The Good from the BCS

Last night Florida beat Oklahoma in the BCS National Championship Game. What does this mean? It means that Florida has been crowned the BCS National Champions. I have struggled greatly with the idea that a 13-1 team can be crowned the National Champions when there is another team that is 13-0. How does a team with 1 loss get the “National Title” when there is a team that is “perfect”?
For this article I will not go into the details of why I believe Utah should be ranked #1 in the Nation. (BTW before you go ballistic and quit reading I said “ranked #1” I did not say they should be the best team in the nation!) In fact, I am going to spend a couple of minutes and tell you why I believe the BCS is a great system.
I have struggled with this system for a while, and to make my point, I must describe a little of the BCS system and how it works.
1. There are pre-season rankings. This is where some guys get together and decide on who is going to be the best this year and where we should start each team in the rankings.
2. Starting on about week 6 the actual BCS Standings are released based on the first 6 weeks of action.
3. The rankings are based on a computer determination of strength of schedule (which is based on these pre-season rankings), voting by coaches and the press and of course some emphasis is given to actually winning or losing games.
4. The BCS holds the keys to a few of the biggest bowl games of the year: The Rose, Orange, Fiesta, Sugar and of course the BCS National Championship Game.
5. Only BCS conferences should play in the BCS Bowls, however, they have allowed a couple of clauses in case a lawsuit were to come up which allow a “non-BCS” conference team to play in a BCS Bowl. The BCS has allowed Utah, Boise St. and Hawaii to play in BCS bowl games. This clause for some reason also allows Notre Dame to play in a bowl game provided they have a winning season and one of the bowls would like Notre Dame to play instead of someone else. (Fortunately Notre Dame has played so horribly over the past couple of years this has not affected the “non-BCS” conference teams as much or this might have been a bigger issue.)
6. The two teams that play for the BCS National Championship are the schools that are ranked #1 and #2 in the BCS Standings after all regular season and conference championships have been played.
7. The winner of the BCS National Championship is crowned the BCS National Champion. Period.

It is hard to speak of the BCS without giving some of my criticism in there. But, I would now like to go on to a little essay of why I believe the BCS is such a great system for college athletes.
I have watched WAY too much college football this year. I have spent every Saturday during the entire College Football season watching just about every game I could watch. I have watched on Thursday nights and Friday nights as well if there was a game that I could get my hands on. I have watched many #1 teams bite the dust and many schools that should have been #1, get shafted and only prove the BCS right the next week when they lost. I have also watched quite a few bowl games. Trust me, I should have spent more time with my family and friends or maybe even at work, than I have watching college football. And so, I, along with millions of other college football fans have spent countless hours analyzing the BCS and determining which system would be better than the current system we have.
Here is what I have decided…College football is only a side note to the real reason kids are in school. These college athletes should first and foremost be acquiring a college education. And although I have wasted way too much time, energy, my voice, and analytical thinking to college football, these kids are not professional athletes and should be hitting the books more than they hit an opposing team. Therefore the BCS is the best system that could be in place because the BCS will teach our college athletes more about life than any other system we could put in place. Here is what our athletes should be learning from the BCS:

Life is not fair.
No matter how hard you work, others will think someone else is working harder.
No matter how many times you prove you are better than someone else, there will be a vote, and you will lose.
Computer programmers run the world.
Everyone around you will support you, but “they” whoever “they” are will tell you that you just aren’t good enough.
There are no absolutes.
You will be told that it isn’t about money. But it is.
He who owns the field, chooses who plays on it.