A week before the first bowl game kicks off, we realize just how ridiculous yet again the BCS system is. There are 35 bowl games. THIRTY-FIVE. The quest for money is in full display and the quest to find out what team is truly best in the nation falls by the wayside yet again.
As a resident of Montana, where the FCS playoffs are in full swing, it is very easy to see how a playoff system is a much better way to determine what team is truly best. The teams are playing for that title. It is not some meaningless slew of bowl games that are played only for money. A real champion is decided. In the BCS, it’s 35 bowl games with the last one between what a select group determine to be the top 2 teams who are then named the best in the country.
With names like the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl, and the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl it is easy to see what the bowls are all about. With teams in bowl games that are 6-6 on the year, it is easy to see what the bowl games are about. With a team in the “national championship” game that didn’t even win their own conference, it’s easy to see what the bowls are about.
The BCS could have made the “national championship” game more acceptable by having 2 teams play that actually won their conferences in LSU and Oklahoma State, however, they went with the teams that will bring in the most viewers, ratings and money. An all SEC matchup will do all those things and that’s why there are 2 SEC teams in that game only one of which, LSU, that won their conference title.
And so the BCS bowl season begins next weekend on December 17 with the Gildan New Mexico Bowl and goes all the way to January 9 with the Allstate BCS National Championship game. For almost a month, bowl games play out to determine….nothing except who get the biggest pile of money. Of course college football fans will tune in religiously, buy the gear, support the money trail. Even casual and non-fans will tune in to games on surrounding the holidays just because that’s what’s on and that’s what people think they should be watching.
In the end, the BCS will crown either LSU or Alabma as the best team in the country, but in reality it will be the best team decided by skewed rankings and who delivers the most money. And the debate will rage on as to why the BCS system continues and the fairness of it all. Next year, at this time, there will be once again 35 bowl games coming up and piles of money to be made. Those who wish for a playoff system will keep wishing and those who take home the piles of money hope everything stays the same.
And then there were 35…..go team go.
