Does the Rose Bowl Committee regret its decision yet?

[Highlander]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...column?page=2

In the link above, Teddy Greenstein quotes Rose Bowl CEO Mitch Dorger as saying he'd have needed to ask for Sugar Bowl permission to take UGA.

Thanks for the link. It does make sense that the Rose Bowl would try to ensure the Sugar Bowl game had a strong traveling team that would sell tickets. Hawaii vs. a non-SEC school in a traditional SEC bowl would not be a strong draw.

Unfortunately, this shows yet again that the primary factor in deciding who plays in which bowl is how many tickets the teams can sell, not what would be the best matchup on the field. At its core, the BCS just isn't a merit based system, no matter how many acronyms or computer polls you put into it.

To be fair, I'm not saying it isn't the same to some extents in other sports. The NCAA tournament certainly tries to set up compelling matchups in the early rounds and keep power teams local to sell tickets. However, at least the NCAA tournament field is big enough to allow smaller market teams a shot, and it pays each school euqally based on how far they go, not by how many tickets they sell.

[rockymtn devil]

Unfortunately, this shows yet again that the primary factor in deciding who plays in which bowl is how many tickets the teams can sell, not what would be the best matchup on the field. At its core, the BCS just isn't a merit based system, no matter how many acronyms or computer polls you put into it.

To be fair, though, the BCS doesn't claim to be about "merit" outside of the title game. The non-national championship games have absolutely no obligation to choose the "best" teams and they don't hide behind that.

And I do think that the BCS title game is a merit based system. Even if it splits hairs about quality of wins (Auburn's decision to replace Bowling Green with The Citadel in 2004 hurt them, especially since the Falcons dumped Auburn to play Oklahoma) it still looks to what happened on the field to determine who plays. Would a playoff be better? Absolutely. But this isn't a zero-sum situation where it's either a playoff or a non-merit based system. Both Ohio State and LSU merit a spot in the title game. As it went this season, so did Georgia and Oklahoma (not SC; you can't lose at home to Stanford and still be considered for the title).

[chattpanther]

As for the notion that Georgia or USC should be in the BCS title game, for those of you who think that, are the games in September and October mere exhibitions? The system already treats them as quasi-exhibitions because human voters reward early losses over late ones, and I think that's enough. Yes, Georgia and USC played better than anyone in the country down the stretch, but the football season doesn't start in November.

I agree that the season does not start in November, which is why LSU should not be given consideration any more or any less than UGA or USC. LSU lost both its games in October and November to mid tier SEC teams. It seems that it would be more important to look at how you end a season rather than how you start it.

Also, no one has mentioned the fact that FOX sucks at broadcasting these BCS games. They have never broadcast a college football game and appear to have broadcasters that they threw together at the last minute to do these games. I will never know how they were able to get this BCS deal to do these games when they are the only ones who do not touch college football the whole season. I am definitely taking some consolation that they are getting such horrible and boring games to broadcast.

[rockymtn devil]

I agree that the season does not start in November, which is why LSU should not be given consideration any more or any less than UGA or USC. LSU lost both its games in October and November to mid tier SEC teams. It seems that it would be more important to look at how you end a season rather than how you start it.

Also, no one has mentioned the fact that FOX sucks at broadcasting these BCS games. They have never broadcast a college football game and appear to have broadcasters that they threw together at the last minute to do these games. I will never know how they were able to get this BCS deal to do these games when they are the only ones who do not touch college football the whole season. I am definitely taking some consolation that they are getting such horrible and boring games to broadcast.

Fox is pretty bad, but it has broadcast college football in the past. They started doing the Cotton Bowl in 1999, and Fox Sports Net does plenty of college football throughout the season--nationally Big 12 and Pac 10 games, as well as regional coverage of mid-major conferences.

[calltheobvious]

To be fair, though, the BCS doesn't claim to be about "merit" outside of the title game. The non-national championship games have absolutely no obligation to choose the "best" teams and they don't hide behind that.

And I do think that the BCS title game is a merit based system. Even if it splits hairs about quality of wins (Auburn's decision to replace Bowling Green with The Citadel in 2004 hurt them, especially since the Falcons dumped Auburn to play Oklahoma) it still looks to what happened on the field to determine who plays. Would a playoff be better? Absolutely. But this isn't a zero-sum situation where it's either a playoff or a non-merit based system. Both Ohio State and LSU merit a spot in the title game. As it went this season, so did Georgia and Oklahoma (not SC; you can't lose at home to Stanford and still be considered for the title).

Rocky, I don't mean to detract from your main point (which I agree with), but I do want to interject one thing: Auburn was not going to get into the top 2 in 2004 no matter who they had scheduled. Pundits and voters were looking for anything they could find to justify leaving USC and OU in the top 2. Auburn had a far, far stronger schedule than either team, and disposed of superior competition with much greater ease overall. Would you like to know how many teams have ever beaten 5 top-10 teams in a season? 2004 Auburn. That's the list. And neither OU nor USC had more than two such teams on its schedule that year.

Sorry for the rant. Can you tell I'm still bitter?

P.S. Thanks for including that it was Bowling Green that opted out of the contract, leaving Auburn scrambling to find anyone they could schedule. The conventional wisdom is that Auburn bought out BGSU.

[rockymtn devil]

Rocky, I don't mean to detract from your main point (which I agree with), but I do want to interject one thing: Auburn was not going to get into the top 2 in 2004 no matter who they had scheduled. Pundits and voters were looking for anything they could find to justify leaving USC and OU in the top 2. Auburn had a far, far stronger schedule than either team, and disposed of superior competition with much greater ease overall. Would you like to know how many teams have ever beaten 5 top-10 teams in a season? 2004 Auburn. That's the list. And neither OU nor USC had more than two such teams on its schedule that year.

Sorry for the rant. Can you tell I'm still bitter?

P.S. Thanks for including that it was Bowling Green that opted out of the contract, leaving Auburn scrambling to find anyone they could schedule. The conventional wisdom is that Auburn bought out BGSU.

In understand your bitterness. Part of my family are Auburn fans (and part went to BG!) so I've heard about this for years. Looking at their schedule, though, it isn't as difficult as you'd think. There's a difference between beating a team that's ranked in the top 10 and beating a team that's a top 10 team. Auburn did a lot of the former, but the teams ended up not really being top-10 quality. Starting with VT, that game was after Auburn got shut out of the title game so it obviously didn't get counted towards their BCS ranking. Tennessee and LSU were both good, but both lost 3 games (The Vols even lost to Ty's last Notre Dame team) and both got beat in their bowl games (LSU to Iowa and Tennessee to Texas A&M). Georgia was a quality win.

Also, in terms of strength of schedule, I'm not sure your characterization of Auburn's schedule is on point. I can remember their being talk of the SEC being down that season, and after a quick google search, I found the last Sagarin rankings from that year (I realize this is only one of the BCS computers, but it's a good indicator).

According to Jeff Sagarin, Oklahoma played the 13th toughest schedule in America that season; USC played the 7th toughest; Auburn played the 60th toughest. (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt04.htm)

Now, this is from after the bowl games, and it does take the fact the SC and Oklahoma played each other into account. But, given that Auburn played the team that finished the season ranked #7 in this poll, this couldn't make that big of an impact, at least not big enough to have a difference of 7 and 13 and 60. Auburn's schedule wasn't tougher than OU or USC. It was actually quite weaker.