Bowl Movement, part three (seriously)

Look, I promised I would finish this before the season started. No one has kicked off yet, right? So- still on target. As you may remember (or not) we're taking a four part look at the idea of "National Championship". Waaaay back in January, I wrote-

Over the next few weeks (just kidding), I'll be presenting a four part series on the current state of college football's bowl system. My hope is to cover the following areas:

• Those who don't know the past are doomed to repeat it- How did we get to where we are?
• Follow the money- Financial realities of the current system
• We've burned the couch- now what?- Is there even a value for a "champion"?
• Laying a golden egg- My recommendation for a playoff
  

Before we jump into a philosophical discussion of "champion", I wanted to give a real quick update to the last post, which posited that bowls and such were mostly about money for colleges. Along this lines comes data from Inside Higher Education, which discusses the magnitude of the financial issues impacting athletic departments nationwide. Quick summary- Athletic departments spend more than they bring in. Given that, you can see how ideas of changing one of the largest cash cows for many institutions (either the current bowl system or the newly discovered 12th game- more on that in the next post) is simply not going to happen.

So- on to the idea of "champion", which seems to be timely, given the BCS-iversary. Let me first go on the record as saying that I am not one of these "let's give everyone a medal" persons, or a "if we don't keep score, then no one will be a loser" folks. I believe in winners and losers, holding firmly to two quotes from St. Woody- "Without winners, there wouldn't even be any civilization.” and "There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.” Yup, if it's worth playing, it's worth keeping score.

So, the issue isn't about 'winning', but about 'champion'- What does that mean? Granted, it's supposed to mean that you are the best in whatever for whatever time; best in football for this year, in this case. But what does it "mean"?

We've already discussed that this success impacts an institution financially at a great rate, with the trips and the banquets and the rings and whatnot. We could talk about how this is a wash- that these funds are recouped by the increased giving of newly proud alumni and such, but this is just not true (and in the case of basketball, the opposite may be true):

...researchers found that the success of the university’s football and men’s basketball teams had small and statistically insignificant effects on giving by non-athletes, and no effect — and in the case of men’s basketball, even a negative effect — on giving by alums who were not athletes in college. “[W]hen alumni see success among these teams, they may believe that the school is spending too much on the athletic program, and therefore reduce their giving,” the researchers speculate, echoing conjectures made by previous teams of researchers.

We could also talk about the "pride" that this brings student athletes, but this pride is fleeting- athletes are often more interested in moving to the next stage (NFL); or, failing that, attempting to recoup some money by selling their rings or other memorabilia on eBay.

Championships may bring "pride" or "bragging rights" to the legions of alumni or fans, but the reality is that even this is fleeting. It takes about twenty minutes before the talking heads at ESPN to put together their list of "top teams" for next year. Plus, it's not like we get a tax break or discounts on doughnuts if we happen to cheer for the champs- All I have from 2002 is a couple of souvenirs and a rarely worn shirt. Most people don't even get to experience that most sacred of celebrations... not everyone can live in West Virginia.

Nope, the real beauty of football lies in three areas- On the field (including preparation, recruiting, practice, coaching, etc), in the stands (and on the couch in front of the tube), and everywhere else. In this last arena, I would almost argue that a "champion" takes away from some of the joy for true fans... We can't discuss/argue/debate/describe/fight about "greatest" with others whose loyalties we may question but whose dedication to the game is as fanatical as ours. And the debates now are the same as they were pre-BCS, in tenor and frequency.

And I'm not the only one who feels this way. One of the advantages to my "delay" in this process is that others have chimed in on similar veins. First, from one of the greatest Buckeye blogs, "Around the Oval"- Why I don't want a playoff in college:

(H)ow often can you say you're sure the team that wins the NCAA tournament in men's basketball was the best in the country that year? If they get hot at the right time and catch a few lucky breaks, a pretty mediocre team can make a run through the playoffs and win it all, while a team that crushed the competition throughout the year can fall victim to a bad call and be out in the first round. True, those are the extreme cases, but c'mon, we're all college football fans here: I have argued extensively, with a complete disregard for logic, that Archie Griffin is the best athlete ever, simply because he won two Heismans. You think the Buckeyes losing a close game in the semi-finals is going to stop me from arguing that they're the best team in the country? A playoff won't settle these arguments. It'll give the fans of the winners some pretty good evidence, but then the little crystal balls the BCS hands out are also pretty good evidence.

And who says crowning a national champion is something worth trying to do anyway? Can we really take one team from 119 and say, "Okay, we are absolutely certain this is the best team in the country"? It seems like an exercise in futility, designed to drive us all crazy. So why even try? Let's go back to the old system. Every year, the Big Ten champ plays the Pac-10 champ in the Rose Bowl, the 2nd place Big Ten team plays in the Citrus Capital One Bowl, and so on. It won't give us the best team in the country, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there's no way we can conclusively determine that. So instead, we get the tradition back, and a system that at least makes college football less of a blatant cash-grab.

You would expect tOSU fans to feel this way; we've benefited pretty well from the current system. But I was surprised to read a UGa blogger (one of the best overall, by the way) say some similar things- as you remember, Georgia and U$C fans were the ones who had the strongest arguments that they were left out this past year. But Doug writes:

An old-school, unstructured Wild-West bowl system might not be preferable to a playoff, but in practical terms it’s certainly no worse than letting math geeks have this much say in who gets to play for the title. Basically, after ten years of the BCS, I think I've come to the conclusion that a split title, while certainly not the ideal situation, wouldn't exactly be the end of the world; it's when we have to slog through the aggravation of an arcane jumble of decimal points, and still arrive at a split title anyway, that I really start to feel like the sanctity of my favorite sport is being arbitrarily and pointlessly messed with.

Over on MotSaG, the real issue (other than money) is highlighted: The major problem with the BCS, Bowls, and (ultimately) any playoff is the rankings and the polls-

The primary issue with the BCS is not that it’s unable to match up nos. 1 and 2 - it does that just fine. The problem is that it contains no institution to ensure that the teams ranked number 1 and 2 are in fact the two best teams in the country, as the BCS rankings themselves are compiled using a flawed poll system.

He goes on to argue, in part, what my brother has been saying for years- there should be no pre-season polls. First poll should be at least a month into the season; how many times have there been teams who, while ranked highly, folded against the first real team they played? Or other teams who started out ranked really low but ended up holding the hardware?

To summarize- Being a "champion" isn't really that significant, and difficult to determine. The ways that we've tried to do crown a champion lately haven't helped any more than the previous efforts. Fans should learn to appreciate the "third zone"- the joys of discussion and debate with people who care as deeply as they do about the greatest game going, and that having a "champion" takes away from that.

Next in the series (before kickoff, I promise): If someone held a gun to my head, what would I do? How would create a playoff, given the considerations we've discussed here?

Feel free to get a head start in the comments section.