Lord Help Me, I Miss The BCS

I knew 2020 was a weird year. I didn’t realize it was “I miss the BCS” weird.

The recently concluded college football season was easily the worst of my entire life. My favorite sport was completely exposed in every possible way by COVID. While other sports made drastic changes to its schedule or procedures or formats, college football tried to plow through, and the result was a disaster.

From uneven schedules to different COVID protocols by conference to a staggering number of cases and cancelled games, college football could not stop from punching itself in the face repeatedly.

It culminated with a postseason that had many crying “Uncle!” for it to end. We had a 2-8 SEC team initially make a bowl game over an 9-2 Army team. We had multiple bowl games canceled. We had a playoff that featured more blowouts. We had undefeated Group of Five teams smeared by the old boys’ club known as the college football playoff committee.

Ultimately, the bow on this awful season was another Alabama blowout in a title game as America decided to watch something else. The ratings for the title game were the worst in decades – pre-dating the College Football Playoff. As the final whistle blew in Miami, the common thought was, “Thank God that’s over” unless you live in Alabama.

As we review the wreckage of the season, it has become clear that the College Football Playoff has done the unthinkable – it has made the sport worse since replacing the BCS.

It’s absurd to even consider that thought, since the BCS was the most reviled three letters in all of sports. Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or maybe, the powers at be in college football have used the new College Football Playoff to further chase the money instead of giving fans a better product.

In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about declining attendance and falling ratings – both of which were happening before COVID hit – without addressing any of the root causes. It turns out, the BCS did a much better job of producing an exciting product that the entire nation cared about.

If college football wants to survive and thrive moving forward, merely expanding the playoff is not the answer. They need to look back and take their cues from BCS to improve.

Rankings That People Believe In

The College Football Playoff rankings have always been confusing, but they became an outright joke in 2020. The uneven schedules created a headache for the committee, yet they went above and beyond to deliver rankings that went against all common sense.

Each week, there was a different controversy, whether it was over-ranking Big 12 teams like Iowa State or obviously keeping a spot in the playoff for an undefeated Ohio State, it was a joke. 

The BCS standings were much maligned too, but fans at least understood why a team was ranked where they were ranked. The human element was only one aspect, with computers and strength of schedule also factored in. The BCS didn’t get it right every year. The BCS rankings never lied to us though, as the College Football Playoff chairman has on Tuesday nights for years.

Putting the Spotlight on Group of Five Teams

The BCS standings also gave high quality mid-major, now Group of Five, teams a legit shot at being part of the conversation. There was no BS “eye test” that the computer rankings could hide behind. That’s why in 2009, both Boise State and TCU sniffed the title game and were only kept out by questionable refereeing in the Big 12 title game.

In 2010, the biggest story in college football was the dual ascension of those two teams in their quest to crack the title game. TCU didn’t crack the title game thanks to stellar seasons from Oregon and Auburn, though its Rose Bowl win truly mattered and helped them get an invite to the Big 12.

Boise State didn’t even make a big bowl game in 2010, but they were college football’s biggest draw. Their Labor Day night game vs Virginia Tech was, at the time, the most watched college football game in ESPN history. Yes, Boise State vs Virginia Tech. Think about that a few times before it sinks in. Boise State’s season finale, a Black Friday classic vs Colin Kaepernick’s Nevada, had millions of fools like yours truly glued to our TVs well until nearly 2am on the west coast.

Those two Boise State games are two of my favorite college football games ever. It’s been a decade since college football delivered games like that.

A Postseason That Matters

I usually sound like an old fart when I talk about the bowl season. It’s probably because the bowl season just doesn’t mean anything anymore. That façade was completely destroyed in 2020 as dozens of teams said no to postseason games, and bowls disappeared left and right. It was a continuation of the trend of NFL-bound players skipping games.

I have long been a proponent of a 16-team playoff that features the conference champions of the 10 FBS conferences with 6 wild cards. In its current form, the four-team playoff will kill the bowl system. If it hasn’t already.

These games have gone from being rewards to a good season to pure TV money grabs. Fans used to flock to bowl games because it meant the team had a good season. I remember driving down to Charlotte from Connecticut in 2007 because UConn football had its best season ever to that point and was rewarded with a pretty good bowl game. Today, teams make bowl games every year and none of them matter. What’s even the point?

A Postseason Schedule That Makes Sense

You can trace the bowl season’s death back to 2006 and the disastrous decision by college football to implement a “double hosting” model where the title game would take place a week or ten days after New Year’s Day. The playoff has only exacerbated this situation, as college football’s biggest game is now completely overshadowed by the NFL playoffs.

It’s even more infuriating because college football had ruled New Year’s Day since the beginnings of the 20th century. The original BCS worked so well for TV ratings because the title game came right after New Year’s Day.

The most head-scratching of the ridiculous scheduling was how well the BCS performed in 2005, the last year a title game was held near New Year’s Day. The four BCS games were all sold out, and the games all did extremely good ratings. It culminated with the Texas/USC Rose Bowl that remains college football’s most watched game since Penn St/Miami in January 1987 and is wildly considered the greatest game of all time. Why fuck with the formula?

Better Non-Conference Games in September

The worst part of the college football playoff’s failure is what we were promised. The BCS, we were told, was the reason that college football’s non-conference schedules had become terrible.

In 1990, Colorado won the National Title. Their non-conference schedule was Tennessee, Stanford, Illinois, Texas, and Washington. That’s five Power Five teams and four of them were ranked.

In 2019, LSU won the National Title. Their non-conference schedule was Georgia Southern, Texas, Northwestern State, and Utah State. Give me a break.

The BCS was not the reason schedules in September have become lame, nor why attendance and ratings are cratering. I don’t care how much you love LSU football – is a game vs Northwestern State or Utah State going to excite you?

College football is on the verge of collapse. If they want to turn things around, they need to look back at the BCS. Yep, I miss the BCS. What is happening? 

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