BCS needs to go

Much like the beer and soft drinks at the stadium, college football in 2003 is just too… Much like the beer and soft drinks at the stadium, college football in 2003 is just too watered down. There are too many bowls (Continental Tire Bowl anyone?), way too many teams and not enough good games.

Then to top it off, some genius decided that the participants in the “championship” game at the end of the season should be partly decided by computer polls. Has anyone seen the New York Times computer poll? It currently has two-loss Texas, which hasn’t won a big game since James Brown was the quarterback, ranked fourth in front of No. 5 LSU. Shouldn’t The Times stick to pushing its liberal agenda and forget about ruining college football?

Do not fear, however. Out of my love of the game, I have decided to become NCAA commissioner for the day and fix college football myself. No, none of the things I’m proposing will ever happen, but it is nice to dream.

First of all, it’s time for major realignment. There are currently 117 teams in Division I-A. A total of 62 of them are in the “Big Six” conferences that make up the Bowl Championship Series. After next year’s conference shakeup, that number will rise to 66.

There aren’t many teams outside of that 66 that deserve to be in D-IA. Of course, there are a few teams among that 66 that do not deserve to be there. So we can start by eliminating Duke, Rutgers, Indiana, Baylor and Vanderbilt.

Then it’s time to move a few teams around. Penn State gets moved to the new Big East, along with Boston College – yes, the conference has to take the Eagles back for geography’s sake – Missouri and Iowa St. get moved from the Big 12 to the Big Ten, and South Florida ends its brief Big East stint by moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Notre Dame will lose its television deal with NBC and join the Big East. Perhaps it would make more sense if the Irish joined the Big Ten, but I have to have some justification for keeping the Big East around.

Now that some of the fat has been cut, a few lucky mid-major teams get invitations to join the party. Marshall, Toledo and Miami of Ohio will fill out the Big East. Northern Illinois joins the Big 10, while Boise State, Colorado State and Texas Christian enter the Big 12. The ACC gets Central Florida, which gives the conference four of the five Florida schools. Southern Miss. gets the final Southeastern Conference spot, while Brigham Young and Fresno State round out the Pac-10.

After all of that, there are 12 teams in each major conference, totaling 72 teams. That’s it. The rest of the teams currently in D-I get moved down to join the scholarship programs in Division I-AA. All of the non-scholarship programs get moved to Division II.

In the new D-I, teams will not be allowed to schedule teams from lower divisions. This will force teams like Kansas State and Virginia Tech, who consistently load up on cupcakes such as Troy State and James Madison, to beef up their non-conference schedule. Plus, with the new conferences, teams will be playing tougher conference schedules by default.

Each conference will have two six-team divisions and a championship game at the end of the season. After those games, there will only be 10 bowl games. This is still probably too many, but 10 is better than the current number of 28.

The BCS will be eliminated, and the participants in the biggest bowl game – this “big game” will continue to rotate between bowls each year – will be decided by the polls. Contrary to popular belief, the polls are almost always right, except of course in 1993 when Bobby Bowden bought … er, “convinced” the pollsters to rank Florida State ahead of Notre Dame, even though the Irish beat them that year.

There are those who argue by saying, “look, the BCS is on the verge of giving us the Sugar Bowl everyone wants this year.” That is ludicrous. The polls already have Oklahoma and Southern Cal ranked Nos. 1 and 2. You don’t need a computer for that.

For those who long for a playoff system, that can easily be accomplished as well. Just take the six conference winners and two at-large teams, and have a tournament.

OK, time to wake up. All of this makes too much sense to happen.

Jim Eiben is a staff writer for The Pitt News. Feel free to e-mail him at jse16@pitt.edu to blast this column. Don’t bother him on Dec. 30, however, because he will be in front of the TV with a six-pack of Brigade and a cigar, watching the EV1.net Houston Bowl.