Bowl Championship Series

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has taken a PR hit lately as their latest poll results came out. The University of Utah, the only FBS school to go undefeated this year (which included a good old-fashioned butt-kicking over formerly top-ranked Alabama), finished the season without the opportunity of playing for the BCS national championship. This particular issue was articulated quite well by ESPN writer Rick Reilly. Click here to read his article.

Utah faced (and defeated) four top-25 teams during the season. They beat every team they faced. The argument is that, after going undefeated, Utah at least deserves the opportunity to play for the national championship. Florida lost to Ole Miss, Oklahoma lost to Texas, and Utah lost to...well, nobody. How do you justify that? BCS argues that, well, Florida and Oklahoma both had much more difficult schedules than Utah. This erroneous argument ignores the whole idea behind sports: champions are decided on the field. Not in polls, not by writers, not by money-grubbing university presidents. In every other sport, at least here in America, we decide a champion by allowing the best teams from the season to play each other. If you win, you keep playing until the championship. If you lose, then you go home. That makes a little more sense to me, anyway.