Could someone please explain the whole College Football Thing to me ... because I don't get it. There's a bowl selection thing going on behind me and they're talking about computers and rankings and provisional places and ... I don't know, don't the teams with the most points at the end of a season play each other in some sort of super sugar bowl thing? Why the difficulties?
The BCS division is a result of evolution, ennui and money.
Every other Division of NCAA Men's football features a championship (I-FCS, II, and III) that involves brackets and seedings.
The BCS (what was formerly known as Division I-A) decided to make agreements with a series of bowl committees to host games. These games were more-or-less post-season "exhibition" games; however, as the years went on, these games become cash cows - especially for cable networks like ESPN (who, by the way, will be broadcasting about three-fourths of all the bowl games this season). Money begat sponsorships, which begat more money, which begat jockeying for position for better teams and better games.
Unfortunately, prior to the BCS system, there rarely was a matchup of No. 1 vs. No. 2. This was because a handful of the bowl committees had agreements between two conferences to have their champions play each other in their bowl game. For example, the Pac Ten and the Big Ten sent their champions to Pasadena every January for the Rose Bowl.
Then, after a great deal of cajoling, begging, pleading (and some would argue bribery), the four main bowls of the BCS (Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta) agreed to host a national championship game between the teams adjudged to be #1 and #2 under the BCS ranking system.
The system has been tweaked, overhauled and derided over the years, but it has (arguably) done its job of producing a number 1 vs. number 2 matchup.
The only problem is, teams like TCU, Boise State, Hawaii and Utah have been on the outside looking in for the championship game. And it is they and their conferences (the "non-automatic-qualifiers" in the WAC, Mid-American, Conference USA, Mountain West and Sun Belt) that are crying long and hard for a playoff.
This has caused congressional hearings, long and loud arguments, and everything else. However, no one wants to change the bowl system as it stands because - wait for it -
there's too much money involved.Personally, I don't see a problem with a formal playoff, and I think just about any college football fan wants a playoff. The thing is that such a playoff would be taken out of the hands of the BCS people and given to the NCAA itself (due to NCAA rules governing sports played under its auspices) - and guess who would get the lion's share of the money from that?