The BCS: Solving the Wrong Problem

Since 1998, the month of December has seen one particular activity as fashionable as holiday shopping among college football fans: intense debate over the Bowl Championship Series. Like hearing the constant repetitions of tiresome carol arrangements played over department store intercoms, the ongoing BCS debate drudges along as part of a holiday season backdrop that must be tolerated, however unsatisfying it may be.

The debate typically centers around whether or not BCS "works" - whether in a given year it picks the appropriate two teams to play for the national championship. Each and every year since its inception, BCS team selections have been worthy of castigation, and teams with reasonable arguments for inclusion have been left out. This has fueled the heated, often bitter discussion among coaches, players, fans, and analysts.

Arguments over whether the BCS works however are fundamentally misplaced. There is nothing inherently wrong with the BCS. The real source of the systematic frustration surrounding the college football post-season is that the BCS is a solution to the wrong problem.

The reason for the creation of the BCS was described well by the then-BCS Chairman Kevin Weilberg responding in 2005 to a congressional hearing invitation for his testimony:

"The current structure is designed to match the No. 1 and 2 ranked teams, identified through a ranking system, in a bowl game. It is an extension of the bowl system and a method to determine a national champion through the bowls," Weiberg said. "It has paired teams in bowl games that would not have been possible under the bowl arrangements existing before its creation." [ref]

Weinberg's comments underscore the primary BCS function: pair two teams to compete for a declared national championship in a preserved bowl system. Significantly, the "national championship" part is less relevant than the "bowl preservation" part. The BCS is no more than a yearly adjustment of existing bowl arrangements to afford an arbitrary pairing of two teams.

For its stated purpose, the BCS does work. The heads of the six major conferences (plus Notre Dame) and their bowl executive partners created this arrangement to select (their best? their most deserving?) two teams to play in a bowl exhibition, with the winner crowned their BCS champion. The system addresses a very different problem than that of determining a Division 1-A champion among 11 conferences and 119 teams, and the difference isn't subtle.

The criticism heaped on the BCS year after year is almost unfair. Its purpose is not, nor has it ever been, to determine a Division 1-A champion among 11 conferences and 119 teams. Its goal is and has always been to match the No. 1 and 2 ranked teams among the six BCS conferences, "identified through a ranking system, in a bowl game." It doesn't really matter what the selection rules are, or how arbitrary they may appear in any given year. "Use human polls a and g this year, weighted at k% and throw in the average of computer polls x, y, and z... " As long as the six BCS conferences and their bowl executive partners agree to the rules, the BCS does its job and two teams play for its championship.

The appropriate problem to solve is the one for which the BCS isn't designed. Unless the NCAA is willing to restructure the 1-A division to include only the six BCS conferences, the correct issue to address is this: How to best determine a national champion among 11 conferences and 119 division 1-A teams?

It is no wonder that there has been controversy every year with BCS selections. Following a regular season, to deem only two teams as worthy of consideration for a national title out of 119 possibilities is ridiculous. Likewise, to limit the pool of worthy candidates to only those teams from six conferences is to say to the teams from the other five that they are not really competing in division 1-A.

Consider that with good regular season play, any division 1-AA football team may qualify for a post-season playoff and thus have a legitimate chance to win their national championship.
All teams in all major professional sports leagues are eligible for their respective league championships. For that matter, teams from any division 1-A conference in sports other than football are eligible with good regular season play to compete for their respective national championships.

Division 1-A football is lamentably unique among amateur and professional sports alike in that nearly half its teams are not even eligible to compete for their national title. Realistically, only teams from the six BCS conferences (and Notre Dame) can qualify. Others may play, indeed have played, in one of the prestigious BCS bowls, but the BCS national championship game will always be reserved for two teams from the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, PAC 10, and SEC conferences. Past (and present) BCS selections have proven that even an undefeated mid-major team will be passed over for a multiple-loss BCS conference participant. If division 1-A football is going to include the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, WAC, and Sun Belt conferences, teams from those conferences should be eligible for their divisional championship.

Successful problem solving begins with correctly identifying the problem. It is time for the NCAA to allow a broader field of worthy candidates the eligibility to participate in its division 1-A national championship process. The BCS must go. It simply solves the wrong problem.