Who’s Riled Up About The BCS? Not Me » Brats & Beer

December 4, 2006
posted under: BCS, NCAA football, polls

The final BCS rankings came out last night and it seems that someone got robbed. Or not. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Say what you will about Florida’s merit as the No. 2 team in the country and the BCS as the right system for determining that fact, but the system got one thing right: USC vs. Michigan in the Rose Bowl. At least I can watch that game in comfort and joy this holiday season.

As for the rest of it, well they don’t call it the Bowl Championship Scam for nothing. I think Pat Forde in his column this morning on ESPN hits the nail on the head pointing out the enormous swing in votes from Michigan to Florida over a one week span, saying:

If you were already predisposed to voting Michigan ahead of Florida, I didn’t see enough in that game to merit that kind of turnaround. We certainly didn’t see anything from Michigan to merit a demotion, given the fact that the Wolverines weren’t playing.

Which makes me suspect that habitual slot voters massaged their ballots simply to block a rematch — something they should have considered the previous two weeks, it seems.

But no one should be seriously shocked by this outcome. The BCS system cannot determine the best teams in the country; it isn’t designed to. It’s sole design purpose is to produce a match up of teams that a majority of the people will tune in to watch. Asking the BCS to find truth is like expecting the prom king and queen voting in high school to be based on merit: It just ain’t gonna happen.