Word Count: 1438
College Football’s BCS Problems
College football is broken; in fact, it has been for as long as anyone can remember. The rankings system used by the NCAA to decide which teams get to play for the national championship every year is an entirely unfair process, and is flawed. From split national championships to the latest controversies over the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, college football fans have had to go through what no other sports fans have had to endure. The answer is simple: scratch the BCS and add a small playoff system to the original bowl system.
The BCS (Bowl Championship Series) relies on a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine relative team rankings, and to narrow the field to two teams to play in the BCS National Championship Game held after the other college bowl games. The winner of this game is crowned the BCS national champion.
According to the BCS website, intended for “fans, media, and others interested in how the system works”, a combination of two human polls (the Harris Poll and the USA Today Coaches Poll) are combined with six separate computer rankings to determine the total Bowl Championship Series rankings. A number of panelist including familiar names to football fans among those voting in the Harris Interactive Poll, including Trev Alberts (ESPN), Brentson Buckner, and Boomer Esiason (both former NFL players). The rest of the 114 panelists are relatively unknown names outside the small circle of college football administrators, coaches, and print media, but have been selected from a nominating pool of 300 such professionals representing all 11 NCAA Division 1-A conferences. The votes from the Harris poll are made public on the company’s website, so the voters are forced to answer for their votes if the fans wish to question them (Harris Interactive).
The USA Today Coaches’ Poll, in which the number of respondents varies from week to week, does not release the...