We should stay home...

As much as I despise the BCS and how the grand scheme of most National Titles have been clouded with some type of controversy, I must say that refusing to appear in a BCS bowl would be asinine. The Sugar Bowl(or any BCS bowl) is a great setting and opportunity for our young Dawgs to gain experience and exposure to playing in a big time national setting and preparing them for a national title game next year(which I feel will happen). We must remember that we controlled our own destiny just like everyone else that first weekend in September when the season started. A tough loss to an inferior SC team and a bludgeoning by a desperate TN team put us in this situation. Win one of those and all the talk of Conference titles, rankings, losses and being the hottest team do not exist. Instead we are a one loss team, probably the SEC champions and punching our tickets to play for the crystal football. Let's quit complaining about how the system won't work for us this year and have the patience to control the system next season.

And for the \"to be a conference champion or not to be\" in the BCS picture it is clear on the BCS website that winning your conferecne is not a caveat to playing for all the marbles. Here is an excerpt from a conference call with our own SEC commissioner Mike Slive who is also the BCS coordinator discussing this very topic:

Q:What's your feeling on the fairness aspect of teams that have conference championship games and conferences that don't have conference championship games in terms of getting into the BCS?
MIKE SLIVE: That's a good question. I've been asked that question a lot this week, and when I think back to the beginning, when the BCS was created, one of the tenets of the BCS was that each conference would have the right to determine how it determined its own champions, and so therefore we've got different ways of doing it.

You know, I'm comfortable with that. There obviously are there's different points of view, but I'm comfortable with it because I think it really reflects the uniqueness of each conference. In every part of the country it's different. For example, in our part of the world, our championship game is a huge celebration of SEC football. We sell the game out in the wintertime and it doesn't matter who's playing, and it's been very successful for us.

So I guess in the Big Ten, in the Pac-10, they've got their tradition and they don't want to have a championship game. I think that's okay. The BCS was not designed to create a monolithic structure where everybody has to do exactly the same thing to determine its champion.

Q: Are you comfortable with a non division winner getting a championship game?

MIKE SLIVE: Yeah, I think so. I think you've got a situation where we're trying to be consistent with the BCS standings as the polls and the computers put them forth, and to have an asterisk on whether or not somebody should be a division champion or a conference champion could potentially change that, particularly in leagues that don't have championship games and who don't play one another, and then you could end up with tiebreakers. You could create a lot of scenarios where if you had the requirement for a champion to be in the championship where you really would not have the full body of work of a team and then you really wouldn't have the two best teams playing for the National Championship.

By the way, I'm new to this site and love what you guys are doing here. Had to get registered and jump in the mix! Great job!

wlayton wrote:

Somebody give me ANY reason why we should play Hawaii (other than $). PLEASE, tell me WHY we should agree to play them. USC or OU, ok, play them....decline the Sugar Bowl.

Can't be done, wlayton. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON we should accept a bid to play Hawaii.

Welcome DawginLA and your points are well taken. Then I say, DON\"T rank us as high as #4 then when the chips fall like they did last night there would be NO dissappointment. The BCS ranking had ALREADY taken into consideration all that you pointed out and still ranked us #4. Rank us 5 or 6 before this weekend and there's no argument. The BCS put THEMSELVES in this MESS!!!!!!

Even though you're in LA, DawgnLA, I'm sure you've seen enough SEC games such as the Cocktail party to know that our guys are used to playing in big games. A game against Hawaii would be a joke, and as wlayton said, we have nothing to gain from it. And just becuase we stumbled during the year doesn't mean we should accept getting screwed by the B(C)S. Remember, LSU stumbled twice just like we did--they're just getting rewarded for being in a weaker division (just like OSU).
That being said, welcome to the site.

I just recieved a responce from BCSfootball.org

Dear College Football Fan,

Thank you for getting in touch. We appreciate your interest in college football and the BCS system.

Please know that the BCS is not involved in the polls it uses for rankings, thus it is not in a position to consider one team or another for any game. The BCS system averages eight polls, tossing out the high and low, in an effort to come up with as fair and unbiased a ranking as possible. While no system is perfect, the BCS has been honed over the years and is viewed by its creators and participants - the four bowls, 11 conferences and independent schools - as being a good system.

In order to avoid a conflict of interest, the BCS, which is not an entity but is an event arranged by a series of contracts between those groups - has been instructed by those members to exert no influence over the polls and is only empowered to average those independently operated polls. The polls themselves move teams up or down, but not the BCS. We just average their results. The BCS does this to avoid a conflict of interest and show no bias.

Thank you,

BCS

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From: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 13:00:59 -0500
Subject: BCS
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Ok #1 and #2 loose.. #3 and #4 move up. Ohio State vs. Georgia NCG. Nothing else makes sense!!!!!!



.org

The BCS, what a damn joke. Stick it up their asses.