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. They give us this "every game counts" nonsense. If "every game counts" were the brilliant idea Teddy and Mac think it is, why has it not been adopted by any other sport? Only in one sport, college football, is a team often disqualified from a national championship simply because they had one loss. 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. Every game counts? Hardly.

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. What a joke. Spare us the "every game counts" mantra. It's not factual.

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 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. And it's sad that two guys who control so much air time and news print can't see it and continue to defend a broken system.

Enjoy the bowls boys. All 34 of em. Looking forward to your breakdown of Maryland vs. Nevada and your on-scene reports.

Thanks for your thoughts SHARK2Coast....

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Coast, I never said I AGREE with Teddy... I said I understand that school of thought. I want a playoff... but it's a topic that is as tired as Pete Rose or Ron Santo in the Hall of Fame.

I didnt think Mac was allowed to post during the show anymore

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Either they do not know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood.

I think there's a few different claims conflated in there, so let's break it apart:



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.



Money.



I agree, and I think the human polls are mostly assinine.



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.



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...



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.

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Fire Phil Emery

I'm sure that is the reason that women's lacrosse doesn't switch over to a non-playoff system.


You've made a point like this before, but it has a serious flaw in the thinking.

The BCS title game is in effect a one game playoff. That means that team that wins it will have performed better than the opponent a total of one times. Wouldn't a team that wins a 16 team playoff and therefore wins four games against an opponent be a more deserving champion since they beat much bigger odds to win it?

I'm more willing to say that a team is the best team if they are able to beat 4 other top teams rather than just beating one top team.

Your argument sounds like it should completely ignore the national title game and instead name the champion after the conference title games. Why is a 1 game playoff better able to serve as evidence of the "best team" than an 8 or 16 team playoff? The +1 does not equal a four team playoff because it is highly unlikely that the top 4 teams will be playing each other in the bowl games. Therefore, the +1 is the same as our current system, just with an extra game played by two teams.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Thanks, Mac for the clarification. Listening is a skill. I'll work on it.

Having you suggest it's "tired" is disappointing though. You are perhaps the biggest college football fan in all Chicago sports media. Some of us wish for more leadership from our media personalities than having them roll over on an issue because they are bored with it.

Happy holidays, Mac. Enjoy the games. Go Ball State.

Irish Boy, I guess we differ on the meaning of the word "champion". In every single sport except one, the champion may not be the best team during the season, but they are the best team in the championship tournament. That is what makes them THE champion. They performed best in the most important games. That to me is the mark of a champion, and it is much more important than how a team played four months ago. Under your definition of a champion (regular season performance), the NFL should have just crowned the Patriots the champion after the regular season last year. The Pats were the best team, but the Giants were the champion. To me, both are relevant facts, but the Giants title means a lot more. I would suggest the same kind of thing could and would happen in college football. And the sport would be better off for it.

I thought this thread was going to be about a different hobby of Mac's and TG's

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There are those who think college football is essentially NFL-lite... if that's what you believe then a playoff is exactly what is needed.

However, I do not believe that is what college sports is all about. Let's be honest, the NFL works so well due to its salary cap structure and revenue sharing arrangements. It creates an even playing field that just doesn't exist in college football. Before you go off and say the players don't get paid, so why should it matter, just look at this example. THE Ohio State University's football budget alone is more than NU's ENTIRE athletic budget. OSU's coaches get about 4 times as much compensation as NU's (NU doesn't have to publish their coaches comp since it is a private institution, but reports have Fitz pegged at 1/5th of what Tressle gets). And the facilities at OSU make NU's look like shanty towns circa 1930.

So why would that matter? OSU's number of 4 and 5 star recruits year in and year out is staggering. NU got one 4 star recruit this year and we are doing backflips. College football doesn't have a draft, so there is no way to get an even playing field. And without an even playing field, college football will never achieve what the NFL has.

And it my opinion, that is ok. But to suggest that a playoff system would make college football more fair is ABSOLUTELY laughable. It only serves to make the rich programs even richer. I complain about NU, but at least we are in the Big 10... and that helps us as far as TV revenues. God forbid you are a fan of a MAC team, you'll never have a chance to compete for a national championship.

At the end of the day, college sports was never meant to be the minor league for the NFL. If you think it should be then you might as well throw out all the ideals of the student athlete. Bowls also were never meant to determine a national championship. A bowl was a reward for a good season (for fans and for the athletes) and provide a chance to compete against another conference for bragging rights. It's blown up into something much more. But I have to agree with Teddy... a bowl game was never more exciting than the regular season games (and I don't think it was meant to).

Northwestern may not be the best example. They seemingly choose to not invest in the athletic department like any other Big Ten school does.


This is why I believe that the ONLY fair solution is a 16 team playoff. I think it's safe to say that the Northwestern Rose Bowl teams would have been good enough to get into the top 16 or win the Big Ten. By my estimation, in the past 10 years Big Ten teams Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Illinois, Iowa, and Purdue(2000) would all have qualified as a top 16 team at the end of the year or won the conference automatic bid. Also, teams like Utah, Boise State, and BYU would have done the same. The only chance the programs like Purdue, Illinois, Iowa and Northwestern have to compete for a national title is for there to be a 16 team playoff. Even an undefeated MAC team would likely get a chance to prove it on the field, even though they would likely be the 16th seed.

The current system benefits the rich programs the most because the voters will nearly always give them the benefit of the doubt over any of the other programs(see Texas Tech not being mentioned as being screwed out of the Big 12 title game but Texas dominating the headlines for a week).

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I used to be a proponent of a playoff system but not any longer. I don't think it would really crown a much better champion than the current system. I don't think the NCAA Hoops tourney crowns a great champion every year either. They get it wrong as often as right. It's usually just the hottest team of the moment. '04-'05 was a fine example of that.

The current system gives you extremely meaningful games throughout the year during a sports season that needs it. There's not much going on in October and November once your baseball team is out of it. The Texas-Texas Tech game was as good as any holiday season playoff game would be and right in mid-November when I need it.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be cool but I don't mind having people think a late October game is do or die. We still end up with some decent bowl games and a National Championship game that could be a blowout with or without a playoff anyway.

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You know me like that.

In my opinion, a tournament of 8 or 16 teams would result in more meaningful games. Texas Tech-Texas would have had major playoff implications. Games like Penn State-Michigan State would have been for a chance to play in the national championship instead of just a Rose Bowl appearance.

Take a look back at the season and do an analysis of how many games in October truly made a difference in the national title. I don't see many. Most of the games that ended the title hopes of teams were not big games before they happened. There was very little buildup for Oregon State-USC or Penn State-Iowa because both those games were fairly big upsets.

Think about how much bigger last year's Illinois win over Ohio State would have been if it had given Illinois a chance at a national title? Think about this years BYU-Utah game when the winner could very well be a national championship contender?

For every great game there was this year, there was another game with a great buildup that failed to meet expectations and sucked as a game(USC-Ohio State and Texas Tech-Oklahoma come to mind).

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Speak for yourself and your fan base next time.

The fact that there is always that chance of a USC getting beat gives every game that tension, especially if the underdog starts to hang around into the second half. I don't need buildup. I hate buildup. I watch the games.



Nothing would have made that bigger. Truthfully, though, Illinois shouldn't have had a chance to play for a NC last year, as evidenced by their Rose Bowl appearance. They got a nice Bowl game and a great win for the fans to remember. That's a great year for that program and all they deserved.



That would have been a tragedy.

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You know me like that.

We are talking nationally. Of course Iowa fans thought it was a big game, but they think the Iowa State game is a big game too.

My point is that the country wasn't sitting around on Friday saying that the Penn State-Iowa game was must see tv. It only became a big game nationally when it was close and then Iowa won it.

Dr. Ken was talking about how great it is to have very meaningful games in the season but many of those games are only meaningful after the fact.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Would the USC-Oregon State game have been any less interesting because USC still had a chance to win the national championship if it lost?


Illinois may not have been deserving of playing for the NC(they likely still wouldn't have come close as a first round loss would have been very likely) but it would have been an even bigger win if it also qualified them for something more meaningful than second place in the Big Ten.


If BYU or Utah could win 4 games in a row against top flight competition they would deserve it. Would it be a tragedy if a 4 seed won the NCAA basketball tournament?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think a person or player knows it's meaningful in advance. It's just that you don't get a perspective on the degree of importance until after the game is played.

My argument is that a playoff would diminish that "degree of importance" before and after the fact since you could still lose a game and be an 8 seed or, God forbid, a 16 seed in a playoff and be a NC.

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You know me like that.

Irish Boy will bring the smack down on you if you say Ball State could win the NC.

Yes.

I don't know. Only if they got to the National Championship game or something. I look back on the win as big because it was against the #1 team on the road and got them to the Rose Bowl (where they got mildly destroyed). If it got them to the first round of a 16 team playoff in the Frito-Lay All State Insurance Divisional Round Playoff Humanitarian Bowl, I wouldn't feel any better about it.

I was ticked the year they won and had to go to The Sugar Bowl. I want The Rose Bowl. I've been conditioned to desire it.

Probably.

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You know me like that.

I'm not sure I follow here. I think the point is that a lot of games that, in the end, turn out to be "meaningless" were potentially deadly when they were happening in a way that wouldn't exist if there were some broad playoff. I think of the USC-Stanford game this year, where USC ended up winning by three touchdowns but Stanford was close until the end of the 3rd quarter (they were actually leading in the second half.) It was must-see, there was no need for build up, and it would have absolutely killed USC (not that the win did much for them in the end), while it would have just been an inconvenient loss for them in route to a lower seed in the tournament. So they won, and the game will just be a footnote after the season, but damned if it wasn't exciting then.

As for Coast's point, I think we're in agreement that the champion and the best team aren't often the same thing. Sometimes that's tolerable, because there's no clear "best team" and so the end of year tournament is as good of evidence as anything else. But I have to be honest: the 2006 MLB season seriously changed the way I think about sports, playoff structures, and lucky bounces, and what being a champion really means. Championships just don't mean as much to me since then, in any sport. Upsets are exciting. Complete randomness is not.

As for Ball State, it's the fact that they could, in this universe, win a National Championship is what scares me. If I knew they'd get bounced, I'd have less of a problem with it.

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Fire Phil Emery

Every game is meaningful to a player and a fan of that school. I found the "Battle for the basement of the Big Ten" between Purdue and IU to be meaningful. The rest of the country could care less unless they were smart enough to take Purdue and the points.

I'm not sure what you mean by meaningful. If you mean nationally relevant then I feel that a playoff would increase in more nationally relevant games since even games like the ACC championship game would have potential national title implications. If you mean locally relevant than I still feel that fans of teams will still find all games relevant and conference championships(and therefore automatic bids for the 6 BCS conferences) would be relevant.

As for a 16 seed winning the national title, I think that would be great. Any team that could beat the #1, #8, #4, and #2 teams in the country(or beat teams who beat them) would be a most deserving champion.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So, you use one example of a team that performed well above the level they did in the season as a reason to throw out a nearly universally accepted method of determining a champion?

Using a small sample size to draw conclusions is something that someone as well versed in statistics as you should know is a bad method.

Do you really feel that the Chicago Cubs were the best team in MLB last season? If you don't, then why has that not completely changed your thinking like 2006 did?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sure they would. I just doubt that it would ever happen or happen so rarely as not to justify the year after year of first round blowout games. Look at Illinois-USC last year. That wasn't even a 1 and 16. More like a 1 and 12.

I'm not saying a playoff wouldn't be interesting but I just don't think it is exceptionally better. And I wouldn't have much more interest in the ACC Championship unless I really thought one of them was a top 4 or 5 team, which are likely the only ones that would win a NC anyway. The same as now.

There isn't nearly the parity in football that you see in basketball. It's haves and have nots.

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You know me like that.

There's more examples too, but that's the one that really changed my way of thinking. I feel much the same way about the 2005 NFL season, the 2007 NFL season (sort of), and the 2005 MLB season (sort of). As for the Cubs example, the way I feel is that usually, in any given sport, there's a handful of teams that could plausibly be the "best", and all but one lose, sometimes early in the process. There's no illegitimacy in that. However, when one of the teams that was demonstrably not the best wins the championship, then I have a problem, especially if that's not a particularl rare occurence.

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Fire Phil Emery

The national championship game has recently been blowouts more often than not. We don't really know how two teams will match up until they meet on the field. USC was clearly a great team last year, and I'd rather have seen them move on with that win over Illinois to play another team that showed it was better than another top 16 team. Unless there is a truly unstoppable team, we would eventually get some amazing games.


The point of the NCAA isn't that the 8-16 seeds have a chance to win the title. They do, but the inclusive nature of the championship system makes sure that every team that is championship caliber is given a shot to prove it on the field. There may be undeserving teams that get a chance to play in the playoff but they will quickly be taken out and the cream will rise to the top.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I don't see how you can argue against a playoff but say that there are a handful of teams that could plausibly be the "best". It's either the "best" team in the regular season deserves to be champion or the winner of a playoff of the "best" teams deserves to be champion. You seemingly don't believe in playoffs but are unwilling to offer an alternative solution.

I also think you are stretching on the others seasons you reference especially the NFL where the difference between the top team and the tenth best team is smaller than any other league because parity is so prevalent. That however is a discussion for another day.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Wrong. Per student, you'll find NU has a competitive investment in its athletic programs. It's the only fair way to measure it since that is where most of the revenue comes from.



You are going the wrong direction, in my opinion. The only "fair" solution would be to have a high school draft. Good luck with that. Call it 4 game, 8 game, 16 game... you are still going to have the same problems about who gets in. I have no doubt that the emphasis on the national championship will make the rich get richer.

That's a convenient measuring stick but not an accurate one. Does NU's tv revenue come based off of number of students? Does it's shared bowl game payouts come from number of students?

Here is what pays the bills in college athletics. Some of them NU is at a disadvantage.
TV revenue
Bowl revenue(shared within the conference)
Gameday ticket sales for football and basketball. NU has a smaller alumni base, but it should be counteracted by being in a large metropolitain area.
Alumni donations(NU may be at a disadvantage, but NU grads tend to make a lot of money).
Parking fees for games.
Apparel sales.

Some of those hurt NU's bottom line, but some of them help greatly.

I may be wrong, but I would guess NU is one of the least active schools in the Big Ten in renovating facilities for the two revenue sports. I know that is true for the basketball stadium.

I'm not trying to bash NU, but they don't seem to put the same level of importance on the "college athletics arms race" that other schools do. There is nothing wrong with that but it's also tough to blame other schools for not sharing that opinion. Football and basketball is a major money maker for both the athletic department and the university in general at Purdue and they are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into basketball and football in the past 10 years and the next 10 years. In my opinion, with the Big Ten Network money that is coming in every Big Ten school should be planning major renovations of either the football or basketball arenas.

Enough with this tangent though.


I fail to see the logic that it is better to have to make a tough decision on who the third best team in the country is rather than the 9th best team or the 17th best team. In my opinion, it's much less of a screwjob to tell the 17th ranked team that they don't get to compete for a title than the 3rd team.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Athletic department revenues come more from the school/ticket sales than any bowl deals, so I think per student is much better measuring stick than just the nominal number. But your point still supports the notion that its not a fair playing field for the guys that are NOT in a major conference like the Big 10 (I even referenced the fact that NU was lucky in this regard).

As to your second point, I see what you are saying. My point is that it will never be "fair" and that's ok. Because college athletics is not supposed to be just about crowning a national champion. I also like the fact that it tends to be a regional sport through the conferences. I like that. Some do not. Its one of the little idiosynchrosies that make college football unique.