An Ode to the BCS

We have but one year remaining in the BCS, and I thought it time to defend the undefendable:  the BCS is pretty good.  If the goal is to decide who the number 1 team is, the BCS serves its purpose.  Now, there's more to a post-season than just number 1, and it's all the other stuff (like NIU playing in the Orange Bowl) that tends to aggravate people.  But, for a moment, let's focus on the BCS's stated purpose of identifying the best team in college football.

Due to the fact that in a single season no football team plays more than 10% of the BCS teams, it's a difficult proposition to determine number 1.  Unlike other sports, because of the physical demands of the game, you can't dramatically increase the number of games to get a more accurate indication or create an extensive playoff system.  This is why Ken Massey has identified over 132 different ranking systems, each to varying degrees offering a unique portrayal of the state of college football.  However, the overwhelming majority of rankings had Notre Dame and Alabama in the top two, even if they differed on the team's ordering.  For the purposes of deciding who goes to the championship game, it doesn't matter who a ranking says is number one so long as it is in agreement on the top two.  The definitive number one determination is decided on the field as it should be.  While the BCS includes some of these rankings (though by no means the best ones) and two opinion polls, it is imperfect.  But so is every ranking, and the selection committee for the playoff in 2014-15 will be riddled with imperfections.  The BCS has performed admirably in determining the top two teams at the end of the regular season.

There have been rare occasions where the identification of the top two teams going into the bowl season was in dispute.  Undefeated Auburn, Utah, and Boise State in 2004 or undefeated Boise State in 2009 and 2006.  But the vast majority of methodologically rigorous rankings listed on Kenneth Massey's website agree that each of these teams didn't earn a national championship berth.  Even in the contentious years, the BCS was good enough, with most other approaches in agreement on the two teams that should compete for the Coach's trophy.  Below is a comparison of the BCS with my own Network Ranking, Kenneth Massey's, and Wesley Colley's in the highly contentious 2004 season.  Much to the dismay of War Eagle, there appears to be broad consensus on the top two.

Team	BCS	Network	Massey	Colley
USC	1	2	1	1
Oklahoma	2	1	2	2
Auburn	3	3	5	3
Texas	4	5	6	4
California	5	6	4	6
Utah	6	4	3	5
Georgia	7	10	11	8
Virginia Tech	8	18	8	12
Boise State	9	7	9	7
Louisville	10	9	7	13
LSU	11	8	12	11
Iowa	12	11	17	9
Michigan	13	21	20	14
Miami	14	17	10	16
Tennessee	15	13	21	15
Florida State	16	22	16	18
Wisconsin	17	16	22	20
Virginia	18	19	14	19
Arizona State	19	12	13	10
Texas A&M	20	14	15	17
Pittsburgh	21	42	38	29
Texas Tech	22	20	19	22
Florida	23	25	26	28
Oklahoma State	24	15	18	21
Ohio State	25	23	30	25
Oregon State		24	23	24
North Carolina		54	24	33
UCLA		44	25	39
Colorado		27	28	23

While I don't want to offend my friends from Auburn on the 2004 team (who even had "National Champion" rings made after their win in the Sugar Bowl), all four approaches are in agreement on the two teams that have earned the right to play in the national championship.  Auburn, Utah, and Boise State, while undefeated, lack the degree of impressive wins during their season to merit a national championship berth.

Interestingly, consensus is absent between these four approaches beyond the top two, which should cause concern for the mechanics of a post-BCS era.  In a four team playoff, do you still exclude undefeated Utah, as the BCS and Wes Colley would?  Can you really overlook Auburn, Kenneth Massey?  Is a selection committee going to allow more than one team per conference, as the BCS and Colley suggest both Oklahoma and Texas while Massey would recommend both USC and California?  If there had been a playoff in the 2011 season, the Network Ranking would have recommended that LSU and Florida join Alabama and Notre Dame in a playoff.  Unfortunately, it is unimaginable that a selection committee would grant 3 of 4 spots to the same conference, no matter how dominant the SEC may be.  Throughout its brief history, the BCS did a suitable job determining numbers 1 and 2.  But the problems of ranking college football teams only becomes more complex when you expand the number of teams the final ranking will effect. If you expand the pool of possible national champions from 2 to 4, you also expand the possibility for error, and the number of teams like Auburn, Utah, and Boise who will protest their exclusion.