Fixing the BCS – Because no matter how much people want it, we aren't getting a playoff

There are a ton of problems with the BCS. Everyone is aware of that. And even if they aren't actively thinking about it, nearly everyone has that agitated college football fan friend that is frustrated annually (of course the frustrated friend is all of us discussing this).

Knowing that, I am still pro-BCS. It has done wonders for the popularity of college football (even though everyone hates the system). It has kept the meaning of the regular season (most of the time, there are four terrible cases where the system screwed up badly). It brought the Pac-10 and Big Ten into the system allowing for a true championship game (no matter how much everyone hates the BCS, any year where a Pac-10, now 12, or Big Ten team is in the title game is a point in favor of the BCS because it couldn't have happened before, allowing for split national championships like the 1991 Miami-Washington and 1997 Michigan-Nebraska splits). And it moved college football from a mostly regionalized sport where nobody cared about anyone outside of their own area to a national sport where LSU against Alabama matters in California and Oklahoma against Oklahoma St. matters in Big Ten country. All of these changes are good things for the sport and good things for fans of the sport.

Of course that is the rosy view of the BCS. There are problems. Start with the four total failures of the system where undeserving teams reached the BCS Title Game: 2000 Florida St., 2001 Nebraska, 2003 Oklahoma and 2011 Alabama I am looking at you here. Each of those seasons had teams that caused the majority of America to be outraged at the BCS Title Matchup. Go from there to all of the ridiculous off the reservation choices bringing undeserving teams to BCS games (2011 Virginia Tech and 2007 Kansas most notably). Then add in the automatic bids even for awful champions from BCS Conferences (2011 West Virginia, 2010 Connecticut, 2004 Pittsburgh, 1999 Stanford, 2002 and 2005 Florida St., 2006 Wake Forest). Mix all of that together along with college football's general bizarreness and you get total chaos, regularly, even when there is an argument over teams in teams where the system does its job (2008 Florida-Oklahoma, 2007 Ohio St.-LSU, 2006 Ohio St.-Florida, and 1998 Tennessee-Florida St. are all years where there weren't the perfect two undefeated teams and the system did its job very well, picking deserving teams).

So what needs to be done? As a note, there are some things that I believe are non-starters and so I won't suggest them even though they might be good ideas. Some of these are a selection committee, a plus one system, and eliminating the coaches poll from the system (one of the best ideas anyone has had).

1 Only Conference Champions (or Independents) are allowed to play for the BCS Title – Years system got this wrong: 2001 (Nebraska), 2003 (Oklahoma), 2011 (Alabama)

The argument in favor of the BCS is that the regular season means everything. If the regular season means everything, then winning your conference is a prerequisite. In a playoff type system, the playoff means everything so this is less of an issue. But everyone wants to keep the best regular season in sports. That means only Conference Champions need apply for the National Championship.

Matchups in failed years under this system – 2001 Miami vs Colorado (replaces Nebraska), 2003 LSU vs USC (replaces Oklahoma), 2011 LSU vs Oklahoma St. (replaces Alabama)

2 Give the BCS formula a makeover with the computers having more power

I know some will say that the computers had too much power, causing some of the stupid matchup in the early years of the system. That is exactly right. The computers did have too much power in the early days of the system. Now though, they have too little. When the formula was changed after the 2003 debacle, the influence of the computers went from too much to too little. Now, it is 1/3 of the rankings. In the early BCS days, the computers were closer to 2/3. It really should be half. The computers need to have a say because they are objective and unbiased. They don't need the entire say because computers can only read the data. And the data being put into them is often flawed (especially right now, more on that later). Despite that, there is space for the computers to have a legitimate say in matters here. We need some objectivity.

3 Make changes to the computer components

This goes along with number 2. Right now, the computers are limited in what they can do. Other than a cap on Margin of Victory (but bring it back), let the computer programmers do whatever the heck they want. The only rules are a three touchdown cap on Margin of Victory and the formula being used must be released to the public, even if nobody in the public would understand what the heck is actually happening with the formula. From there, more computers should be brought into the system. There needs to be a cross section of computer rankings. Kenneth Massey (who runs one of the BCS computer rankings) keeps a composite ranking that includes over 100 different computers plus the human polls and the BCS in a composite rankings. Why not go get some of those rankings that take some different things into account and broaden the spectrum of computer rankings? If nothing else, having more of them could allow them to be easily arranged into a poll like set of rankings that the public can more easily digest than what occurs now (when they are just dismissed) or what happened with the old formula (when the public yelled WTF is going on, get rid of these stupid things because I don't understand).

4 Automatic BCS bids to any conference champion of any league that finishes in the top 8, at-large pool extends to 14.

Rose and Sugar Bowls automatically get their traditional champions if in the top 8 and not in the National Title Game. Rose Bowl always gets first at-large pick to take either the Pac-12 or Big Ten Champ if ranked below 8 and in top 14 as Rose Bowl would not allow this plan otherwise.

Does this fix everything we have with undeserving teams getting into the BCS? No. Of course not. As long as the bowls are involved, there are going to be some befuddling picks. Would it fix a lot of the problems that we have seen the last few years? Absolutely.

5 Three team limit per conference instead of two

Do some want the cap eliminated entirely? Yes. That just can't happen. No conference is strong enough to be deserving of sucking up four out of ten BCS slots. The only way to get four teams ranked that high is to be top heavy, meaning it is likely that at least one of those teams is overrated and not really deserving (2011 South Carolina I'm looking at you). In the rare event that none of those teams was overrated (2010 SEC West), well the lesser bowls will be glad to have you as always and you should have beaten the better teams in your league when you had the chance. That said, the unbalanced schedules that nearly every league now plays makes a cap of two teams as exists presently impractical.

With those changes (in particular 1 and 4 that we can apply to ), this is how things may have looked each season since the expansion of the BCS in 2006 (I didn't worry about pick order too much so the teams would likely be close but the matchups off).

2011	Actual	New System	3 Auto-Bids – LSU, OK St., Oregon
BCS Title	LSU vs Alabama	LSU vs Oklahoma St.	No non-conference champs allowed
Rose	Oregon vs Wisconsin	Oregon vs Wisconsin
Sugar	Michigan vs Virginia Tech	Alabama vs Baylor	With Alabama dropping down, no need or desire for VT
Fiesta	Stanford vs Oklahoma St.	Kansas St. vs Stanford	With Ok St. in the BCS Game, KSt. Lands here to replace
Orange	Clemson vs West Virginia	Arkansas vs Michigan	2 team cap abolished gets Orange a good game, finally
2010	Actual	New System	5 Auto-Bids – Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma
BCS Title	Auburn vs Oregon	Auburn vs Oregon
Rose	TCU vs Wisconsin	Stanford vs Wisconsin	Rose Bowl gets desired matchup, sorry TCU
Sugar	Arkansas vs Ohio St.	Arkansas vs TCU	Didn't worry about pick order here, these 6 are the teams though
Fiesta	Oklahoma vs Connecticut	Oklahoma vs Michigan St.
Orange	Stanford vs Virginia Tech	Ohio St. vs LSU
2009	Actual	New System	8 Auto-Bids, Bowl pairings unchanged
BCS Title	Alabama vs Texas	Alabama vs Texas
Rose	Oregon vs Ohio St.	Oregon vs Ohio St.
Sugar	Florida vs Cincinnati	Florida vs Cincinnati
Fiesta	TCU vs Boise St.	TCU vs Boise St.
Orange	Georgia Tech vs Iowa	Georgia Tech vs Iowa
2008	Actual	New System	5 Auto-Bids – Oklahoma, Florida, USC, Utah, Penn St.
BCS Title	Oklahoma vs Florida	Oklahoma vs Florida
Rose	USC vs Penn St.	USC vs Penn St.
Sugar	Alabama vs Utah	Alabama vs Texas Tech	No 2 team limits allows Texas Tech
Fiesta	Texas vs Ohio St.	Texas vs Utah	Utah is pick since Ohio St. would be off board
Orange	Cincinnati vs Virginia Tech	Ohio St. vs Georgia Tech	GT is a stretch, but options were lacking (Boise finished 9th, no AQ)
2007	Actual	New System	5 Auto-Bids – Ohio St., LSU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, USC
BCS Title	Ohio St. vs LSU	Ohio St. vs LSU
Rose	USC vs Illinois	USC vs Illinois
Sugar	Georgia vs Hawaii	Georgia vs Missouri	Hawaii finished 10th (No AQ) and Missouri was deserving
Fiesta	Oklahoma vs West Virginia	Oklahoma vs West Virginia
Orange	Virginia Tech vs Kansas	Virginia Tech vs Florida	If you have to have undefeated Hawaii, replace Florida
2006	Actual	New System	5 Auto-Bids – Ohio St., Florida, USC, Louisville, Boise St.
BCS Title	Ohio St. vs Florida	Ohio St. vs Florida
Rose	USC vs Michigan	USC vs Michigan
Sugar	LSU vs Notre Dame	LSU vs Wisconsin	No 2 team limit allows Wisconsin
Fiesta	Oklahoma vs Boise St.	Oklahoma vs Boise St.
Orange	Louisville vs Wake Forest	Notre Dame vs Louisville	Orange is happy to be rid of Wake Forest