formula: 1. Florida State, 2. Virginia Tech.
* Using human polls only: 1. Florida State, 2. Virginia Tech.
* Plus-One: Florida State vs. Alabama; Virginia Tech vs. Nebraska.
Controversies:
* Kansas State snub II: Well, it wasn't quite as egregious as
the one in 1998, but the Wildcats once again earned the dubious honor
of being the highest-ranked team not invited to a BCS bowl. K-State,
ranked No. 6 with its only loss to Nebraska, was passed up by the
Fiesta Bowl (No. 5 Tennessee) and Orange Bowl (No. 8 Michigan). But
unlike the previous year, the Wildcats managed to hold it together and
win the Holiday Bowl, 24-20, over Washington.
* Marshall snub: With today's arrangement, the Herd would've
earned an automatic BCS berth. But with strength-of-schedule a key
component in the formula at the time, Marshall was doomed by its
98th-place schedule. The MAC champs, however, would become the last
undefeated team not to play in a BCS bowl.
BCS Formula Review: Five more computer rankings were added to
the formula -- Billingsley, Dunkel, Massey, Matthews and Rothman --
bringing the total to eight. The lowest ranking among the eight was
dropped and the remaining seven averaged to produce the computer
ranking. Also, a "Kansas State clause" was added, guaranteeing any
team finishing in the top four a BCS bowl spot, but the Wildcats
weren't in position to benefit from it.
Analysis: Two years in, the BCS appeared to be producing the
desired results. The title games matched deserving teams and the other
BCS bowls featured interesting matchups. But this was only the calm
before the storm, as raging controversies were about to envelope the
BCS, forcing major changes almost annually in the coming years.
The Guru's Note: Beginning in June, the Guru will publish a
review of each of the 10 seasons since the Bowl Championship Series
came into existence in 1998. In this series --
Ten Years of BCS -- the Guru will examine the
results from these seasons -- who got lucky and who got robbed, what
could've been, what should've been and other controversies of the day.
The series will appear weekly leading up to the 2008 season.
=========================
On the precipice of a disaster in its infancy, the
BCS was magically rescued by the hurricanes -- one named Georges, the
other named Edgerrin James.
Three teams headed into the final Saturday of the
season with undefeated records: Tennessee, Kansas State and UCLA. The
Vols and Wildcats were scheduled to play in their respective
conference title games; while the Bruins, riding a nation-best 20-game
winning streak, were to play Miami at the Orange Bowl in a makeup
game.
Originally, the game was to be played on Sept. 26.
But because of the imminent threat of Hurricane Georges, it was
temporarily postponed. UCLA had the option of canceling the game
outright and standing on its performance in 10 games, but it took the
risky move of rescheduling the game for the final day of the season.
The Miami team that beat UCLA, 49-45, that day was
a vast improvement over the one the Bruins would've faced on Sept. 26.
Behind James' 299 rushing yards (on 39 carries), the 'Canes shredded a
shaky UCLA defense and benefited from an erroneous fumble call.
Besides ending UCLA's quest to appear in the first BCS title game,
Miami's upset victory sent the Bruins into a long descent into
national irrelevance.
After UCLA's loss, it was up to Tennessee and
Kansas State to hold up their end of the bargain. The Volunteers did
but the Wildcats didn't -- losing to double-digit underdog Texas A&M
in double overtime, 36-33. As a parting gift, K-State was handed an
Alamo Bowl berth after being shut out of the BCS bowls.
While the Tennessee-Florida State title game --
played in the Fiesta Bowl -- was generally acknowledged as a fair
outcome, there were a few minor controversies in the year of BCS's
birth. Besides the snubbing of K-State, an 11-0 Tulane team was also
shut out of the BCS. But thanks to the hurricanes, a catastrophe was
averted.
Using present day BCS formula: 1.
Tennessee, 2. Florida State.
Using human polls only: 1. Tennessee
(1-AP, 1-Coaches), 2. Florida State (2-AP, 2-Coaches).
Plus-One: Tennessee vs. Ohio State;
Florida State vs. Kansas State.
Controversies:
Kansas State snub: Despite finishing
third in the final BCS standings, the Wildcats found themselves in the
non-BCS Alamo Bowl. The Sugar Bowl opted for Big Ten co-champion Ohio
State, who was the top-ranked team for most of the season until a
28-24 upset loss to Michigan State. The Orange Bowl took Steve
Spurrier's Florida Gators, who finished eighth in the BCS standings. A
dispirited and disinterested K-State team lost to Purdue, 37-34.
Tulane snub: An 11-0 record and
Conference USA title weren't enough to get the Green Wave to a BCS
bowl game, let alone a spot in the title game. Tulane, ranked No. 10,
today would've received an automatic berth by being in the top 12.
Nevertheless, playing without a head coach after Tommy Bowden took the
Clemson job, the Green Wave romped to a 41-27 Liberty Bowl victory
over BYU under some guy named Rich Rodriguez.
BCS Formula Review: The initial BCS
standings, the brainchild of then-SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, was an
unwieldy clunker divided in three -- human polls, computer rankings
and strength of schedule. And each loss is tacked on as additional
penalty. Only three computers were used -- Anderson & Hester, Jeff
Sagarin and New York Times. Margin of victory was accounted for by all
three computers and a 50% adjusted maximum deviation factor was
applied.
Analysis: UCLA's loss, which occurred
earlier in the day on Dec. 5, gave the BCS poobahs a huge sigh of
relief. Tennessee's 23-16 victory over Florida State in the Fiesta
Bowl, though underwhelming, was controversy-free. The BCS seemingly
passed its first test ... only if they knew.
APRIL 30, 2008 -- So the head honchos who run college football
went to Hollywood (Florida, that is) and, after a few days in the
sun and too many pina coladas, they reached this shocking conclusion:
The BCS is beautiful as it is. Why mess with it?
With that, the Guru breathes a huge sigh of relief,
knowing that I won't have to fold up shop after the 2009 season. Heck,
the way this meeting went, I should be able to count on lots of buffo
business well into my retirement. (Don't worry, I'll just mobile in my
blogs from Lanikai -- if "mobile" and "blogs" are still relevant in
2030).
But rather than offering a typical
ESPN-esque explanation as to why the BCS conferences -- with input
from the smaller ones and Notre Dame -- opted for conservatism over
revolution, the Guru considered the issues more deeply. And the
reality is so much more than the powers-that-be's allergy to any sort
of playoff talk.
The only alternative on the table, presented by SEC
commissioner Mike Slive, was rejected out of hand. The problem with
his "plus-one" model was not so much that it resembled a playoff, but
because its existence would threaten the financial well-being of some
of his fellow travelers.
While it was well-known that the Big Ten and Pac-10
passionately opposed any alterations to the current format, the Big 12
broke its silence and threw its weight behind the status quo. And you
can add the Big East to the mix as well. That makes four out of six
BCS conferences. Slive's proposal was DOA before the first drink was
poured.
The Big Ten and the Pac-10 want to keep their
lucrative Rose Bowl deal in tact, and any sort of a "playoff" would
jeopardize that. The Big Ten-Pac-10-Rose Bowl triumvirate worked very
hard to keep their little cartel going -- they reluctantly joined the
BCS after spurning the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance, and they
extracted a lot of concessions when they finally entered the
arrangement. Last year's USC-Illinois farce in the Rose Bowl was all
you need to know about their protectionism.
Besides, the current system works out just fine for
the two conferences. A team from either conference has played in the
BCS championship game in five of the last six years -- and the year
they didn't, USC won the AP title anyway. The Big Ten
especially has been fat and happy, placing two teams in BCS bowls
in five of the last six seasons, far more than any other conference.
For these guys, the system is working like a charm.
The Big 12 has different issues. Although a
football power, the Big 12 is a distant fourth wheel in the BCS
structure, behind the Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC. Aside from the
University of Texas, none of the member schools is a strong draw in a
big media market. So the BCS cash is critical. The current system
works fine for the Big 12, too, as it's played in half of the 10
championship games in the BCS era.
That leaves Slive barking up the wrong tree. The
SEC is pressing the "plus-one" because it is the most insecure
conference about the current system and probably has the most
grievance against it. Without a couple of huge upsets -- USC to UCLA
in 2006, West Virginia to Pittsburgh in 2007 -- plus a
computer-generated escape by LSU in 2003, the SEC would've been shut
out of the BCS title game the last nine seasons.
As the strongest conference, in terms of balance,
the SEC has more to worry from fratricide under the current regime
than it would in a four-team format. In the latter scenario, the SEC
will almost always be assured of a spot in the football version of the
Final Four; and it would be content to let its representative(s) play
their way to the championship.
So the plus-four died a swift death not so much
because the P-word is malodorous, but because it potentially could
hinder some very cozy relationships and access to fast cash. The
smaller conferences and Notre Dame, with no chance of playing for the
national championship (and I write this with a straight face) but with
low thresholds to qualify for a BCS bowl and thus, a big-time payout,
also want to leave well enough alone.
It's just as well. Slive's proposal was highly
flawed anyway. It was no improvement over the current system and
would've invited no less controversy. For example, in last year's
scenario, Ohio State would've faced Oklahoma in one semifinal and LSU
against Virginia Tech in another. More deserving teams such as USC and
Georgia would've been shut out anyway and you'd still had the LSU-Ohio
State championship game -- only now it'd take two weeks to reach the
same mess. Why bother?
Since the BCS is all about the jack, we should just
recognize that until someone can come up with a system that can
guarantee more dough to more people, then we've reached an impasse.
Don't forget that the "national championship" is a mere illusion and
in this industry it's only incidental to the big picture.
We're not here to crown a champion. We're here to
stuff our wallets. That's why this thing is called the Bowl Cash
Series.
Time to get away? Going to see a game? Flights,
Hotels,
Cruises,
Car
Rentals, complete
Vacation Packages ... let us take you there! Let your "football
widow" know you haven't forgotten her. ...
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