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KRIEGER: Not even Obama can pull off BCS fix

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 24, 2008 at 9:55 p.m.

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Talk about reaching across the aisle. Mike Shanahan closed his weekly Monday postmortem with these words:

"Me and Barack."

Even if you don't remember Shanahan's role in the Broncos' rally for George W. Bush back in 2000, you might sense an unlikely political alliance. This is what bipartisanship looks like.

Unfortunately, even that probably won't be enough. It will be easier for the incoming president to save the U.S. auto industry than convince the lords of college football to choose their champion on the field rather than on a computer server.

On the other hand, if this no- brainer of a concept, adopted by pretty much every other team sport on the face of the Earth, can unite Mike Shanahan and Barack Obama, other miracles might be possible.

Even Steve Kroft, the 60 Minutes interviewer who put the issue to Obama, posed his question as a fan's plea: "What can you do or what do you plan to do about getting a college football playoff for the national championship?" he asked.

At the time, a little more than a week ago, the Bowl Championship Series appeared likely to luck out with its annual arbitrary selection of the top two teams in the country. Then Oklahoma crushed Texas Tech and ruined everything.

Now the best division in college football, the Big 12 South, has three one-loss teams, each of which has beaten one of the others. Texas beat Oklahoma but lost to Texas Tech. Texas Tech beat Texas but lost to Oklahoma. Oklahoma beat Texas Tech but lost to Texas. It's the transitive property on a short circuit.

Oklahoma State could still bail out the BCS by beating Oklahoma, but if not, the computers and polls will pick one of the three for no good reason instead of dumping them all into a playoff bracket to see what happens.

"I hate those computers," Shanahan said. "I don't know how they can really justify who's the national champion unless you do it on the field. It doesn't make any sense to me.

"I understand why they do it because I understand where they're at financially. They want half the people to win games at the end of the season; everybody goes to a bowl. But I always thought there was some way they could work it out where they could have a playoff system."

Of course there is. At last count, there were 32 college bowl games, not including the BCS championship game. You could let half of them continue to serve the meaningless function they do now and use the other half for a 16-team playoff that would become one of the marquee attractions in all of sport.

This is where I differ with Obama, who wants an eight- team field. I'd like to see a field big enough to include all the undefeateds - this year meaning Alabama, Utah, Boise State and Ball State, at the moment - and I don't think an eight-team field gets you there. But, hey, I'm willing to settle for one step at a time.

"I think any sensible person would say that if you've got a bunch of teams who played throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses, there's no clear, decisive winner, that we should be creating a playoff system," Obama told Kroft.

"Eight teams. That would be three rounds to determine a national champion. It would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this.

"So I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

Honestly, good luck, big guy, but I think you have a better chance of achieving peace in the Middle East. The entrenched interests are so happy with their apple cart, they see no reason to upset it.

But for the benefit of your talking points, your playoff doesn't have to lengthen the season at all. The interminable bowl games take three weeks as it is.

"We have playoffs in every sport in the world, I think, except college football," Steve Spurrier said on a recent SEC coaches teleconference. "I used to say, 'How can we be right and everybody else be wrong?' "

The BCS apologists talk about how every regular-season game means so much more this way, which is sort of like being in favor of arbitrary executions because they would make survival such a rush. But it's not really about the rationale. It's about the money. To date, all attempts to dislodge the self-interested have failed.

I believe Obama has a better chance of getting Russia and Georgia to let bygones be bygones. Still, reaching across the aisle is a start.

Now he just has to reach out to the guys in the lemon yellow sport coats.

Comments

  • November 25, 2008

    7:22 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Miseslover writes:

    You know, with all of the discussions (even heated arguments) College Football brings about this time of year, I couldn't be happier with the current situation. Ambiguity is good for the media and good for the game. College football is still so much better than the professional game, and infinitely more interesting to talk about. Leave it alone, and let the fans duke it out.

  • November 25, 2008

    2:36 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    troopermsu writes:

    Playoff system should include conference champions only; 11 of them. Top 5 get a bye. Next 6 play first round on campus sites. Then the 3 winners join top 5 in round-of-eight; again at campus sites. Semi-finals and final would rotate among the 4 major bowls. This would alow the other 28 meaningless bowls to carry on their "traditions".

    This system would truly create a regular season with much meaning as the only road to win a national championship would be through winning your conference. Independents would be left out until they join an conference. If Notre Dame, Army and Navy can play basketball in a conference they certainly could play football in a conference.