I think there's a few different claims conflated in there, so let's break it apart:
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Mac and Teddy Greenstein are two of the few people left who still believe that the bowl system is the optimal system for choosing a national champion.
You can add me to the list, depending upon what "optimal system" means. I think the system is optimal in the sense that it ensures that there are no fraud champions. I think any defined tournament system would be either under or overinclusive. I don't mind underinclusive if we're trying to make sure the best team wins the championship. I do mind overinclusive because some lower quality teams will win it on accident.
But even more importantly, I think the bowl system isn't optimal, but that a revised bowl system could be the best of all possibilities. Play five BCS bowls, then play a championship game a week after that. It'll allow you to expand the pool of possible championship teams to ten while limiting the number of reasonable teams to any amount underneath that. Then you'll have one more important game upon which to make the championship decision.
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If "every game counts" were the brilliant idea Teddy and Mac think it is, why has it not been adopted by any other sport?
Money.
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Or even more laughable, this year, when all the top teams have one loss, it's who and when you had your loss that counts and what the media think about that loss that matters.
I agree, and I think the human polls are mostly assinine.
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There have been many teams that were the best teams in January in college football, but weren't allowed to play for the title because they lost one in September. You really want to make the claim that Oklahoma and Florida are the two best teams? They might be, but any system that doesn't include USC, Texas or even Texas Tech in the mix this year is a flawed system. Only in college football does the schedule..who you play and when you lose and what the media thinks about those losses....mean more than your overall record. Contrary to Teddy and Mac's assertion, every game does NOT matter. The game Florida lost and the game Oklahoma lost apparently didn't matter nearly as much as the games USC, Texas and Texas Tech lost.
I
think I agree with most of that, but it just underscores why a +1 system would be optimal. This year, there's about 6 viable championship teams- 8, if you include Penn State and Utah. So have those six or 8 teams face off against each other, then make the final championship game decision. Next season it may only be 4 teams. The season after that it might be 7. A +1 system would allow for flexibility.
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But maybe the funniest part of the bowl system is that the system leaves us with such memorable games as Nevada vs. Maryland in Boise, Idaho. Hey Teddy and Mac, if you guys think this bowl system is so great, how about you go to Boise and cover this outstanding matchup for us? This is the bowl system you love so much, and it gives us such meaningless games that even the teams' own fans don't care. As of today, Maryland has sold 16 advance tickets for the game. Nevada has sold 8. This sytem that Mac and Teddy love so much gives us this? If it were such a great system, don't you think more than 24 people would be interested in buying a ticket to a game?
I'm not going to defend the Humanitarian Bowl, but I think it's a mistake to couple the problem of "bowl inflation" with the arguments against bowls determining the champion. They are two separate arguments, and I don't think your opinion on one defines your opinion on the other. That being said...
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I love college football and I love some of the bowls for certain reasons. I also ike a few of the games for their entertainment value and matchups. Nothing like watching the bowls on the morning of Jan. 1. However, the entertainment value of New Years' Day aside, the system in one of our major sports is broken, and has been for many, many years. (Forever, frankly). There will be no true champion this year.
I guess this is the point where I throw up my hands and say "so what?" In any given year in any sport, if you were to replay the final tournament 100 times, you'd probably get a number of teams that win the championship a certain percentage of the time. We run tournaments once, of course, and some team by necessity has to shake out of the process as the "champion". But what does that mean? It's a nice plaudit for the people who win the championship, but it's only one piece of evidence (among many) as to which team is the "best team". If the alternatives are "tournament that leads people to falsely believe the champion must be the best team" and nothing, well, give me the tournament, but if the alternatives are that tournament, which would effectively shitcan the bowls, or the bowls, I'll take the latter.