The BCS Controversy
A lot has been said about the BCS in college football and whether it works or not. In my mind it is one of the most unjust and corrupt organizations in all of America. How can the NCAA support an organization that is biased and elitist in its design? Doesn't the NCAA stand for equality, equal opportunity, educational opportunity, and fairness?
The colleges that are part of these "BCS Conferences" are promoting elitism and biased behavior. There is no real support for claiming that these conferences are so good that they deserve automatic bowl bids each and every year. Last year the Mountain West Conference (yes, the lowly MWC) actually had the highest win percentage in bowl games. It wasn't the mighty SEC, the speedy ACC, the Big East, the powerful Big Ten, nor the Pac-10; it was the Mountain West Conference. In fact, the University of Utah was the first school to ever break into the BCS from a "mid-major conference" last season. What happened? The Utes absolutely destroyed the Pittsburgh Panthers, a team that didn't deserve to be there; but thanks to their automatic bid they were in the game. This year the Utes blew out another team from the ACC (Georgia Tech) that had wins over Miami and Auburn, supposedly great teams. BYU (from the MWC), with an injury decimated team, barely lost to a Cal team out of the Pac-10.
To make things worse, most of these ACC or SEC teams won't play anybody but cupcakes outside of their own conference, so it's easy to say that their conference is a powerhouse...they don't have to prove it throughout the season. Sure, they'll take go play a team from Conference USA once in a while, but usually they're picking on teams like Troy St. or Eastern Carolina for their non-conference schedule. It'd be easy to tout the WAC as the most dominate conference if they only played Big Sky opponents in the non-conference schedule. WAC schools could just claim that their losses came from very tough WAC opponents and that the conference has a tendency to beat itself up.
The BCS is a sad joke with an anger-inducing punchline. Instead of teaching equality, opportunity, and fairness, the BCS is giving out lessons in elitism and arrogance. This is a perfect illustration of the rich getting richer and the poor being brushed aside. Of all places, I would expect that the educational institutions of America would be the last place to find this sort of an example.
The colleges that are part of these "BCS Conferences" are promoting elitism and biased behavior. There is no real support for claiming that these conferences are so good that they deserve automatic bowl bids each and every year. Last year the Mountain West Conference (yes, the lowly MWC) actually had the highest win percentage in bowl games. It wasn't the mighty SEC, the speedy ACC, the Big East, the powerful Big Ten, nor the Pac-10; it was the Mountain West Conference. In fact, the University of Utah was the first school to ever break into the BCS from a "mid-major conference" last season. What happened? The Utes absolutely destroyed the Pittsburgh Panthers, a team that didn't deserve to be there; but thanks to their automatic bid they were in the game. This year the Utes blew out another team from the ACC (Georgia Tech) that had wins over Miami and Auburn, supposedly great teams. BYU (from the MWC), with an injury decimated team, barely lost to a Cal team out of the Pac-10.
To make things worse, most of these ACC or SEC teams won't play anybody but cupcakes outside of their own conference, so it's easy to say that their conference is a powerhouse...they don't have to prove it throughout the season. Sure, they'll take go play a team from Conference USA once in a while, but usually they're picking on teams like Troy St. or Eastern Carolina for their non-conference schedule. It'd be easy to tout the WAC as the most dominate conference if they only played Big Sky opponents in the non-conference schedule. WAC schools could just claim that their losses came from very tough WAC opponents and that the conference has a tendency to beat itself up.
The BCS is a sad joke with an anger-inducing punchline. Instead of teaching equality, opportunity, and fairness, the BCS is giving out lessons in elitism and arrogance. This is a perfect illustration of the rich getting richer and the poor being brushed aside. Of all places, I would expect that the educational institutions of America would be the last place to find this sort of an example.
posted by Jeff Rivera at 1:37 PM
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