The BCS

It is senseless to propose a change without knowing what is being changed.

History

Prior to 1992 the bowl games were all there was to the college football postseason. This lead to conference champions being locked into specific bowls and rarely ended up with a #1 vs. #2 matchup, though it did lead to a New Year’s Day celebration of elite college football.

In 1992 the Bowl Coalition was formed to allow the top 2 teams in the nation to meet. The biggest problem for this alignment was that the PAC 10, Big 10 and Rose Bowl refused to join. In the end, the fall of Notre Dame and the SWC marked the death of the Bowl Coalition.

It was replaced by the Bowl Alliance in 1995, but the Rose Bowl coalition continued to hold out. Additionally, the conferences excluded from the Bowl Alliance began raising pressure of legal action based on anti-trust issues.

With the Rose Bowl willing to come on board in 1998, the Bowl Championship System was formed. Allowances were made to the remaining conferences to reduce the risk of violating anti-trust laws.

The original purpose of the BCS was to allow the top 2 teams to meet in a bowl game, something that vary rarely happened before the system was created. Now people are questioning if the correct two teams are selected. One can easily see how a slippery slope towards a playoff argument is a compelling argument to those who created and operate the BCS.

The formation of the Bowl Coalition itself, however, was a move towards determining a national champion. With the formation of the BCS all leagues came on board to the idea that having a national champion for the premier league in college football is important.

At its core, the BCS is an agreement between all 11 FBS conferences and the bowls to determine the top 2 teams and the eligibility of teams for the premier bowl games. The participants have agreed to the system, though the only real alternative would be to become a FCS team. The BCS only has one employee, whose primary responsibility is to run the public relations for the system.

The problem is that deciding on the top 2 teams is an intractable problem. Some years, like 2002 and 2005, it is fairly clear cut. Others, like 2004 and 2008, it is a little less so. The BCS has, in good faith, attempted to do the impossible task it was assigned to do.

A new BCS

My plan would actually bolster the BCS as an institution and increase its credibility. It would have three purposes:

Maintain a ranking of the conferences to determine conference and bowl categorization.
Maintain a ranking of the teams to determine the participants in a championship system.
Organize the national championship game and make provisions for any wild card games or play-in games the championship system requires.

All bowls, including the BCS bowls, would be free to create tie-ins with the conferences and TV networks without BCS oversight. First the championship system teams are placed, then the BCS bowl select their teams, then the premier bowls make selections and finally the regional bowls would be filled.

The conference and team rankings should be both public and reproducible from the guidelines.

Members

One vote would be given to each of the 6 elite or guaranteed conference, one to any independent finishing the season in the top 15 within the last championship cycle as an independent (Notre Dame), one to a representative of all remaining teams, one to each of the BCS bowls, one to a representative of the premier bowls and one to a representative of the regional bowls. This would make 14 total votes.

It might even be reasonable to allow the elite conferences two votes, currently making 17 votes.

Categories

Three categories for conferences are defined. If criteria such as those found at BCS GURU are used, a value of 0.5000 would be a good line to warrant guaranteed status. A value of 0.7500 would warrant elite status. Currently the SEC, Big 12 and Big 10 would be elite conferences, the ACC, PAC 10, and Big East would be guaranteed conferences and the rest would be provisional conferences.

The top tie-in for an elite or guaranteed conference would be a BCS bowl. A premier bowl would be the top tie-in for a provisional conference, the second tie-in for a guaranteed conference, or the third or better tie-in for an elite conference. The rest would be regional bowls.

Membership Evaluation

The current BCS cycle is the time since the BCS bowl that hosts the national championship was evaluated.

The current conference criteria are sufficient but should be worded to look over the current BCS cycle rather than the last 4 years and be defined more precisely and published.

Every year elite and guaranteed conferences would be evaluated to see which conferences warrant elite status.

Each year the conferences with a tie-in to the BCS bowl hosting the national championship game would be evaluated to see if they warrant provisional status. If the bowl does not have a tie-in to a guaranteed or elite conference after this evaluation it would lose its BCS status and not be put back into the cycle until one of its conference tie-ins regained guaranteed status.

Each year all provisional conferences are evaluated to see if they warrant guaranteed status. If any do their top tie-in would gain BCS status and be appended the next cycle.

An Open Book

The BCS has garnered a stigma of being elitist and exclusionary. The only real way to counter this stigma is to embrace full transparency.

The BCS would run the championship system and determine its participants. This would be done in the open for the public to see in a way that is concretely defined ahead of time. The BCS bowls not participating in the championship system as semifinals would then be free to invite teams at their pleasure.

Using the current guidelines and the rules outlined above it would even be possible to announce the conference and bowl status changes for the upcoming year when the final BCS standings are released.

Rule changes should require a super majority of 60%. Voting would then be mostly an honorary title as the only other issues that would receive much attention would be which venues would be added to the wild card game queue.