Plus and minuses
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Thanks to Michigan’s Rose Bowl loss, the new and improved Bowl Championship Series finishes Monday with a legitimate No. 1 vs. No. 2 title game.
The question is how to make sure it happens next year, and the seasons after that.
The BCS added a fifth game, in this, its ninth season, with top-ranked Ohio State and No. 2 Florida meeting the week after the Sugar, Rose, Orange and Fiesta bowls have been played. The Gators were a controversial choice until Southern California soundly defeated No. 3 Michigan in Pasadena, Calif.
Now, those who want a major college football playoff are lobbying for what’s called the plus-one model, considered the logical next step for the BCS.
Under one scenario the plus-one would look a lot like a playoff, with teams seeded into the various bowls. The other would restore the traditional bowl lineups, and the final BCS standings to set the final game would come out after the bowls.
Sounds like fun to fans? Yes. Sounds like a good idea to administrators? Not really.
The idea got batted around a bit two years ago, when BCS officials decided to expand, and college football’s decision-makers gave it a cool reception.
“I think there’s a willingness to talk about (the plus-one) more, but still I don’t sense overwhelming support for it,” Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese. “I think that the Pac-10 and Big Ten in particular are pretty strong in their opposition for it.
“I think to get to the plus-one will be a struggle.”
Both Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said the schools they represent have no interest in further tampering with the relationship between the two conferences and the Rose Bowl, their longtime and lucrative partner.
“The Rose Bowl is the most important external relationship we have,” Delany said. “It’s more important than the BCS. We’re going to honor it. We’re going to salute it.”
A system that further devalues the Rose Bowl just isn’t going to get their support, he said.
The BCS came into existence eight years ago when the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl agreed to join the four other major conferences (Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12, Southeastern Conference and Big East), Notre Dame and three marquee bowl games (Sugar, Fiesta and Orange) in an effort to match the top two teams in the country in the final game of the season.
Delany said it’s unfair to characterize the Big Ten and Pac-10’s loyalty to the Rose Bowl as the major obstacle to a plus-one.
“I’m not going to agree with the proposition that we’re the stumbling block when in fact we’re the final blocks that allowed this to come into the perspective to improve everybody’s lot,” he said.
Hansen agreed.
“We believe the BCS as currently constituted was good for the overall health of college football. That’s why we joined up in the first place,” Hansen said. “We feel we’ve made one sacrifice, and we’re not necessarily interested in making another for something we don’t see any great advantage from.”
Getting past the Big Ten and Pac-10’s allegiance to the Rose Bowl is by no means the only thing standing in the way of a plus-one.
Hansen said there are concerns among the university presidents he represents about further extending the season, especially after Division I-A just made permanent the 12-game regular season, and the toll it could take on academics.
The Orange, Fiesta and Sugar bowls share the Rose Bowl’s worries about the desire of fans to travel to two postseason games. Also, opponents of a full-fledged playoff – and there are many in the ranks of college presidents, even outside the Big Ten and Pac-10 – view the plus-one as the first step down a slippery slope.
“There would be a clamor to increase it after that,” Rose Bowl executive director Mitch Dorger said.
Also, a plus-one wouldn’t necessarily eliminate the BCS debate.
Tranghese said there hasn’t been enough discussion about the plus-one so far to specifically define the mechanics.
Although it’s assumed a plus-one would mean the No. 1 team playing the No. 4 in one bowl while 2 and 3 meet in another and the winners play for the championship, that’s not a given.
Dorger said another version described to him would set the bowl lineup with no regard to rankings, using the traditional bowl relationships to set matchups.
That would ensure a Big Ten-Pac-10 matchup every season, but then other issues arise. Delany said forcing the champs from the two traditionally powerful conferences to get through each other to reach the title game every year could put the leagues at a competitive disadvantage in the national championship race.
Florida president Bernard Machen said the BCS is unhealthy for major college football.
“What you’ve got is system now that’s run by people whose interest is the protection of their personal domain, that being the six (major) conferences,” he said. “Any solution that they come up with is going to be based on how to protect themselves and their conference members. We need to have that go away.”
Machen supports having the NCAA or another national entity step in and construct a playoff system.
He and Florida State president T.K. Wetherall met when their schools played in November to talk about how Division I-A could implement a playoff system.
A playoff could put the entire bowl system in danger – a system that will pay Division I-A football teams $210 million dollars this season, according to Scott Ramsey, chairman of the Football Bowl Association.
But money doesn’t appear to be the driving factor behind the opposition to a playoff or a plus-one model.
Fox is in the first year of a four-year deal that will pay the BCS $320 million for the broadcast rights to the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls from 2007-10 and the national title game from 2007-09.
The Rose Bowl has its own TV deal with ABC, a contract that runs through 2014. Terms of that deal were not released, but the previous four-year deal was worth $80 million to the Rose Bowl.
All agree that a plus-one would increase the value of the BCS’ television rights, though none would say exactly how much, and a playoff would bring in far more revenue than the bowl system.
More coaches have become vocal opponents of the BCS in recent years.
Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville was one of the first when his Tigers went undefeated in 2004 and were left out of the title game in favor of USC and Oklahoma. He’s for a plus-one, not a long playoff that can be physically demanding on players and turn into a war of attrition.
“I think we can have some influence by educating our presidents,” he said. “I think we can better educate the presidents on the fact that academics is not a problem. They keep saying, ‘Time out of the classroom.’ We spend less time out of the classroom than any sport.
“A true national championship playoff would really enhance what we’re doing and even bring in more money. And of course that’s what the presidents are concerned about.”
Florida’s Urban Meyer and Michigan’s Lloyd Carr both have publicly thrown their support behind a playoff system, as has USC coach Pete Carroll. Penn State’s Joe Paterno has for years said Division I-A needs a playoff.
“I have tremendous respect for Coach Carr and tremendous respect for Coach Paterno,” Delany said. “But at the end of the day I work with them, but I work for university presidents.”