No, this will not be another opinionated post claiming that we should abandon the bowl system and move to a play-off format. While I do believe that this will ultimately become reality (for the best), this is not my largest criticism of the current format. Last night, #14 Ball State defeated Miami (OH) 31-16. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this sentence? With no disrespect intended toward Ball State, can anyone believe that they are actually #14 in the country? While being undefeated is certainly a respectable, and even admirable, no one can tell me that Ball State is better than North Carolina, LSU, Florida State, Wake Forest, Michigan State, BYU, Pittsburgh...and the list goes on. And the #14 ranking is before they factor in their impressive victory over the power house of Miami (OH). Perhaps next week they will be #13, or #12. The possibilities are endless! Perhaps by the conclusion of the season we will be seeing a National Championship Bowl game between Ball State and Texas Tech. Wouldn't that be exciting? Again, I mean no disrespect to Ball State, but, there must be a better way. The only one I can think of is to, even more than they do now, account for the schedule and conference of each team. Furthermore, while I am using Ball State as primary focus, the busted ranking system can also be seen in the last two National Championships which have been blow-outs by SEC teams (Florida and LSU) over Big-10 member, Ohio State. After last weekend's game between #3 Penn State (now #9) and unranked Iowa, in which Iowa defeated the Nittany Lions with a last-second field goal, perhaps the media, the fans, and the voters will finally come to the delayed realization that the Big 10 is simply not what it is made out to be. Hopefully, after this realization, the top 25 polls will become a more accurate portrayal of the true top 25.
Talking about overrated, after Boston College's 17-0 shutout of Notre Dame, maybe Lou Holtz will finally admit, or simply come to the realization that Notre Dame is not a good team.
My Conference Rankings:
1.) Big 12
2.) SEC
3.) Pac-10
4.) ACC
5.) Big 10
6.) Big East
7.) Mountain West
8.) WAC
9.) MAC
2 comments:
What about Boise State? No one thought that they would be good yet they played Oklahoma and produced one of the greatest bowl games in BCS history! (and they won the game against a top team). Don't discount teams like Ball State just because they are not in a great conference. They need a 4-round, 16 team playoff so teams like Ball State can prove themselves.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-playoff120208&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
This is the article by Dan Wetzel that perfectly lays out the argument for a 4 round playoff system.
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