Tuesday, November 01, 2005

"I am not a committee!"

The BCS is college football's version of Phil and Kobe or TO and McNabb: a relentlessly overplayed story that breeds more inane commentary than any other. To with here is Gene Wojciechowski (thank G-d for cut and paste) making the same tired claim that a committee would be better than the current formula. I'd love to hear Gene address this simple question: how is a small group of humans making a decision any better than a large group? If he thinks there was a lot of criticism before of the results spit out by the BCS rankings, how does he think it's going to function when a small group of human beings, all with identifiable connections and presumed biases and agendas, are determining whose 11-0 is more impressive? The idea that Tommy Tuberville would be OK with his unbeaten team being denied a shot at the title because of a decision coming from the star chamber is insane. I'd voice surprise that ESPN would print such a dumb argument, but this is, after all, the network that decided that John Kruk needed a bigger platform to voice his sophisticated views on baseball.

Or, let's flip Wojo's counter-factual around and say that the star chamber anointed Auburn and USC as the Orange Bowl participants last year. Would Bob Stoops be OK with that decision coming from Wojo's suggested group that includes the former commissioner of the SEC, two former SEC coaches (including one who went to school at Auburn,) and Tommy Tuberville's former boss (Jimmy Johnson)?

All that needs to be said about the BCS is this: it is given the impossible task of picking two teams out of 117. It must do so despite the fact that the teams it must compare have almost never played and have few, if any, common opponents. No matter what method the BCS uses, it will come up short against the impossible task. There is really nothing else that needs to be said about it.

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