Death to the BCS Review

I recently finished this book (I started in January) by Dan Wetzel, Jeff Passan, and Josh Peter. Since John Junker and his band of strip club-attending bowl mates have been in the news lately I figure it’s still relevant and most likely will be until the powers that be give the masses what they’re clamoring for: the sweetest fifteen game playoff in all of sports.

Their plan for postseason college football glory is as follows: sixteen teams – the eleven conference winners and five at-larges selected by a (what else?) a selection committee. First three rounds are played at the higher seeds’ home stadiums (regular season still matters!) and the title is played in Pasadena every year.

So instead of giving a blithe perfunctory tip of the cap towards the guys at Yahoo I thought I’d instead take a few of my favorite quotes from the narrative completely out of context for sensationalized reaction from my readers. Welcome to blogging, America’s journalistic future!. On to the quotes:

• “The men’s basketball tournament is successful because in early games little schools dare to dream and the Final Four allows heavyweight programs to determine who’s best.” – I agree with the premise (especially in football) but the conclusion is flawed. See: Stevens, Brad and Smart, Shaka. And while I personally enjoyed Cinderella dressed in Butler blue and VCU yellow you’d have a hard time proving that what is good for those schools is good for college basketball as a whole.

PSA: Seems like a good time for me to mention that all lambasting of me and my opinions can be done with a few swipes on the keyboard below in the comments section. I know Q probably fell out of his PHD desk after reading that last scathing remark that Butler’s run might not have been good for college hoops (gasp!).

• “There’s an $860 million postseason waiting to be tapped.” – For those of you wondering, the current figure is at roughly $220 millions so yeah, I’m with you, I have no idea what the hold-up is.

• “For the honor of playing in a D-list bowl, Florida Atlantic was willing to be paid nothing.” – This is in reference to the inverse bidding war that went on for the rights to play in the 2008 Motor City Bowl. FAU came to terms with the bowl that payment would be made in the form of $750k in tickets…and that’s it. They didn’t receive cash or anything besides $750k worth of tickets they couldn’t sell. The cost/benefit of playing in these games is already ridiculously low (as Wiz of Odds noted in their review of OSU’s Alamo Bowl last year) but don’t you think when the powers that be can command a “buy it now” price of $0 (literally) something might be amiss?

• “[Nebraska’s chancellor Harvey Perlman said] ‘you’re going to have to play at home sites-which I’m sure everybody will want to play in Nebraska in December and January.'” –  He was obviously being sarcastic, as the authors pointed out, but I am now loudly stating, yes Mr. Perlman, yes we all would LOVE that.

• Not to start stealing quotes from the book as my actual quotes, but here’s another doozy: “We believe the bowl system wouldn’t survive a playoff” -Bill Hancock, BCS executive director. And we care about that because….?

• “Florida hasn’t played a regular-season, nonconference game outside of its home state since the BCS was created.” – Not sure that I have any comment on this, just thought it was weird.

• “The nerds aren’t ready for a revolution.” – On the BCS squelching its own number-crunching computer lovers who are in charge of the formulas that determine who plays for the title in mid-January. One of those nerds contracted by the BCS was quoted as saying, “I would like a playoff.” Even the BCS thinks the BCS should have a playoff.

• “Forget an off-season. On the hyper-focused Internet, there’s no longer an off-afternoon.” – You’re telling me…

• “The 2010 Orange Bowl did a pedestrian 6.8 rating and got pilloried by NCIS, its stepbrother NCIS: LA, and a rookie show, The Good Wife.” – So yeah, that’s working well.

• “So much for Mr. Implicit Trust.” – This is in reference to Big 10 commissioner Jim Delany absolutely fleecing Dan Beebe last year by swiping Nebraska behind his back. It’s too long to explain here but the way the entire thing played out made Beebe look like DiCaprio in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” if you know what I mean. Actually maybe they should remake the movie, call it “What’s Eating Garrett Gilbert” and have Beebe play the role of Texas’ president, AD, and head coach.

• “Imagine: The Rose Bowl National Championship Game, an officially sanctioned, BCS-free culmination of a season unshackled from the Cartel (BCS).” – I try to not think about this too often, it’s too depressing.

• “Pasadena would become college football’s version of Omaha.” – See above.

• “A few men control everything and if ever anyone wondered why a cartel is dangerous, college football exhibits it.” – Unfortunately this is an absolute truth.

As always, it’s difficult and does the author no justice to try and summarize 208 pages of brilliance that unmask what has become a dirty sport’s dirtiest little secret. I say brilliance because it takes a triumvirate of cerebral sports minds to make a legitimate argument beyond the pouty “the bowl games aren’t fair to my team, hmph!” most people seem to default to.

Well done fellas, and if you haven’t picked up a copy you can do so here.