How the BCS Diminishes College Football

collegesportsscholarships.com presents: COLLEGE SPORTS SCHOLARSHIPS HOW THE BCS DIMINISHES COLLEGE FOOTBALL The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a selection system - formed in 1998 - from the ashes of the Bowl Alliance. It creates five games featuring ten of the top-ranked college football teams. The BCS relies on a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine relative team rankings. The entire tragically flawed system is generally regarded as confusing, corrupt, unsporting and wildly unpopular. In addition to problems with the selection process, the BCS is also responsible for creating other problems in college football, including unfair advanatges in recruiting. Other problems in college football caused by the BCS include poor quality games, unfair distribution of money, huge taxpayer subsidies for financial losses, obscene wages at the top, an un-American system of crowning a champion and fewer Cinderella stories. BCS FINALISTS SINCE 1998 12 Gator BCS FINALISTS BY CONFERENCE The strength-of-schedule component virtually guarantees that a member of the Southeastern Conference will play in the BCS championship and it's happened eight times in 14 games. This year both teams, LSU and Alabama, are from the SEC. Is it any wonder that the system was created by an SEC commisioner and head of media relations for the ŚEC? Now, can the SEC teams run a playoff gauntlet every year, beating a variety teams from different parts of the country with different playing styles? SEC BIG 12 ACC BIG EAST BIG 10 PAC-12 Perhaps. A playoff would certainly answer the question. 7-0 2-5 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2* * vacated by USC FEWER GOOD GAMES The rise of games vs 1-AA teams +600% 15 15 +70% +358% '05 '11 '05 '11 05 11 TREND BIG 10 PAC-12 Games between Top 20 ranked teams NOTRE DAME UCLA USC 25% Games between Top 5 ranked teams 1988 1998 2008 1 in 4 SEC non-conference games vs 1-AA teams Only schools that don't schedule cupcakes Number of games scheduled between ranked non-conference teams LESS MONEY FOR UNIVERSITIES MORE MONEY FOR BOWL EXECUTIVES & COACHES 100 50% $1,663,560 $5,000,000 Percentage of universities which spend more than they bring in for bowl games Annual salary of University of Texas Longhorns Head Football Coach Mack Brown Nurses whose wages could have been paid with Coach Brown's annual salary The loss UCONN took to participate in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl $826M $50,000 $808,000 Amount in taxpayer subsidies needed by DiA athletic departments to balance books Number of teams dropped by colleges between 2007-09 because of budget shortfall Average bonus for Athletic Directors achieving a bowl berth Amount earned in a tax year by CEO in Tampa, Fla, Jim McVay universities The Outback Bowl HIGHER FEES FOR STUDENTS ESouth Florida $12.5M Virginia $11.9M Virginia Tech $6.5M ENational average! $10.2M .-- ..--- . T 10 11 12 13 Fees paid by students in order to balance bowl losses ($m) A VERY UN-AMERICAN CHAMPION CHAMPIONS IN DOES NOT CROWN THEIR CHAMPION D-1A DIFFERENT COLLEGE DIVISIONS AND SPORTS. ONLY THROUGH DIRECT COLLEGE COMPETITION FOOTBALL 49% 38% H 53%, 70% H % of BCS basketball teams that make the NCAA tournament % of NFL teams that make the playoffs % of BCS football teams that reach bowl games % of NBA teams that make the playoffs THE BCS HAS NO GENUINE CHAMPION. 46 TEAMS DON'T HAVE A CHANCE TO PLAY FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP. MEDIOCRE TEAMS PLAYING MEDIOCRE TEAMS. NO FAIRYTALE STORIES One of the consequences of the ranking system of the BCS is that there are no examples of non-BCS schools having an opportunity to play for a national championship. In recent years, teams like Boise State, Utah and TCU have had exceptional records in the regular season, and have beaten favored teams in BCS games without ever having the chance to play for the national championship. Now, each of those schools is leaving, or has left its conference for a BCS conference. The magic has been completely removed from the final game. In the college football world of the BCS, underdogs never have a chance to create the extraordinary, unforgettable moments and unlikely results that are synonomous with other American sports. USI 22 USA ICE HOCKEY 1980 VILLANOVA 1985 JAMES "BUSTER" DOUGLAS 1990 Team USA defeats heavily favored Soviet team to win Gold at the 1980 Winter Olympics Unranked 1985 Villanova basketball team beats Georgetown to win college basketball championship 42-1 underdog James "Buster" Douglas knocks out Mike Tyson to become the heavyweight champion of the world FLORIDA: ONE SCHOOL'S STORY CHAMPIONS 6 000000 0000. NATIONAL ADVERTISED PAY-OUT FOR PAY-OUT RECEIVED BY Galors THE 2009 BCS TITLE GAME FLORIDA FOR THE GAME CHAMPIONS $17.5M $2.5M 2006 AND 2008 % OF NON-CONFERENCE 2010 athletic budget- GAMES PLAYED BY $96.4M FLORIDA OUTSIDE THEIR 0% HOME STATE SINCE THE 1991 athletic budget CREATION OF THE BCS $24. 1M COACHES' QUOTES: To be frank with you. I don't know Now (if you lose)... the first game of the season, you're out of it. horrible thought for any team to be out of anything for (losing) one game. what the reasons are to not have a It's a Eventually, (playoffs) are going to happen 'cause it has to. just as conference expansion has happened. Because there is money to be made. playoff... Philosophically, I think you ought to win it on the field... You can talk about missing class and all that... you have a lot of Alabama Coach Nick Saban, whose one-loss Alabama team will play LSU for the BCS National Championship bogus excuses. former UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel former Penn State Coach Joe Paterno SOURCES: • Death to the BCS - (ISBN-13: 978-1592405701) • www.athleticscholarships.net • www.bowlrevolution.com • www.espn.com • www.wikipedia.org design by: Visual Evolution, London 88