Every year when college football season comes around, the debate and controversy begin. Unlike the long list of controversies in professional sports that are usually regarding cheating in some form or another, this controversy deals with college football's highly criticized Bowl Championship Series, or more commonly known as the BCS.
The BCS uses a mathematical equation that takes into account a team's rankings in both the USA Today poll and the Harris Interactive poll, as well as six computer rankings. The ranking that comes out of this equation is the team's spot in the BCS poll, according to ESPN.com. The top two teams at the end of the regular season play for the national championship.
With the BCS as it is now, it would be nearly impossible for Miami University to compete for a national championship. Playing in a mid-major conference like the Mid-American Conference, Miami, as well as the other schools in the MAC, would not be able to get enough votes in either of the polls that the BCS uses, to get into the top two spots.
Currently, college football is one of the only major sports in the United States that does not determine its champion with a tournament or playoff style format. While some years the BCS format seems to work out without controversy, other years the media and fans make claims that there are more than two teams with legitimate cases for why they should be playing for the National Championship.
The most recent BCS poll has Ohio State University as the No. 1 team in the country, while Boston College is second. If the season were to end today, these two teams would play for the national championship.
The majority of the media and college football fans have voiced their support for some sort of playoff tournament with anywhere from four to 16 teams. However, there are a lot more issues and complications to this debate than appear at the surface.
"There are two schools of thought," Miami University football Head Coach Shane Montgomery said. "The teams that consistently compete for a national championship would like to see a playoff system. For a non-BCS school like us, I would like to see the bowl system stay the way it is."
Montgomery's argument is one that he says is shared by many other non-BCS coaches.
"If they go to a playoff system with 16 teams chosen, that's really going to hurt teams like us that are not in the BCS," Montgomery said. "The best case scenario (for non BCS conferences combined) is that we get one team in, unless we have two or three teams in the top six teams. By keeping the bowl system the way it is, that is going to give us a chance to get two or three teams into bowl games."
While Montgomery argues that a tournament would hurt mid-major schools' postseason hopes, others would argue that it would help a school like Miami.
"Over the past couple years a lot of mid-major teams have come up and done real well and been left out of the BCS system, so they don't really get a chance to show themselves," senior defensive lineman Pete Walters said. "If there were a playoff system, these teams could work their way into a national championship."
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A fellow senior defensive lineman, Steve Meister, was a little more on the fence than Walters or Montgomery.
"I really like both systems," Meister said. "The playoff system would put the end result in the hands of the teams fighting it out, rather than how the press votes on it, but I have also been to a couple of bowl games in my career and they are great. You go there five or six days in advance and get treated like royalty. It's a great way to celebrate a good season."
While the debate of what should be done will continue for a long time to come, what will be done is anyone's guess at this point. With continued criticism year after year about the flaws of the current system, several coaches and athletic directors from around the nation have attempted to create a playoff system.
"I would find it hard to believe that they are ever going to do a playoff system," Montgomery said. "With the costs, the way the administration and the athletic directors feel, there is just too much that would go into a playoff system."
One possible solution is the plus-one system where the top four teams in the country would square off in two bowl games with the winners playing each other for the championship.
"A lot of people have been pushing the idea of a plus-one system, and if they did, I don't think anyone would really have a problem with that," Montgomery said.
For now though, the top two teams in the BCS will continue to play for the national championship.
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