BCS: Bad Championship Series

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a system built on, and designed by. fear. This was demonstrated once again this past Sunday by their selections to the 5 major bowls, especially the 2010 Fiesta Bowl. This game, which pits 2 undefeated teams, the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs and the Boise State University Broncos is a perfect example of how the BCS is a system driven by fear.

The BCS and the other major conferences (PAC-10, SEC, Big East, Big XII, Big Ten, and ACC) are terrified of these non-automatic qualifying conferences such as the WAC and the Mountain West. This fear has been fostered by what these two conferences have done to the blue bloods of college football this decade. Of course, I am talking about how Alabama was waxed by Utah last year and how Boise State stunned Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.

In response to the fears of the big conferences and the BCS itself, the selection committee decided to pit these two "minor" conference teams in one game. This scenario eliminates the chance that the Horned Frogs and Broncos can embarrass the blue bloods on the national stage.

This is a complete sell out by the BCS. These two schools are just looking for a chance, they want to prove that they belong in these games, a feat which is impossible to do if they are not given a chance against these bigger schools in the bowls. No one will play them in the regular season, so these schools look to the bowl season to cut their teeth on the established powerhouses of division I college football.

But this is just a small part of a large issue. The BCS is not just afraid of schools like TCU or BSU, they fear the demise of their system itself: the big 5 bowls (Fiesta, Rose, Sugar, Orange, BCS Championship Game). With demands for a national playoff seemingly growing more and more each year the BCS is desperately trying to hold on to its system. To combat this they make the major conferences happy by catering to their needs, i.e. this year's bowl matchups. As long as the major conferences are in the pocket of the BCS , these conferences will still publicly support the BCS and the system will survive. The BCS's justification for pitting the Horned Frogs and Broncos in the Fiesta Bowl is that America wants to see these two undefeated teams face off against each other. No, on the contrary, this is merely a ploy to avoid having one of these teams embarrass their base constituency.

Another way to combat the cries for a playoff and keep the BCS firmly entrenched is to keep people talking. By creating bad bowl matchups it keeps people talking about the system. As the saying goes "there is no such thing as bad publicity." As people talk about the selections the system is getting publicity and debates are sparked. In many ways people enjoy these debates just as much as the games themselves; these controversies are what make people come back and praise the BCS. In this way the BCS entrenches itself into American culture and tradition and combats talk of a national playoff.

Until a solution is found to crown a true champion in college football the BCS will not work as a scientific method of measuring the performance of a team. No, it will merely be a game of smoke and mirrors that operates on the fear of losing its place as the arbiter of the National Championship.