Obama Wants Playoffs

The crystal football is here through at least January of 2015. Its not exactly the most shocking news around, but certainly a burr in the side of college football playoff advocates as the Rose, Orange, Fiesta and Sugar bowls will remain with the BCS through 2014. This effectively shelves any possibility for a playoff until the 2014-2015 college football season at the earliest.

The agreement provides for at least one more BCS Championship Game at each of the four venues once the old agreement runs out after the 2009-10 season. This news, paired with the crossover from Fox Sports’ woeful BCS coverage to ESPN/ABC after next season should perk up the BCS after a rough few years.

What better venue than the Rose Bowl — home to the epic USC-Texas battle after the 2005 season to kickstart things this year and wrap up the final game of this week’s agreement after the 2013-2014 season.

One thing I would hope to see in subsequent agreements is a change of at least one bowl venue or incorporating another bowl game, such as getting the Cotton Bowl or Holiday Bowl into the mix. For now the four established major bowls have the connections, branding and expertise to remain unchallenged.

http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2009/03/12/bcs-bowls-re-up-through-2014/

There was little doubt about the outcome, but the Sugar Bowl, the BCS and ESPN made it official Wednesday, extending their contract through the 2013 season.

The contract includes the BCS Championship Game to be played in the Superdome on Jan. 9, 2012, three months before New Orleans will be the site of the NCAA basketball Final Four.

The Sugar Bowl agreement also extends the BCS’ contracts with the Fiesta and Orange Bowls. The Rose Bowl’s spot in the upcoming rotation already was in place.

“This is a banner day for the Sugar Bowl, the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana,” Sugar Bowl President Richard Smith said. “We are very excited to continue our role in the BCS.”

Terms of the Sugar Bowl’s bid were not announced, but Paul Hoolahan, the bowl’s chief executive officer, said they were “about as favorable to the bowl as we could have possibly imagined.”

The BCS announced last spring that it will retain the same format with the same bowls that has been place the past four years, subject to working out contract details and the settlement of the TV contract for the next four-year cycle that begins in 2010.

After ESPN obtained the rights for all of the BCS games, which it currently shares with Fox, those negotiations continued until they were finalized this week.

“The Sugar Bowl has been a great partner of the BCS since its inception,” said John Swofford, ACC commissioner and BCS coordinator. “We are delighted to be continuing the relationship for the next cycle.”

Hoolahan added that ESPN is in negotiations with current title sponsor Allstate to extend that contract. It expires after this season.

“I’m sure they’d like to get their ducks in a row as soon as possible,” Hoolahan said. “So they’re probably working hard in their negotiations.”

Wednesday’s announcement does not end the effort by the Mountain West Conference for the BCS to institute an eight-team playoff in place of the current format. That issue will be determined when the BCS governing body — the commissioners of the 11 Division I-A conferences plus Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick — hold its annual spring meeting next month.

http://blog.nola.com/tpsports/2009/03/sugar_bowl_bcs_espn_extend_con.html

Pie in the sky? Not strong enough. It’s more like an entire bakery in the heavens. Mrs. Smith may not have enough flying ovens. But the Mountain West Conference is trying to untie a knotty wrong. Tilting at windmills isn’t a bad thing, especially if one of those windmills is real, a money-grubbing monster such as the BCS.

A waste of time? Probably. But what the heck.

The conference has presented the hard-line Bowl Championship Series folks with a proposal to create an eight-team college football playoff system, which would be too good to be true, and probably is. The MWC, which is not one of the BCS conferences (Pac-10, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, Big East and ACC) that receive automatic bids to BCS bowls, believes it should be included, and has a case to make.

Conference member Utah was the only major college team to go unbeaten last season, and although the Utes did get an at-large bid into a BCS bowl, they had no chance of reaching the national championship game.

The proposal, which BCS representatives could look at next month at their meetings in Pasadena, would create a new way of determining which conferences receive automatic bids to lucrative bowl games.

Here’s how the proposal goes:

A conference would need at least a .400 winning percentage against the six current leagues that are automatic qualifiers over a two-year period. Under this system, the MWC would qualify.

A 12-person committee, such as the one NCAA basketball employs, would pick the at-large schools and seed the eight teams chosen for the playoff. The BCS rankings would be abolished.

The Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta bowls, which currently house the BCS games, would host the four first-round playoff games. There would be another bowl, but one without championship implications, for the committee’s ninth-and 10th-rated teams.

The semifinals would be played the following week, and current BCS bowls would be given the chance to host.

The championship game would come a week later, with current BCS bowls allowed to host (the Orange, Sugar and Fiesta people have said they’d be open to a playoff format, but the Rose, predictably, is a stubborn Granddaddy).

The 11 major conferences and Notre Dame would all share equally in BCS bowl money distributed, which is whopping.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/mar/10/1s10canepa214451-despite-prognosis-mwc-right-try-u/

Point #1– One of the things I hear is how basketball is decided on the court. And in March, anything can happen in one single game. And that’s what makes it great.

On the one hand, I agree. The amazing upsets provide the drama that makes March Madness and sports so wonderful. But on the other hand… is that really the best way to determine who is the champion? I mean … When we look back at the 1985 basketball season … we look back at the winners that year, Villanova. But is that really an accurate depiction of who was the best team that season? Or does that more precisely say which team was the best for 3 weeks in March that year? The Cats were a Nol. 8 seed. Should they really have even legitimately been a part of the fight for the national championship?

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sportsprose/2009/03/an_open_letter_from_btns_mike.html

The puny Mountain West Conference put up its dukes and threw a couple of jabs at the big, burly Bowl Championship Series boys this past week.

The MWC’s proposal for an eight-team college football playoff might not have looked that way from a distance — hey, everybody from the President of the United States to the guy working the cash register at Wendy’s has a playoff plan — but that’s what it was.

What the MWC wants, maybe even more than a chance at the national title, is a fair system, i.e., a more equitable distribution of all that bowl money. The system that won’t give a team such as unbeaten Utah a shot as the national title also won’t give the little guys equal space at the BCS money trough where the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 12 and Pac-10 gorge themselves.

“I will put this as bluntly as I can,” Wyoming president Tom Buchanan said in announcing the plan. “The current system is not fair, and somebody needs to stand up and say that and ask for a dialogue amongst all of the parties involved.”

I’m rooting for the Mountain West, and not just because major college football deserves a playoff. I’m rooting for it because the system really isn’t fair.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2009/03/08/hunter_3-8.ART_ART_03-08-09_C1_BDD57RD.html?sid=101

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff wants to take on the Bowl Championship Series, the controversial college football system. But he doesn’t want to do it alone.

In Washington for a conference with attorneys generals from throughout the nation, Shurtleff tried to drum up support for an antitrust lawsuit against the big six conferences who control the part-computer, part-human polling system that ranks the college football teams.

He got mixed results.

But he plans to be back in June when the attorneys general meet again, this time in Denver, armed with the results of a whole series of subpoenas his office is issuing to gain access to BCS contracts.

Shurtleff, who advocates for a college football playoff, wants to share costs of the investigation with other states, and maybe even the Obama administration. In a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder, Shurtleff brought up his BCS investigation and Holder joked that when President Barack Obama hears about it, it would be the No. 1 issue in the next Cabinet meeting.

Afterward, Shurtleff said Holder expressed interest in discussing the potential lawsuit when he was able to round out his staff more.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11835987

Those in favor of a playoff system in major college football
, the Mountain West Conference is leading your charge.

Commissioner Craig Thompson and the league officially proposed an eight-team playoff system to the Bowl championship Series on Wednesday, calling for more performance-based criteria and an equal opportunity for all Football Bowl Subdivision teams to play for the national championship.

“I will put this as bluntly as I can — I think we all believe that change is needed, the current system is not fair,” said University of Wyoming President Tom Buchanan, who is chair of the MWC board of directors.

“Somebody needs to stand up and say that and ask for a dialogue among all of the parties involved.

“Our hope and goal is to find a system that’s best for college football.”

Under the league’s proposal, a conference automatically will qualify for the BCS if it has a .400 or better record against the current automatic qualifying conferences — Pac-10, Big Ten, Big East, SEC, Big 12 and ACC — over a two-year period. Under that criteria, the MWC easily would qualify after going .552 under that scenario in the past two seasons.

From there, a 12-person selection committee — made up of a representative from all 11 conferences plus Notre Dame — would rank and seed the BCS teams, much like the NCAA Selection Committee does for the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships.

The four current BCS bowls — Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange — would host the four first-round playoff games with the committee trying to preserve bowl tie-ins.

The winners would compete in two semifinal games and those winners would play for the national championship.

A fifth BCS bowl game would be awarded to a bowl that currently hosts a non-BCS game, but it would have no implications on the playoff format.

http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/story/1239623.html

The frustration level within the football world was made clear last month when former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz made no attempt to hide his contempt for the BCS, what could just as easily stand for the Bowl Chaos System.

“Anything’s better than what we’re doing,” Holtz told Hard Drives during an exclusive interview. The 71-year-old, in Tokyo for the announcement that he would head Fighting Irish alumni against Japan in a game to commemorate 75 years of football here, proclaimed the BCS a system based on green.

“Follow the money,” said Holtz, who led Notre Dame to the 1988 national title and is now a college football analyst on ESPN. “The money from the bowl games and TV goes to conferences. The conferences divide it up among the members. Those conferences aren’t going to give that up.”

Not even Terry Tate Office Linebacker could knock some sense into the fat-cat powers that be. But Holtz said it’s time to do more than talk about the long-discussed playoff system. It’s time to start the play clock and crown a legitimate No. 1.

Holtz had some constructive correctionism for the only NCAA title not decided on the playing surface. He said with so many wallets to feed, it just makes dollars and sense to have a little bit of grid gladness in January that could serve as a thrilling opening act for the Super Bowl.

“I think [a playoff] is a step in the right direction,” he said. “But let’s understand that nobody wants to get rid of the bowl games because of all of the money.

“So why can’t we have all bowl games done by Jan. 1? And take the top four teams and have a playoff with those four teams?” Holtz said.

“The next week you play off and then you have the championship game the following week. You still have the bowls, but now we really determine a champion.”

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/sports/20090304TDY24303.htm