Dear President Obama,
As a candidate for President, you appeared on ESPN and were asked to identify the one change you would make in the entire sports world. You answered, unequivocally and without hesitation, that college football should have a playoff system. There are some mildly silly attempts to make this a reality through congressional legislation—like the steroid issue, Congress should stay out of sports—but you, as President, could make a symbolic gesture that would matter far more.
Invite the Boise State Broncos to the White House. The President traditionally hosts the national championship team at the White House. This year, you could invite both the winner of tomorrow’s Texas-Alabama game, which will claim the BCS champion, and undefeated Boise State, who completed an undefeated season last night in the Fiesta Bowl, defeating previously-unbeaten TCU.
This is not a new idea, but it’s one whose time has come. Picking two teams to play in a single national championship game is never going to satisfy the need to crown a true champion, no matter how smart the poll voters or BCS computers. Football at every other level has a playoff system; it can surely be done at the Division I college level. There will be teams that cry foul each year when they’re left out of the playoff, but those cries will be far more muted than the current system and will silence completely once the playoff actually begins.
Sincerely,
All College Football Fans
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I prefer my championships to be won on the field, not determined by a beauty contest.
To add to Ben’s point, the BCS explicitly eliminated margin of victory from its calculations back in 2001, after Nebraska’s lopsided victories earned it a place in the BCS “championship,” despite losing their last regular season game in spectacular fashion.
More on the BCS’ computer shenanigans here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2240733/pagenum/all/
I don’t really understand the argument that because it wasn’t a good game that Boise State doesn’t deserve to get invited. I know it’s been propagated elsewhere as well (I think on ESPN), but it’s really an incredibly arbitrary standard. Texas got into the top game by virtue of a 13-12 clunker that certainly didn’t win any artistic points. To make teams from non-power conferences not only win but also win in some ill-defined impressive manner seems like a silly standard.
I think it’s also worth remembering that many of these bowl games are so ugly because the players had around 30 days off with no real games. Even with lots of practices, etc., it definitely produces a lot of rusty performances.
Did you guys watch the game. It looked far more like an FCS game than BCS. It was unwatchable to the point I turned off a close game.
That being said, invite them, it will be like giving away participant trophies in little league.
I would like to see a new division (Or 1AA brought back) for the non BCS conferences. Boise State could be crowned champion of that beauty pageant.
Ronnnp,
I don’t mean invite Boise St. I mean invite the champions from Division II and Division III (Villanova, Northwest Missouri State), where they actually have a playoff system. They’re more legitimate champions than Boise St, Alabama, or Texas or any BCS team.
I like that obama cheers for underdog teams
dwhite,
Why would Boise St be more legitimate than the Alabama-Texas winner?
Are the playoff winners from the other levels invited to the WH? Maybe Obama should just invite them as “legitimate” national champions, and ignore the winner of Alabama-Texas.