The "Good" of the BCS

For all the hate that is out there for the Bowl System, it did produced one of the most exciting weekends in college football in quite some time.  The importance of each loss was magnified as 4 of the top 10 teams in the BCS lost, essentially ending any hope of a championship for Clemson, Oklahoma and Oregon.  We also frequently forget that the Bowl System also creates an incentive for teams with less wins to play for the fun of a bowl birth.  This weekend, NC State and Iowa State both clinched bowl birth with their upset wins and Baylor made a case for not having to play in the “New Era Pinstripe Bowl”!

I have been considering the chance of Virginia Tech playing in the National Championship game and while I don’t think they are anywhere close to being the second best team in the nation, I do think they would deserve to play in the game.  The truth of the matter is that in any system you aren’t guaranteed for the champion to be the best team in the nation.  A playoff makes us feel better about the champion; but were UConn and Butler the two best teams to play in the NCAA Basketball Championship Game last year? No, absolutely not.  But, they both deserved to be there.  This is because they performed within the confines of the system.

Currently, I can describe the system is as follows and if you perform according to the system you will get a chance to play for the National Championship, just as if you win 5 games in the NCAA Basketball tournament, you will get to play for the Championship. 

First, the conferences are tiered as such:

Tier 1: SEC, BIG12, BIG10 (a BIG10/12 team can occasionally move to tier 2)

Tier 2: PAC12, ACC (a PAC12 team can occasionally move to tier 1)

Tier 3: BIG EAST, MWC

Tier 4: C-USA, WAC, MAC, SUNBELT

Teams are then ranked as follows:

1. Undefeated Tier 1
2. Undefeated Tier 2
3. Undefeated Tier 3 and 1 loss Tier 
4. Undefeated Tier 4 and 1 loss Tier 2
5. 1 loss Tier 3 and 2 loss Tier 1
6. 1 loss Tier 4 and 2 loss Tier 2

Take a look at the rankings and you will see that this is usually the case.  The real arguments come into play when we need to rank between tiers.  But, if there is 1 team in "group 1" (LSU) and no one in "group 2" (Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma State all lose), Virginia Tech or Stanford will have earned the right to be in the discussion for that spot in the title game.