Pete
Fiutak
Q:
You can make one change to the BCS system, what would it be?
A:
Make strength of schedule one-quarter of the formula, decrease the
human polls to half, and the computers to a fourth.
If the whole idea behind the BCS is to create a system of the most
deserving teams getting in, then why not actually give the credit to the
teams that played the nasty schedules? Why not reward the teams that go
out of their way to play a tough non-conference schedule and punish
those who take it easy?
It's a basic concept that gets lost in the discussion. Yeah, Utah is
great, but would it be within shouting distance of the BCS if it played
in the SEC, Big 12, and yeah, I said it, the ACC or Big 10? No. The same
goes for Boise State and Ball State.
Texas, so far, has the fourth toughest schedule. Shouldn't that mean
everything compared to, say, Alabama, who, currently has the 96th
most difficult schedule? Ball State has the 111th ranked schedule, while
Florida has the 13th.
It's the most basic of components, and now it has to be the most
important.
Richard
Cirminiello
Q:
You can make one change to the BCS system, what would it be?
A:
It’ll never happen, but I’d scrap the current method of selecting
schools for the five bowl games and simply hand out invites to the top
10 teams. Simple, right? If four of those programs reside in one
conference, so be it. I want to see the best programs rewarded at the
end of the year and the best match ups in January. This season, for
instance. Teams, like Cincinnati and Maryland, are doing some good
things, but I don’t want to see either in a marquee bowl game in place
of the third best contender out of the Big 12. Cincinnati or Oklahoma?
Check the score of the game when these two met on Sept. 6.
A couple of other things worth considering: First, road wins are
substantially more valuable than home wins, and should somehow be
factored into the formula. So, too, should margin of victory. You could
cap this with a law of diminishing returns to prevent poor
sportsmanship. However, anyone who denies that Texas Tech’s 56-20 rout
of Oklahoma State is akin to Texas’ 28-24 defeat of the Cowboys
obviously did not watch the two games. What is so frightening to the
powers-that-be about margin of victory?
Matthew
Zemek
Q:
You can make one change to the BCS system, what would it be?
A: If given only one chance to reform the BCS as it
currently exists, the top priority would have to be the
insertion of a requirement that all teams involved in the BCS
debate play 13 games.
Teams in the Big 12 and SEC are already in a
situation--annually, not just this year--where they can play 13
games, due to the presence of a conference championship game on
the first weekend of December. The teams in the Big 12 South do
not yet know if they'll play on Dec. 6, but one of them knows
that after Nov. 29, one of them will have to don the pads, catch
a flight (or perhaps a bus if the journey is short enough), and
play a game at a neutral site.
The obvious question becomes, "Why can't a USC or a Penn State
enjoy this same amount of leverage in the attempt to make a
statement?" Moreover, why couldn't the Big 12 South's one or two
runners-up have the chance to make the same statement?
If the BCS really wants to do something healthy, it will require
a provisional thirteenth game for the teams involved in the BCS
race that don't get the opportunity to play in the SEC or Big 12
title games. Preference should go to other conference champions
in the BCS mix, but with a scenario such as the one we could
face in a few weeks, a divisional runner-up that is excluded
from a conference title game through no real fault of its own
should also play a provisional thirteenth game.
Make the 12-game regular season end for every team (except Army
and Navy, which just agreed to play later in December) in the
month of November. Set aside the first Saturday of December for
the conference title games, and for provisional thirteenth games
in warm-weather cities or domed stadiums across the country.
Play as many of these provisional games as necessary.
It wouldn't be a playoff. It would merely be a case of "evening
out the regular season" and giving teams soft and strong alike
the chance to make a serious statement about their credentials.
Penn State and USC--and also a Utah or a Boise State, or even a
Ball State or Tulsa--could enhance their profile, while the
runners-up in the Big 12 South could do the same.
It's silly and disingenuous to say that the BCS makes every
regular-season game a playoff, when some teams have 12 games and
others have 13. Make all BCS contenders play the extra game,
however, and the BCS system would finally have more of a level
playing field. There's no other reform that could possibly have
more real-world merit than this one.
Steve Silverman
Q:
You can make one change to the BCS system, what would it be?
A: As bad as the BCS system is,
it is far better than what was in place
before... which was absolute chaos. The
change that needs to be to get rid of
the automatic bids for the six
conferences and allow the other leagues
more into the mix. The Mountain West,
WAC and the MAC are doing enough to at
least show they can compete, and while
there shouldn't be more automatic bids,
if you got rid of the automatic bids
that are there, you'd get more worthy
teams in. Teams that might not be top 10
worthy, like the Big East and ACC
champion this year, aren't automatically
in and you'd have more competitive
games. Why should anyone be on the
outside looking in just because they're
not considered a big boy by the BCS big
wigs? Don't force the bad teams on us
just because they're a conference
champion.