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Searching for Perfection

© Grimace Boyer

I can't help but laugh whenever I hear people spewing off about how Oklahoma should be considered the number one team in the country. Or how Miami "hasn't proven" that they're the number one team in the country. If the BCS has given us anything, it's the ability to complain about rankings 'til the cows come home, to no avail.

The BCS is the latest incarnation of a system designed to replace the old, "antiquated" poll system. Call me old fashioned, but I miss 1997, when Nebraska and Michigan split the polls and talked themselves up without ever meeting. Then this year, we get serenaded with the swan song that is Oklahoma's Cinderella season - a BCS victory over an overrated and overhyped Florida State that has thrived for years in a weak division. Meanwhile, great teams like Nebraska and Purdue get put aside for losing in tough conferences where they're forced to play top-notch teams week in and week out.

For what it lacked, the old system had a certain appeal. It acknowledged its own flaws. The BCS, on the other hand, is a computer ranking system, so how could it be imperfect? Well, for one thing, it uses the polls themselves as part of its equation, so it seems to me that those flaws are not only carried over, but enhanced. What, then? A playoff system?

College football fans hear these wonderful tales of playoffs in non-Division I-A football, and how everyone is happy. Surely, here is the answer, yes? Hardly. First comes the logistical problems - how many weeks can we possibly cover with this? Four? Five? Four weeks would give us sixteen possible contenders (2 in the finals, 4 in the semis, 8 in the quarters, 16 in the first round) - not enough to even cover the Top 25. So how do we pick these teams? For all of its problems with bubble teams and whatnot, the NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament manages to get all the teams that should be in the tournament there. Sure, some teams looking for little more than prestige and an upset win or two get slighted, but the top teams show up and they play. But they get to choose 64 teams.

With our sixteen teams, do we give automatic bids to conference winners? What about the SEC, Big 12, and MAC, which have two divisions? Do we give the best team in the MAC a spot despite the fact that they probably couldn't beat even the fifth best team in the Pac 10 or Big 10 any given Saturday? Do we reward teams with weak schedules and big wins, or teams with tough conference and non-conference schedules who have two or three close losses? How do we determine the "best" teams?

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