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It's Getting Less Lonely in the Pro-BCS Club

By Joseph Lawler on 12.11.09 @ 11:48AM

Today, economist James Hamilton came out in favor of the BCS over a playoff system for college football. As far as I know, that makes two of us.

As is his wont, Hamilton approached the question quantitatively:

...if you do believe in such a thing as the (probabilistically) best team in the country, the more teams you put in the playoffs, the less likely it is that the best team ends up being declared the champion. Suppose for example that there's a team that with 80% probability would win its game against any other team that might make the playoffs. With a single championship game, that superior team gets declared the champion with probability 80%. With a 4-team playoff, the best team must win both its games, the probability of which is (0.8)(0.8) = 0.64. With an 8-team playoff, the best team is only going to be declared the champion about half the time.

So a playoff system actually makes it less likely that the "best" team will be declared the national champion (assuming that the BCS chooses the best two teams for the title game, which is admittedly a weak assumption).

I would add another danger of the playoff system, which is that it makes championships weighted equally across years, despite the huge disparity in overall competition from year to year. For instance, no one would compare the 2005 BCS bowl game to the 2007 edition. The first featured undefeated USC, led by Heisman winners Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, facing undefeated Texas, with the legendary Vince Young. Those were clearly two of the best teams of recent memory. The 2007 game had a one-loss Ohio State out of a weak Big-10 playing a two-loss LSU, and the contest wasn't that good. I don't see why those two titles should be counted equally, since the 2005 one is obviously better in almost every way. The BCS allows for easier comparisons between years like this, since the teams didn't advance through the same system of playoffs.

Of course as important as football is, the larger point is that this is a discussion right now because Congress, unbelievably, is gearing up to legislate on the college football postseason. Hamilton writes,

But whatever you may think of the merits of a college football playoff, doesn't it bother you to see the U.S. Congress acting as if it's the nation's ruler on this matter?

It does me. Which is why I wrote this.

You wonder where it ends. I thought I got a pretty raw deal when I was picked 11th for pickup basketball when I was in 8th grade. Is Congress going to look into that?

View all comments (10) | Leave a comment

JohnD| 12.11.09 @ 12:19PM

The problem is "champion" means winner, not necessarily the "best" team. A champion wins the "championship." To have undefeateds TCU, Cincinatti, and Boise State excluded fromcompeting for the BCS "Championship" is to say, "you mid-majors are in this BCS, but you cannot win it, ever, no matter how you play." This is patently unfair, and a violation of anti-trust laws, in my opinion.

Here's the solution:

There are 11 Conferences in Div. 1 NCAA football. Designate 5 as major Conferences: ACC, Big10, Big 12, SEC, and Pac 10. Designate the remaining 6 as minor conferences: Big East, MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sunbelt, and WAC.

When the regular season ends, have the minor conference champs play eachother to get down to three minor champs: Big East vs. Conf USA, MAC vs. Sun Belt, WAC vs Mountain West.

Then have the minor champ winners play the majjor champs on New Years Day, say Big East/CUSA winner vs. ACC in Orange Bowl, MAC/SunBelt winner vs. SEC in Sugar Bowl, WAC/Mt.West winner vs. Big 12 Champ in Cotton or Fiesta Bowl, and preserve Big 10 vs. Pac10 in the Rose. Let the minor Bowls, Gator, Citrus, Peach, etc., pick also-rans, presevring the Bowl system.

After New Years you are down to 4 teams. Let Bowl venues bid for these contests which will be held in prime time on week nights while the NFL playoffs are going on.

The two winner sf these games meet on the Saturday night 8 days before the NFL SUper Bowl for the National Championship.

The benefits: Every team has a chance to be National Champion, unless beaten on the field; The Bowl system is preserved, and fans get three extra games deciding champs head-to-head.

Caveat: Notre Dame has to join a conference, preferably the Big 10. Army and navy can either join conferences (Big East? Conf USA?) or drop down to Div 1AA.

Problem solved, and you have a real champion!

Eric Damon| 12.11.09 @ 12:36PM

While I agree that Congress has much more important things to worry about than the BCS system, I cannot in good conscience ever say that the BCS is okay. That is the biggest travesty in the world of sports!

Now you say that a playoff will mean that championships are weighted equally, yet the BCS is doing that righ now. If the BCS champion is the national champion, then the two loss champions from LSU are the equal of the undefeated champions from Texas! There is only one champion every year, the participants are chosen by the BCS commitee or whatever, and whoever wins the BCS Title game this year is just as worthy as the team that won it last year!

Look, my problem with the BCS is that it is an ultra exclusive club that restricts chamiopnship chances to even certain members. This year is a prime example as Cincinatti, a member of the BCS's Big East has NO shot to play for the title...because there are undefeated teams from the SEC and Big 12. And if you don't see the problem with that, you just need to look at the breakdown of the teams that have played in the BCS championship game. From 1998-2009 these are the teams that have played in the BCS Title game, along with the number of times they have appeared:
Tennessee (1)
Virginia Tech (1)
Nebraska (1)
Alabama (1)
Florida (2)
Texas (2)
USC (2)
Miami (2)
LSU (2)
Florida State (3)
Ohio State (3)
Oklahoma (4)

In 12 years of the BCS system, only 12 teams have been deemed worthy to play in the title game, and the majority of them multiple times! So how is this a national championship if there is a pool of twelve teams that is invited, while everyone else watches?

A playoff could work, but the people in charge want nothing more than to keep the checks rolling in from the bowls. If they could see the tremendous revenue streams a playoff that included the bowls could bring in, the NCAA would be all over it and throw the BCS overboard!

JohnD | 12.11.09 @ 2:38PM

Look at my plan above: It preserves the Bowl system, even creates chances to enhance the bowl committees revenue (bidding on semifinal playoff games), and creates a new revenue stream on top of everything else for the NCAA (three playoff games, two semi-final games, and a National Championship Final game). It solves all of the problems that the NCAA says precludes a playoff system.

Derek Leaberry| 12.11.09 @ 2:04PM

Division 1 "College" football is a fraud dominated by young men who don't belong in college but on the back of trash trucks, patching up holes in the streets or digging ditches in cemetaries. Unfortunately, college presidents don't have the guts to clean up college athletics.

That said, "college" football should return to an 11 game schedule with the regular season ending the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Lesser bowls should begin the first week of December and finish on New Year's Day. A four team playoff would begin on Martin Luther King Day with the four teams chosen by a panel of five retired coaches who would also seed the four teams. The games would be played on pre-arranged fields in the warmer climes of the country(ie. Tampa, San Diego, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Jacksonville). The championship would be played Monday Night, one week after MLK Day.

JohnD| 12.11.09 @ 2:40PM

How do you decide the 4 semi-final teams? Another backroom vote dominated by the major conference honchos? Look at my plan; everyone is in the hunt until beaten on the field. Same idea as yours, except the 4 teams emerge from the New Years Day Bowls, whach will really be playoffs of the 11 Conference Champions.

Derek Leaberry| 12.11.09 @ 3:42PM

I think a fivesome of ex-coaches, say Ara Parsigian, Tom Osborne, Don James, Darrell Royal and Lou Holtz, would do a fine job picking the top four teams over a bottle of Jack Daniels on the afternoon of January 2 using as a frame of analysis not only the season record but how well they played in their bowl game. A big difference in our schemes, JohnD, is that I would give the individual bowls back their independence and allow them to conduct their bowls as they traditionally did. For instance, the Rose Bowl would once again be a game played between the champions of the Big 12 and the Pac 10.

astorian| 12.11.09 @ 3:55PM

As much as I want a playoff, I've understood and accepted for a long time that it's not likely to happen in my lifetime. Too many people are making too much money from the bowl system.

So, feel free to argue that, "Like oit or not, folks, the bowls aren't ever going away." Just don't pretend the current system is anything but a ridiculous method of determining a national "champion."

Are Alabama and Texas the two best teams? Nobody has a clue! MAYBE they are. But does anybody really know that either is better than TCU, Cincinnati or Boise State?

The current system is based on nothing more than guesswork. A championship should NEVER be based on anybody's OPINION!!!! And in the end, that's all the current system is based on: the opinions of writers and coaches who don't have the foggiest idea who the best team really is.

I'm biased in favor of the Texas Longhorns, but let's be honest: the ONLY reason Texas is ranked higher than TCU right now is that, at the start of the season, the writers guessed, wrongly, that TCU wasn't one of the Top 10 programs in the nation. Those same geniuses had Oklahoma ranked #3 in the nation.

Why should championships be decided by people who plainly DON'T KNOW and CAN'T KNOW which teams are the best?

Derek Leaberry| 12.11.09 @ 4:44PM

In the end, football is only a game and who the mythical national champion is is of no great importance in the scheme of things. Most Americans will forget who the national champion is by spring and most don't remember who won it last year. I certainly don't.

Even a playoff system tends to reward a hot team and the winner of a playoff system may not be quantifiably the best team. Anyone remember the Villanova basketball team that got hot in the mid-80s in the tournament after a barely above-average regular season? Two years ago, the New York Giants got hot late and beat an arguably better New England team in the Super Bowl.

Injuries are relevant as well. Wasn't the Oklahoma football team's chances severely damaged by the loss of their Hesiman Trophy quarterback, Sam Bradford, this year? In the NFL, the New England Patriots may have won the Super Bowl with a healthy Tom Brady as quarterback last season.

astorian| 12.13.09 @ 12:28AM

If the "national championship" isn't really yhat important, fine- abolish it. That way, the colleges can have their silly bowl games, collect their checks, and we can all stop pretending that a champion has been determined.

In fact, I've concluded that Division I college football is the ONLY sport doing things the right way. Why have a World Series? Why not just let the sportswriters vote for who they think the best team in baseball is?

Why have a Super Bowl? Why not just let the NFL coaches vote for who they THINK the best team is.

March Madness? A complete waste of time. Just play the regular season, then let a few of the top teams play each other in "basketball bowls," and then let the sportswriters vote for who they THINK is the best team!

After all, what's more reliable- the final score of an actual game, or Mike Lupica's OPINION???