Perhaps just as egregious than the umpteenmillion BCS complains that have been lodged with little regard for human life over the past decade is the very system by which bowls are selected. Yes, it’s a free country and yes, college football is a business out to make money, but first and foremost is a forum for athletic competition that should reward performance on the field above all else. In short, rewarding deserving schools should supercede the ability of bowl games to determine their own competitors. This is not a recommendation to away with bowl ties to conferences, only a plea for bowl officials not to reach for teams because “they travel well.” Keep the pecking order of bowl games, only tie their selection to conference standings. Take the Cotton Bowl for example. On the very first day of December, Cotton Bowl officials extended an invitation for Texas A&M to square off against an SEC team to be named later. The Cotton Bowl gets second choice out of the Big 12 schools, or the first school that does not qualify for a BCS bid. Did Texas A&M have the second best year of any Big 12 school? Far from it. Excluding the contenders in the Big 12 Championship Game, as both Nebraska and Oklahoma had 2 losses entering the game, with 1 tumbling to 3 losses and one BCS bound regardless of the outcome, there are still two teams in the Big 12 with better records than Texas A&M. Oklahoma State and Missouri both finished the regular season with tidy 10-2 records compared to A&M’s 9-3 (all were 6-2 in conference play). Furthermore, Missouri actually beat A&M head to head during the season, at Kyle Field, the Aggies home stadium, by a merciless score of 30-9. Factoring in the three logical components of tie-breaking: division record, overall record, head-to-head, any way you slice, there is simply no reason Texas A&M is in the Cotton Bowl aside from a nearby fan base deprived of quality football for some time and willing to travel to see it. (more…)

With USC’s now infamous Reggie Bush debacle and the forfeiture of their 2004 National Championship, BCS officials have already announced there will be no champion for the lost season. Perhaps, in most scenarios this would be an acceptable resolution, as it is difficult to decide on a deserving one loss replacement, but the 2004 season was unique in its own right. The Trojan’s lone BSC title was a split decision in a lot of minds across the nation, as an Auburn team compiled an equally perfect 13-0 record, while squaring off against a more strenuous schedule in the Southeastern Conference. It should only be fair that the BCS crown is given to the undisputed second best team that year. Looking back at 2004, with the advantage of what we know about the players now, can we even be sure that the Trojans were better than the Tigers? (more…)