I don’t see any “deserving” zero loss teams this year

But you did in 2004. You also had a problem with 1-loss teams in 2003. And 2006. And 2001. Shall I go on?

re: Hawaii . . . you have to have a cut-off somewhere. I see now you are willing to go to four teams. At least you’re going in the right direction.

(Even still, why not follow the BCS rankings all the way through to the end, as I suggested earlier, and just crown the regular season BCS No. 1 champion, and not play a NC game?)

why change a flawed system for a flawed system?

No. The question you should be asking yourself is: which system is less flawed? No system can be perfect, of course.

HAHA well I don’t see any “deserving” zero loss teams this year, and given your 8 team format, you could still have a 0 loss Hawaii excluded. How is that fair? As Brian said, why change a flawed system for a flawed system? A plus 1 is the only other format that has any plausibility, or a 4 team playoff.

I’m not claiming the current system is perfect, just that it’s better than what we had before, and that it accomplishes what it was designed to do. I don’t think replacing a subjective and flawed 2-team system with a subjective and flawed 8-team system is a significant improvement. An 8-team playoff along the lines I described in an earlier post (i.e., conference champs only after playing an equitable schedule) would be a different story.

For most of its history, college football survived and thrived despite the fact that there was nothing more than a mythical national champion. Maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about making college football conform to every other sport’s way of doing things, and just enjoy it for what it is, because the reality is that it isn’t going to change any time soon (and by that I mean within the next five years).

Guess I don’t understand how the number 8 team “doesn’t deserve a title shot”. By nearly every account I read or hear, USC, the current number 8 team is as good as anyone right now.

In fact, there is a chance, a good chance that number 8 USC would be the FAVORITE to win such a tourney. Nuff said.

the 8th ranked team probably doesn’t deserve a shot at the title

Well you have to draw the line somewhere. Clearly you agree with that: you think the line should be drawn with two teams, as determined by the BCS standings. The problem with this is it allows “deserving” teams (Auburn, USC, etc) to be excluded based on the stubbornness of your two team system. Is it not better to include an “undeserving,” three-loss team than to exclude a “deserving,” zero-loss team from the title? Should we not be aiming to strike a balance between having a fun tournament (more than two teams) and a practical tournament (not, say, 64 teams)?

Hell, if you are going to allow the BCS to whittle down the “deserving” teams to a total of only two, why not just take it one step further and not play a National Title game at all: whoever finishes No. 1 in the BCS standings after the completion of the regular season is automatically crowned champion.

The BCS was designed to ensure that the #1 and #2 teams- AS DETERMINED BY WHATEVER POLL OR FORMULA IS IN USE- play each other in a bowl game.

That’s fantastic; now, as been asked multiple times, why not have the BCS, and its subjective nature, ensure that the #1 – #8 teams play each other in a tournament?

Mike is spot on.

I know you don’t like the NFL analogy, but . . . the winner of the NFL playoffs/Super Bowl is “only” the winner of that tournament, and yet nobody seems to have a problem with that; why do you think that is?

Because there are only 32 teams in the NFL, the teams play roughly comparable schedules, and the teams with the best records during the season are given a competitive advantage in the playoff.

many times it is not clear who the #1 and #2 teams are by the end of the regular season; see 2003 and 2004.

It is clear in the sense that there is a ranking. Whether the top-ranked teams are the “best” is indeterminable and irrelevant. The BCS was designed to ensure that the #1 and #2 teams– AS DETERMINED BY WHATEVER POLL OR FORMULA IS IN USE– play each other in a bowl game. It is not designed to ensure that the best teams end up ranked #1 and #2. Nothing can ensure that. There are likely many voters who do not believe that Missouri and West Virginia are the two best teams, but they voted them at the top of their ballot anyway because they have had the best seasons. Even if there were no BCS, these would still be the top two teams.