The writing is on the wall. The Bowl Championship Subdivision’s days are all but over.
It is only a matter of time before the new College Football Playoff makes its way onto the scene and the BCS will become a faint memory.
Before the BCS meets it’s heralded demise, it is important to remember it in a positive light.
Not only was the BCS leaps and bounds better than what we had, the BCS was a good system. Not a perfect system (that doesn’t exist) but a good system that relatively speaking, did a good job matching up the two best teams for the national title. It wasn’t always pretty, but it works.
The best quality that the BCS should be remembered for was that under this system, every game counts.
In August, over 120 teams have a shot for the national title, but as the season wears on, more and more teams suffer a loss and watch their title hopes fade to dust. Just one loss usually spells despair for a team’s dreams. Because of this, you have to play your best football every week.
Under the current system, every week is a playoff. Every game is a win or go home situation. In the NFL a 10-6 team can back into the playoffs, “gets hot at the right time” and wins the Super Bowl (I’m looking at you, Green Bay). In college football, perfection is the requirement.
Just last week, Oregon took on Stanford in a battle of PAC-12 powers. Stanford jumped to a 26-0 lead and Oregon’s national title dreams appeared to be nothing but 76 percent nitrogen and 23 percent oxygen.
But suddenly, the Ducks stormed back. They weren’t just fighting to win the game or beat a division rival. They were playing for their season. That game on Thursday Night in Palo Alto was Oregon’s national title, and because their comeback fell short, they are destined for an Orange Bowl date with mediocrity.
Under a playoff, Oregon could still back into a shot at the championship, and they might have cut their losses and not tried to fight back so valiantly in that game.
The BCS creates the fiercest level of competition in every game.
Next month’s final BCS rankings should not be celebrated like the fall of the Berlin Wall, but rather be seen as a great decade-plus of competitive college football, and a very important catalyst for the tournament that we’re about to indulge in.
Don’t get me wrong, the tournament is going to be awesome. Who isn’t excited to listen to Barry Alvarez and Condoleezza Rice argue over which one-loss SEC team deserves to jump past every team in the Big Ten?
The future of college football is bright, but the past is not dark. The BCS made college football better.
Does Grey have a point, or do you think the BCS was designed by the devil himself? Email gsatterfield@wisc.edu to let him know.
