Are you ready for some football?
By Jay L on December 26, 2008 at 7:45 PM in Barack Obama, NoQuarter Radio, Nocturnal Warrior
This will be rare. A blog on NQ which is in agreement with Barack Obama. Don’t worry dear NQ fan this is not a major issue. The topic is college football and the subtopic is a major college football playoff.
Here is what he had to say on the topic on ESPN back on November 15th: “President-elect Obama makes another play for college football playoff.”
Now as many of you know, my new NQ Radio show, “No Topic Taboo…Everything Else with Jay,” debuts on January 7th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time (yes, that is a shameless plug but I want to get the word out as much as I can). The following night, just outside of Miami, the Florida Gators will take on the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS Championship Game. Larry and Susan have asked me to occasionally have a sports theme to my new show and, with the game coming the following night, the plan is for that to be the topic of discussion. So, leading up to my debut, there will be some football-themed blogs from me here on NQ.
Now everyone is familiar with March Madness and the Final 4. That is a true playoff, 65 teams get in, some by winning a league championship or league tournament and some “at large” teams by choice of an NCAA committee. And though there are arguments every year by teams that get omitted, for the most part the teams get in by merit and play a series of games until they get to the final two, and then the ultimate championship. Once they get in, everything is decided on the court. In college football it can be argued that the championship is decided on the field but in the word of ESPN’s Lee Corso, “Not so fast my friend…”
Let me digress. When I was growing up, where college football was concerned, there was “the mythical national championship”. There were 2 polls, AP where the writers voted for whom they thought was the best of the best and UPI (who was replaced by USA Today in 1991) where the coaches voted. There were 4 major bowls, The Sugar, The Cotton, The Rose and The Orange. There were other “minor bowls” but those were the only 4 that mattered. Now those bowls had ties to some of the major leagues and conferences. The Rose automatically got the champs from the Big-10 and the Pac8 (then Pac-10), the Sugar had the champs from the SEC, the Orange the Big8 and the Cotton the Southwest Conference (which merged with the Big8 to form the Big-12). Now if it was thought the best two teams were from leagues with bowl ties those teams could not face off and had to go to the bowl of their league. In that case the best two teams had to hope the other lost, or they were most impressive in their win to win over the voters in the final poll. Hence “the mythical national championship”. Enter the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix/Tempe. No league ties and they could throw millions of dollars through sponsorships to get the 2 best teams to play on the field for the title. But still people were not satisfied. Enter the BCS.
For those of you who are not football or sports fans, BCS stands for Bowl Championship Series. It is a combination of polls voted on by writers and coaches and computer rankings. All too technical for me but for those of you who really want to know how they reach their results here is a link to the site, College Football Poll.com. Also listed there is a list of split national championships which helped form the BCS. From 1998 to 2005, the “championship game” rotated among the new 4 major bowls, drop the Cotton, add the Fiesta. The last 2 years there has been a 5th game at the sight of 1 of the 4, this year at the sight of the Orange Bowl.
So, that is the history. Here is the commentary. What BCS stands for to me…Bull Crap System. Texas fans, I know you feel me here. Deciding who plays for the trophy in one game based on votes and computers is crap. So here is where Barack and I agree. College football needs a playoff system. Now, it doesn’t need to be as big as March Madness. In basketball you can play four games in the span of 14 days and get a full tournament played in under a month. Football is one game a week. But using the automatic berths and exceptions to get an 8 team playoff is acceptable. For the final two teams it would be a maximum of 3 games.
But here is the problem. The bowls have gotten very powerful. Which bowl site gets first round games, 2nd and the championship? How to rotate them. Which “minor bowl” sites would be invited as there would need to be 7 games for this tournament and currently the BCS only accounts for 5 games. And then of course there would be the scheduling. And don’t forget the so called “minor bowls”. The BCS has already taken the luster from them. A true playoff would decrease the prestige of playing in a what would be considered an “also ran” bowl. TV plays a role in this too. Over the past few years Fox has been broadcasting all of the BCS games and the championship. Starting in January 2011, Disney/ESPN will be taking over and for the first time the “Major Bowls” including the championship will be off of broadcast television. The deal $500 million over 4 years is for 4 years and puts off the chance at a playoff till at least 2015. So here we go again, it goes back to the almighty dollar.
So there you have it. Do I have answers for this “problem”? No. But, here is a blog on NQ, where the blogger agrees with the incoming President. Don’t get used to it. It won’t happen often, if ever again. Then again this is not a matter of major national or international importance. Just something to kick around.
I am curious as to what you all in the NQ audience have to say, especially you fans of Florida, Oklahoma and Texas.
As I am typing this up on Christmas day. I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy remainder of Chanukah, a Happy Kwanzaa, for all of you with influence from the UK, a Happy Boxing Day on the 26th, and to one and all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.
And I’d like to remind you to start your year out with me when my new NQ Radio show “No Topic Taboo…Everything Else with Jay” debuts on January 7th, 2009 at 9pm Eastern, 8 Central, 7 Mountain, 6 Pacific and those of you across the pond in London-town it will be 2am on Thursday. I also remind you to tune in to my tag team partner and friend the Nocturnal Warrior every Tuesday at 9pm. My first guest on my show will be The Warrior himself to talk about whatever is on his mind..and yours. And if you would like to get in touch with me to discuss this or other show related topics you can email me at: ntteewithjay@me.com or just post a comment here on the blog on NQ.
I remain your humble scribe and your newest NQ radio host.
by Ronald Scott
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