College Football: Good wins, bad wins, good losses, bad losses.

The college football regular season ended yesterday with some big upsets and some real confusion on the top of the BCS picture. Although I would like to write about the relative merits of each of top 5 team and why they belong or don't belong in the title game, ESPN and CNNSI will do that for me x 10 for the rest of the week. There are still the SEC and Big 12 title games to be played but we will have to wait for them to add to the confusion. The biggest problem in polling is that there is no standard for what wins and losses are worth. What is the difference in the value of a win against a Top 10 team vs a bottom 40 team? Between a win against a weak opponent vs a loss to the number one team? Between a loss to a really bad team vs a loss to a good team? Why does a loss at the beginning of the season mean less than a loss at the end of the season? Computer numbers try to do this but then you see crazy things like a 5-7 Virginia team being ranked ahead of a 10-2 Tulsa team last week. At some point wins are wins and losses are losses and no human would rank a 5-7 team over a 10-2 team.

I stated in a previous post that the BYU has no incentive to play tough games and I think that holds true for all schools. The difference between a good win vs a easy win is not great enough to risk a possible loss. The penalty for losing a tough game is enormous, virtual elimination from BCS consideration and millions of dollars lost in payouts, exposure and recruiting. Why risk it? Alabama is the only undefeated among the top 5 and it is most likely due to playing the weakest schedule. Its best wins are against Georgia and LSU, which don't look so good now. Compare that with Texas that had to play Oklahoma, Missouri, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech on consecutive weeks, there is no question as to who played the tougher schedule. Even if Alabama beats Florida it would have played only 2 teams in the top 25 at the time of bowl season. If you were the head coach, which schedule would you pick if boosters are demanding a championship?

There are going to be a lot of Boise State fans out there that want a BCS bid but nothing on their schedule justifies it. Utah and Boise State is another good example of why teams should schedule bad teams. The difference between them in the polls is just 3 spots but Utah played a much tougher schedule. Boise State's best win was vs. Oregon at Oregon and then the rest of the schedule were pretty much automatic Ws. So what did Utah get for beating BYU and TCU this year? three measly spots (and a BCS bid.) If Utah had the choice to switch those teams and play Nevada and Hawaii instead, you get a much easier schedule and still a higher ranking than Boise State.

Despite the confusion, I am still against non-BCS power teams playing each other during the regular season. While Utah and Boise State playing a non-conference game would clarify the who is best argument, it just eliminates non-BCS teams from rankings and media attention. How else will anyone know about Boise State unless it is undefeated? Do you think anyone at ESPN would care about a one loss Bronco team? The non-BCS are the uncool kids that the cool kids don't want anything to do with. The only way to make them pay attention is to be good enough to beat them and not beat up on each other. BYU and Boise State will start playing in a couple of years and I think it will just eliminate the loser from the national spotlight. Sure it makes for entertaining football but that isn't looking at the big picture. Anyway, how much credit is BYU going to get for beating a team that no one thinks is really that good. They will say that BYU got a win vs an overrated team and that Boise State was exposed as the weak team that they are. The rosier alternative would be not playing each other and playing terrible teams, winning and having more teams that go undefeated for the season.

MWC fans would like to add Boise state to the mix to add credibility to the conference but I don't see the benefits. This year all four non-BCS powers are in the top 25 but what would have happened if Boise State was in the MWC? It would have been very difficult for all of them to still be there as it would tack another tough game on each other their schedules, and 3 on to Boise State's. The Bronco's might be 9-3 this year and not ranked at all. Other issues are that that Boise State has not had historically had strong basketball program and its non-revenue sports also aren't as competitive as the MWC's. Finally, Academically the MWC aren't all Harvard's but are at a different level than Boise State. If I were to have a say, I would have TCU move to the Sun Belt and Utah move to the MAC so that everyone can go dominate their own little conferences and be players in BCS race. Lets petition to have BYU change their contract with Boise State to Bowling Green.

This is why people want a playoff but these same questions will have to be answered to determine who will get in to the playoff. College Basketball doesn't have national champion controversy but there is a lot of controversy about who gets invited to the tournament. In basketball it isn't that big of a deal because the confusion is over the final spots between 64 teams. The last team invited rarely makes any real noise during March Madness. The largest a college football tourney could be is only 16 teams. It wouldn't be crazy to see the number one team lose to the 16th ranked team so getting the right teams would be very important. Even acknowledging the problems, it might be better to have controversy surrounding who gets in to be the champion, and not who the champion is.