[#permalink]
03 Dec 2006, 11:16
OK, this is obviously off topic but here's what I think about the situation this year and the BCS in general.
I'm afraid you are right died4me, that Michigan will be punished because of when their season ended a couple of weeks ago. After the game with Ohio State, everyone was saying that the game exceeded hyped up expectations, and Michigan was clearly the second best team in the country and that they would love to see a rematch. After that, Florida struggled with Florida St. (a .500 team) and people seem to have forgotten that they struggled all year. To quote a writer prior to the Ohio St. game, "These two teams (Michigan & Ohio St. are not just undefeated, but they are unchallenged). There were stats like how Michigan only trailed for 17 minutes all year, etc.
I also think that Michigan will be punished by voters because they do not want to see a rematch. What a voter would like to see is not a valid consideration - their only mandate is to vote for the best teams. They cannot consider what they would enjoy watching and use their vote to set up a specific match-up; though undoubtedly many will in fact ignore their mandate. So anyone that says, "Michigan had their chance, give someone else a chance" does not understand the BCS rules; unfortunately this probably includes a lot of voters.
ESPN reports that Michigan will retain the #2 spot in the computers, while Yahoo sports says that Florida will jump to #2 in the computers. Of course, Michigan has held comfortable lead in the human polls for the past two weeks, but again, I fear that people will be changing their votes. We'll see how things go this afternoon - either way it will be much closer than anyone expected a few weeks ago.
My thoughts on the BCS in general
I believe the BCS is flawed, but for reasons different than most other people. Most people say they would prefer a playoff system so that it can be settled on the field, etc. I actually dislike the BCS system because it makes teams wait too long between meaningful games (51 days between Michigan v. Ohio St. and the national championship game), and because every bowl game other than the national title game is meaningless. Let me explain.
Most teams will have at least a month between their last regular season games and their bowl games. What this means is that teams have a lot of time to prepare and what you see on the field often has little resemblance to a "real" football game. You end up with a lot of trick plays, funky defensive schemes and things you just wouldn't see in a real meaningful game. One team might have been special in a particular area of the game, but with a month to prepare, most good teams can practice and prepare, forcing each team to come in with secret game plans and schemes rather than playing their best game. This is exacerbated by the fact that...
The bowl games are all meaningless. As a Michigan fan, it's great to make the Rose Bowl. It's a great event and it is fun to watch, but in the end, unless it is for the national title, it just doesn't matter if you win or lose. It's more of a spectacle or a fun event and because of this, coaches are even more likely to use trick plays and things like that. By the time the bowls roll around, you never know if a team will be playing seriously, or if they will be playing just for fun. That's why a lot of games are not competitive.
And finally, many of the games turn out to be sloppy because the teams have not played serious football for a month. If a player is out for 3-4 weeks during the season, there is usually a concern that they might be rust when they return (like Manningham was for Michigan). Now imagine that all of the players have had 5-6 week breaks. You just don't know how many of their will be rusty and not playing their best. So, as a fan I don't know the BCS because only the 2 teams in the title game have anything to play for and the system often makes the rest of the bowl games less than competitive.
As a solution, I wouldn't mind seeing the 8 BCS bowl teams re-arranged into a playoff. That would mean that 4 teams have 1 extra game, and 2 of those have an additional game for the title. This won't affect academics at many schools overall and things can be settled on the field.