BCS taking away from Rivalary games.

crazybuckfan40 · Nov 19, 2005

I saw this article on fox sports and I think he is right on point. I also think it doesnt just take away from rivalry games it takes away from the whole season if you trip up once in the season.

<TABLE class=bdy cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=770 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD>Rivalry Week is unrivaled in sports
<TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD>http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?i...ru=http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/5085892</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=440 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD>Michael Rosenberg / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 days ago<SCRIPT> // front-end hack to remove postedTime from Rumors page until a better way can be determined if (document.URL.indexOf("/name/FS/rumors") != -1) document.getElementById("postedTime").style.display = 'none'; </SCRIPT> </TD><TD width=10> </TD><TD align=right><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=bdy cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=770 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=5></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=bdy cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=770 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=10></TD><TD width=440><SCRIPT> if(fanid.length > 0 && typeof(nflDefaultLeague)!= "undefined") { leagueId = nflDefaultLeague; //find teamId of default league (if exists) for(var i=0; i < teamsInfo.length; i++){ if(teamsInfo[4] == leagueId){ defaultTeamId = teamsInfo[0]; } } var fantasyLeaguePlayerJsPath = 'http://msnfantasy.foxsports.com' + '/nugget/200002_' + leagueId + '|||' + fanid; document.write('<scr' + 'ipt language="JavaScript1.2" src="' + fantasyLeaguePlayerJsPath + '" type="text/javascript"></scr' + 'ipt>'); } </SCRIPT>You know that desert island disc question? You're supposed to pick a few CDs that you would want with you on a desert island, assuming that desert island had electricity and a nice stereo and, inexplicably, a strict no-iPod policy.

The sports version would be Desert Island Sporting Events — you pick a few sporting events you would watch if you were stranded on a desert island with a nice couch and electricity and a strange DirecTV feed that only pulled in a few sporting events.
And I would take college football rivalry games over pretty much everything else — over the NBA Finals, the World Series, maybe even the NCAA tournament.
So why is college football neglecting the best thing about the sport?
This is the week of Michigan-Ohio State and Auburn-Alabama and LSU-Mississippi and Stanford-Cal, among many, many others. These rivalries encompass the very best thing about college football: they are regional. (Long-term long-distance rivalries are rare; Notre Dame-USC is the exception.)
Now the sport is moving away from its roots. It is moving toward a world where all we are supposed to care about is the so-called national championship. It is diminishing the importance of games that we have been obsessing about for most of a century.
And for what?
For a system nobody really likes.
In college football these days, it's all Bowl Championship Series, all the time. There are 117 Division I-A programs, and we're only supposed to care about the top two.
The playoff lobby hates the BCS, because the system claims to crown one true national champion, but only gets it right half the time.
And the anti-playoff voices aren't happy either. (That's me, off in the corner, in my houndstooth hat and "What's So Bad About Split Championships?" T-shirt.)
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</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>Auburn-Alabama is always something worth shouting about. (John Bazemore / Associated Press)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Now, the BCS gets a lot of heat. Some of it is ridiculous. (A few weeks ago, people went crazy when Texas passed USC in the BCS standings. But the whole point of the BCS is to match the top two teams — there is no difference between being No. 1 and No. 2 in December, let alone October.)
But a lot of the criticism is fair. And some of it makes you wonder why we can't just go back to the old system, when beating your archrival could unequivocally make your season.
And when you combine the BCS with the cash machines known as "conference championship games," rivalries lose a little something. The beauty of Michigan-Ohio State, for example, is that it usually decides at least a share of the Big Ten title. Isn't that cooler than the winner getting the Big Ten East Division's berth in a conference title game?
Thankfully, there is no such thing as a Big Ten East. But there is such a thing as the Big 12 North and South, and that's why we no longer see Oklahoma play Nebraska every year. The two longtime powerhouses are in separate divisions.
And why are they in separate divisions? The long answer: the Big Eight expanded and became the Big 12. The short answer: money. With 12 teams, the Big 12 gets to hold a conference championship game, which brings in several truckloads of cash.
Despite the screaming for a college football playoff, I am convinced that a lot of die-hard college football fans were just fine with the old system. And more than that, any true college football fan understands that rivalries are what make the sport great.
This is why you can't compare college football with the NFL. Right now, the NFL's best rivalry is Patriots-Colts. But that's just because the teams are good and because of the whole Manning/Brady storyline; five years ago, Pats-Colts was barely a rivalry, let alone the best in the league.
But you could make the argument for Alabama-Auburn every single year. And while very few regular-season NFL games are embedded in our memories, you can be sure that folks in Washington remember many Apple Cup games vividly.
College football rivalries are still great. But this attempt to turn them into virtual national championship quarterfinals is appalling. Many of the great rivalry games of the last few decades — like Oklahoma-Nebraska '71 and a handful of Michigan-Ohio State and Miami-Florida State games — were definitive season-spoilers. There is nothing finer than seeing large, brawny men from your university defeat large, brawny men from your rival university. It is the sweetest thing in sports. Treasure it. Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg is a frequent contributor to FOXsports.com. An archive of his Free Press columns can be found here.

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BCS taking away from Rivalary games.

crazybuckfan40

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