BCS Brouhaha Philosophical Discussion: "Best" Team or "Champion?"

[Ben E Lou]

We've all got our strong opinions, and we've all heard the arguments, and they'll continue to take place, especially if USC wins their bowl game. I won't go through them all again, but suffice to say that there are, in some folks minds, "good" reasons why USC, Oklahoma and LSU fans all deserve to be playing in a championship game this season.

I'd like to discuss something that hit me after reading a comment by someone yesterday. Someone commented that even if we use a playoff, the "best" teams might not end up playing in the final game. Someone else mentioned the example of Villanova beating Georgetown in '85 as an example of the "best" team not winning. Here's my (admittedly-rhetorical) question though:

Do we want to determine the "best" team or do we want to determine a champion.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. Here's my take.

First off, how do we define a "best" team. Is it the team with the best combination of talent, coaching and execution? How do you determine that besides on the field? I guess, technically, that the "best" way to determine a "best" team would be to take the top 16/24/32 teams (as determined by whatever method...#17/#25/#33 really wouldn't have a shot this way anyway). Take those teams, set a bracket, and make 'em play best of 5, 7 or 9. This way, the upsets would be removed, and truly the "best" team would emerge as the winner.

But, in my opinion, that's not what we're after. We're crowning a "Champion."

For my tastes, a Champion is the team that steps up and gets it done when it counts. In '83, was Miami "better" than that vaunted Nebraska team? (Remember them. The going comment by the press was that Nebraska's 2nd team was probably the #2 team in the nation.) We could debate that all day long. What can't be debated is that Miami got the job done in the Orange Bowl that year, or that Harold Jensen shot the lights out for Villanova in the big game '85, or that the Braves lost to "lesser" teams several times in the playoffs.

Or that Oklahoma got blown out in what should have been to them their biggest game of the season.

I'd rather have a Champion.

[Huckleberry]

I agree that it's an important distinction to make. Because, speaking as objectively as I can, I believe that the Sugar Bowl will field the two "best" teams in the nation. Oklahoma and LSU have shown over the course of the season that they are the two best teams.

However, if we're going for a champion in the sense you describe, then Oklahoma blew their chance to be that champion by getting destroyed by Kansas State. 28 points and that was only because KSU was trying not to score at the end.

[Bee]

We really need to use the word Brouhaha more in thread titles.

[QuikSand]

I can't deny that it's exciting to have a tournament or playoff system designed to crown a "champion" -- and I understand the distinction.

I also recognize that the more emphasis thatis placed onto the playoff or tournament in any sport, the more diminished the regular season becomes. Some don't consider this a particularly high price to pay for the excitement generated by a post-season, and I understand that perspective. I happen to disagree, for the most part.

To me, the argument gets most acute when the relative scale ofthe playoffs gets smaller. Baseball is a fine example - where they play 162 games to determine what? Who gets "home field advantage" in a ridiculous five-game series. And that advantage only boils down to a 3-2 edge in a full series. It's positively absurd, in a game where the two teams might well have been 15 or 20 games apart in the final standings, to hand the winners of 3 out of 5 the right to be "champions" even if they were the far inferior team over a much longer (and more significant) test.

Crowning a champion is fine and usually adds excitement, and if you recognize that's exactly what it is, that's fine by me, too. I, personally, have a lot of respect for the concept of the "best team" and appreciate sports that grant appropriate rewards for achieving that status.

[Huckleberry]

QuikSand -

I agree on baseball. One way to help that situation (not completely fix it in this money talks day and age) would be my recommendation that all playoff series be a best-of-9 series with only one off day. That will make the playoffs better approximate the regular season. The extra games could be made up by simply dropping the regular season to 154 games.

Hell, if I had my way, each league would be without divisions, there would be no interleague play, the AL (with 14 teams) would play a round robin tournament with 12 games against each team (156 games, so drop a game from two teams) and the NL would play 10 games against each team plus an extra game against 4 teams. Then the winner of that regular season is the league champ and they go into a best of 13 game World Series with off days after games 5 and 9.

[Ben E Lou]

Quik:

Baseball is a great example, to me, of a situation where they've tilted things too far toward "champion". The two-division-champ, 7-game playoff system was a good balance.

[rkmsuf]

Anytime a champion is decided in any way off the field the system is flawed.

Maybe the "Best" team doesn't always prevail in a playoff or game to game situation but at least it's decided between the lines...

[Kevin]

Skydog hit the nail on the head with that question. Best has nothing to do with being champion. The "best" team may have an advantage, but that come be overcome with a combination of other factors such as desire, a particular gameplan or plain old luck.

I don't care for any system where a champion is determined by a vote. So in some years, college football is like figure skating, gymnastics or boxing (although much more watchable)

[Ksyrup]

What college football does is subjectively determine who the "best" teams are, in order to match them up for the championship. I think that's an awful way to do it - that's the figure skating way of determining a "champion." I don't understand why we are content on letting subjective analysis of numbers determine what can be conclusively determined on the field. USC, OU, and LSU all deserve that chance - as does Michigan and about a half-dozen other teams.

[Radii]

Baseball under the 2 division format was great. The 162 game schedule seperated the great teams from the good teams, often just a seperation of 5% or less in terms of winning percentage. Baseball expanding to 8 teams in the playoffs really nullifies a large purpose of the regular season. To seperate the good from the great, and "champion" worthy... now, average teams get in the playoffs, where of course, anything can happen over a 5 or 7 game series.

This is one of the big reasons i find hockey and basketball so amazingly un-appealing at the pro level. Almost half the league makes the playoffs, yet they still have 80+ game regular seasons. Why? If you're going to have a season that long, make it mean something and make it hard to get in the playoffs...

ANYWAY, that was a rant totally off topic. I firmly believe that college football does not need a playoff. I have no problem with the BCS the way it is. I do think that the polls messed things up. Why was USC rated higher than LSU? The whole concept of when a loss happens having an effect on things, is total BS to me. All three teams had one loss. USC's loss was by far the worst, but it happened early in the season, so the human polls virtually ignore it, and put them ahead of Oklahoma and LSU. Makes no sense to me. I think the two most worthy teams are playing in the national title game, but that the pollsters are idiots, so I'm pretty happywith how things look right now in terms of the BCS "working"

[rkmsuf]

Somehow this has to be Pete Carrolls fault...

[ISiddiqui]

USC's loss was by far the worst, but it happened early in the season, so the human polls virtually ignore it, and put them ahead of Oklahoma and LSU.

While USC lost to an unranked team, they only lost by one. As opposed to OU and LSU's losses where they got beat down by ranked opponents. Which is the 'worst' loss? I don't think we can decide. Personally, I'd consider OU to have the worst loss because they were totally and completely outplayed.

[grdawg]

Great discussion. I don't think a playoff system would devalue the regular season. It's very hard to match the desperation that the playoffs create, game 23 or 87 of the baseball season can't match any game of the playoffs. I think that's true in most sports, but I'd make the argument that in football, both college and pro, every game is like a playoff game because the season is so short, that every game can make or break your season. If we have playoffs in every other major college sport, I don't understand how we don't have it in football. I think the overwelming reason is the money that the bowl games create for the TV stations and the corporate sponsors. College football seems to be more a business then any other sport. If a playoff system only took 16 teams, think of how much money would be lost. I think that's the real reason we don't have a playoff.

Edit - Rethinking that, I don't see how a playoff with 16 teams wouldn't make more money because every game would be a must watch, I think the real reason is that only 16 teams would get a piece of the action. Now even if you go to a crappy bowl, the school still gets a decent amount of money. I think its still about money, but its about only 16 schools getting money.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Radii
I do think that the polls messed things up. Why was USC rated higher than LSU? The whole concept of when a loss happens having an effect on things, is total BS to me. All three teams had one loss. USC's loss was by far the worst, but it happened early in the season, so the human polls virtually ignore it, and put them ahead of Oklahoma and LSU.

That's a tough one. Teams grow, improve, and sometimes decline, over the course of the 4+ months from game 1 until the Bowls. It could be argued that USC has improved tremendously since that loss (hey, no one has come within 20 points of 'em since then), and shown themselves recently to be a better team, and that they should receive less "punishment" for what happened back in September.

[Butter]

It's hard to ever figure who is truly the "best" team, because that designation is constantly in flux.

I think we are looking for a champion, but the separation between champion and best is razor thin, because you don't get to a championship game without being one of the best. Maybe not the definitive best, but one of the best. If you can win with all of that pressure on, you deserve to be called the best.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by grdawg
If we have playoffs in every other major college sport, I don't understand how we don't have it in football. I think the overwelming reason is the money that the bowl games create for the TV stations and the corporate sponsors. College football seems to be more a business then any other sport. If a playoff system only took 16 teams, think of how much money would be lost. I think that's the real reason we don't have a playoff.

Well, I would argue that you DO understand why we don't have it in football.

One other comment on that, as I've pointed out elsewhere. There ARE playoffs in college football--at every other level besides Division I-A. It is very hard to put a compelling argument that the reason I-A doesn't have such a system is anything but financial.

[grdawg]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Well, I would argue that you DO understand why we don't have it in football.

Oops, I guess I do understand So then can anyone make a valid argument that the reason is not financial? I'd love to hear it.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by Radii
ANYWAY, that was a rant totally off topic. I firmly believe that college football does not need a playoff. I have no problem with the BCS the way it is. I do think that the polls messed things up. Why was USC rated higher than LSU? The whole concept of when a loss happens having an effect on things, is total BS to me. All three teams had one loss. USC's loss was by far the worst, but it happened early in the season, so the human polls virtually ignore it, and put them ahead of Oklahoma and LSU. Makes no sense to me. I think the two most worthy teams are playing in the national title game, but that the pollsters are idiots, so I'm pretty happywith how things look right now in terms of the BCS "working"

A BCS without consideration of the polls is about the only way a non-playoff system might work. There are still problems with that, though, since you penalize teams from strong conferences, like LSU. LSU, UGA, UF, and UT are all "good teams" - and beat up on each other during the year. So you penalize the team that wins 2 out of the 3 games against those teams, because the other teams lose too many games to stay in the top 10. Yet, in another conference, you can have 2 clearly great teams that don't take hits from teams below them because they can't compete with the great teams. So, when those 2 great teams play each other, the one that loses still gets "quality win" points because no other team(s) was good enough to take down that other team. No team should be penalized for playing in a tough conference.

Another problem is strength of schedule - how can a team improve its strength of schedule, when schedules are made up of mostly conference games, and your out-of-conference games are largely decided 5-10 years earlier? In 2005 and 2006, FSU plays Texas A&M, 2007 and 2008, Colorado, and in 2009 and 2010, BYU. It will be the absolute luck of the draw if playing those teams in those years helps or hurts FSU's strength of schedule. But for the BCS, that's a major component of how you rank against other teams. And it's really not something a team can control.

Anyway, to get back to my original point about getting rid of the polls...

This is the answer to your question. In order to rank a team in a poll, you have to consider what they've just done. If Team A is #1, Team B is #2 with a September loss, and Team A loses in November, how can you not vote to move that team down? They just lost. Since voting is done on a weekly basis, there's no way to consider Team A still #1 after a loss. And since that phenomenon is incorporated into the BCS, that's why you have the problem you have right now. Take the polls out of it, and while it's not perfect, it's better than any non-playoff system they could devise. Take the human element completely out of it.

[Scholes]

I for one like the European soccer style in determining champions and best teams.

England, for example, has the Premier League, which is fair (play each team in league twice, home and away) and extremely long and difficult (the season stretches from August to May). No playoffs at the end, the team in first after all the games is the champion.

For the best team, they have the FA Cup, a knockout tournament with every team in England, regardless of size. There are some upsets, but in the end the cream usually separates. This tournament runs during the season, adding to the difficulty of both competitions.

An achievement like Manchester United's in 98-99 (League, FA, Champions League) is an unbelievable feat.

It would never happen, but moving teams into "Divisions" and having league style play with promotion/relegation and knockout tournaments going on during the season would be the ultimate test.

Picture Ohio St., Oklahoma, Michigan, USC, LSU, etc. in the Premier Division; Pittsburgh, Iowa, Washington St. Florida in the First Division, trying to move up. Maybe Bowling Green or Miami (OH) go on a little run in the cup, knocking off Florida State or something to that effect.

That would be something.

[Radii]

Originally posted by SkyDog
That's a tough one. Teams grow, improve, and sometimes decline, over the course of the 4+ months from game 1 until the Bowls. It could be argued that USC has improved tremendously since that loss (hey, no one has come within 20 points of 'em since then), and shown themselves recently to be a better team, and that they should receive less "punishment" for what happened back in September.

That's the college basketball argument when they're seeding the field of 64+1. But that's to set up a tournament. I understand the point of it, but it seems to me that you want the best teams throughout the year, not the best teams of right now. If you want a playoff/tournament, you want the best 8 or best 16 teams right now to make for the best tournament. But for the BCS, it seems to me that you want the best teams throughout the entire season, and when a loss happens should be irrelevant.

[ISiddiqui]

I for one like the European soccer style in determining champions and best teams.

Problem is that there are too many teams in 1-A college football and too few weeks to play.

[rkmsuf]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
Problem is that there are too many teams in 1-A college football and too few weeks to play.

That's really not the problem with any reasonable proposed solution. It's all about the money...that's the problem...

[ISiddiqui]

That's really not the problem with any reasonable proposed solution.

So you are agreeing that the English football comparison isn't reasonable?

[Daimyo]

Originally posted by SkyDog
First off, how do we define a "best" team.

I define the "best" team pretty simply. Imagine the fictious scenario where every single team could play every other team a million times (or some other arbitarily large number). The team with the best record at the end would be the best team.

Since we clearly cannot do this, we have to use the limited resources and flawed information available to predict which team that would be.

IMO a playoff is a pretty poor method of predicting this. It is probably the most exciting method though which I suspect is why people want it so badly.

[KWhit]

"Best" team or "Champion?" Hmmm....

The problem is that with the current system we aren't guaranteed either.

We basically have a playoff system in college football now. The problem is that there are only 2 teams involved in it which is WAY too few to be able to guarantee that a deserving team has a shot at the championship.

Since most of a team's games are contained within their conference, it's very tough to tell how good a team actually is. Look at Ohio State last year. Everyone thought that the Big Ten was crap last year and gave them no shot at beating Miami. Turns out that the Big Ten was probably a much better conference top to bottom than the Big East and OSU was a much better team than people gave them credit for.

I don't know if OSU was the best team last year (I think they weren't, actually) but I know they were better than we all thought and I know that the Big Ten in particular was better than I thought they were.

We've basically annointed the Big 12 as the best conference this year. This is basically just a guess because the teams don't play enough meaningful out of conference games to be sure of this. So we don't know how good Oklahoma will stack up to LSU. East coasters like me certainly know very little about how good the Pac 10 is and if USC is really that good. The only way we can be sure of this is to play the games.

1 game to determine the national champ is WAY too few. There is no fair way to pick 2 teams that are deserving of the title and leave out others.

No one who is proposing a playoff is talking about something like college basketball or the NHL or NBA where almost half the teams make the playoff. At most there would be 8 or 16 teams in a playoff. That is only around 5-10 % of the teams. No other major sport has a playoff percentage even close to that low.

It won't devalue the regular season. It will actually make more games meaningful as teams try to make it to the playoffs.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by Daimyo
IMO a playoff is a pretty poor method of predicting this. It is probably the most exciting method though which I suspect is why people want it so badly.

I think part of the question is, what are we trying to do? Determine the "best" team or a champion? They are not the same thing. The Mariners, the year they won 116 games, were the best team. They didn't come close to winning the World Series.

With a playoff, we're not saying it is going to determine who the "best" team is, we're saying that the playoff provides the most direct way to crown a champion among the teams that have been determined to be eligible for the championship. I suspect, though, if a playoff system was to be used, the next argument would be over the participants.

I think we're ultimately going to see one playoff game after the bowls, and the bowls are going to matchup 1 v. 4 and 2 v. 3. The problem, of course, will be those years where there are 6 or 7 teams with 1 loss who could be considered in the top 4. We'd really be just trading one problem for another, but if you can get past the issues with picking the top 4 teams, this seems to be the most reasonable solution, considering what is invested in the current structure.

[vtbub]

I'd be surprised if you ever saw a true playoff in I-A.

What i do see is all the conferences tied in with the BCS having a conference championships.

Then those six teams and two wildcards would do the New Yars bowls, and then take #1 and #2 for a title.

You would require the "champion" to win 3 neutral site games and you would maintain the current bowl system.


BCS Bowls:

Rose- Big 10/Pac10
Orange- ACC/Big East
Sugar- SEC/Wildcard
Fiesta- Big 12/Wildcard

Title game played in the off weeks between the NFL conference championships and Super Bowl at a non-bowl neutral site.

The level of play between conference is too much for an adequate playoff, and universities are not going to give up money on home dates using a shortened regular season.

Like the BCS or not, the attention college football has gotten is great for the game. The BCS has worked, it's drawn attention and boosted ratings. That's what this is all about.

[Scholes]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
So you are agreeing that the English football comparison isn't reasonable?

I'm agreeing that it isn't reasonable, it's just something that would better determine a "champion" and a "best team".

[rkmsuf]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
So you are agreeing that the English football comparison isn't reasonable?

No I'm saying ANY resonable solution you could come up with is trumped by the fact as it stands now there is so much money being made that there will not be a major change...

The English model may be fine but no one is giving up the bowl paydays...

[Butter]

Scholes, how does the EPL determine who is champion in case of a tie?

The reason I ask is because if we did the old fashioned "crown the champion at the end of the season" thang, right now we'd have 3 co-champs. Which would suck. I'm the kinda guy who likes to know who won things. And this year is not going to work out any way you slice it.

[vtbub]

Goal difference.

The team that has the higher total of goals scored-goals allowed.

No clue after that how you would break a tie.

[ISiddiqui]

No I'm saying ANY resonable solution you could come up with is trumped by the fact as it stands now there is so much money being made that there will not be a major change...

The English model may be fine but no one is giving up the bowl paydays...

I think that a playoff system may be able to take just as much, if not more, of a payday.

[rkmsuf]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
I think that a playoff system may be able to take just as much, if not more, of a payday.

From the schools point of view right now why bother changing. No one watches half the bowls, no one goes to half the bowls, no one cares about half the bowls and the participating schools get to split a significant piece of change...

If you are a major conference university why open yourself up to competition from other conferences when you can hoard all the BCS money and recruits now...

[Noble_Platypus]

I agree with Skydog in that we are determining a champion. 16-0 in the regular season doesnt get you anything if you get bounced in the playoffs and a 9-7 wildcard teams wins the Super Bowl. Who is better then? the Team that barely eaked in the playoffs but got hot and won the big game or the team that didnt lose all season but stumbles in 1 game inthe playoffs. I am of the opinion that a playoffs between the top 4 teams in college would be ideal, but as far as the BCS having the #2 and #3 teams play consider this: OU lost as many games as USC, both were conference games, and OU lost to a ranked team, while USC lost to an unranked team. Yet OU is ranked lower just because this loss came later than the USC loss. Should date matter, since this is the primary reason the writers placed USC above OU. Besides, why listen to writers, they screw up the Heisman almost every year.

[Butter]

Originally posted by vtbub
Goal difference.

The team that has the higher total of goals scored-goals allowed.

No clue after that how you would break a tie.

So, margin of victory DOES matter.

[jerem77]

I think that determining a "champion" is the only way to go. How many times in recent years have we seen teams that look like the best team on paper (Washington Redskins a few years back, this years Buccaneers, and possibly this years LA Lakers) turn around and flop. Were the Florida Marlins the best team in baseball last year? They weren't if you look at the total season. But, that team came together and by the end they were the best team in baseball.

Oklahoma should not be in the title game and are certainly not the "best" team in football. Oklahoma lost in what should have been their biggest game of the year (save for the BCS title) to Kansas State, who lost to Marshall earlier in the season. They not only lost, but they were soundly defeated. One could argue that, at this point, Kansas State is the "best" team in the Big 12.

To me the real crime is not that USC was left out, but that Oklahoma was not. How can a team who couldn't even be the "best" in their conference, play to be the "best" in the nation.

[Noble_Platypus]

USC lost to a conference opponent that wasnt even ranked. They had the same amount of losses in conference and overall as OU, and they didnt have to play in a conference championship game. I am not an OU fan, I just think that its bogus to rank a team like USC better than OU because even though they had as many losses as OU and it came to a weaker team, but because the loss cam earlier in the season.Had OU lost early in the season and USC dropped their last game we wouldnt be talking about this.

[ISiddiqui]

OU lost as many games as USC, both were conference games, and OU lost to a ranked team, while USC lost to an unranked team. Yet OU is ranked lower just because this loss came later than the USC loss.

You forgot one, important point. While USC lost to an unranked team, they only lost by one point, but OU, while losing to a ranked opponent, got blown out!

[JonInMiddleGA]

SD - It's interesting that we both seem to have hit on the same comment here. We phrased it a little differently (my posting was elsewhere) but have ended up on the same question -- what is it that we're really looking for?

I think my own thoughts lie closest to Radii's post of anything I've read here in the past couple of days.

If I were going to make changes in the current BCS, those changes would probably start with dropping the human voted polls altogether. And would continue by making more bowl matchups subject to the BCS-style criteria. (Who me? Thinking that Texas & Tennessee, among others, got ripped off more than USC? Whatever gave you that idea?)

[Noble_Platypus]

Does it make you a worse team to lose by 3 TDs to Indy or NE than if you lose by 1 point to SD or AZ?