Mr. Cowlishaw begins his defense of the BCS by arbitrarily picking an eight-team playoff format and then arguing that such a format wouldn’t work.  He automatically includes the champion of each of the six BCS conferences in this hypothetical playoff and then argues that the two remaining spots are given to “your precious unbeatens, TCU and Boise State,” Florida would not be included.  In his words, “if you believe that format escapes controversy and really solves anything, let me know how Gators fans respond to that line of thinking.”

      Where to begin.

      First, why must all “Big Six” conferences merit automatic inclusion into a potential eight-team playoff?  Mr. Cowlishaw shirks off this point by calling a playoff without automatic bids for those conference champs “fantasy.”  Yes, this year all “Big Six” conferences have champions in the top ten, but that is not the case every year.  After the 2008 season, for example, Boise State, TCU, and Utah were ranked higher than Big East champion Cincinnati. And four non-automatic qualifying teams (the aforementioned three and BYU) were ranked higher than ACC Champion Virginia Tech entering bowl season.  If a more competitive system was created that did not automatically include all “Big Six” champs, a one-loss Florida would be in the playoffs ahead of three two loss teams (Oregon, Georgia Tech, and Ohio State), so this point is moot.

      Next, let’s blow down his straw man about a playoff not “escap[ing] controversy.”  Under the BCS, we argue over who is No. 2 vs. who is No. 3.  In an eight-team playoff that argument would instead be about who is No. 8 vs. No. 9.  If you believe the former is better for college football, you might want to take advantage of the BCS’s recent hiring binge.  Your logic would fit-in well there.

      Mr. Cowlishaw next tries to attack a 16-team playoff.  He argues that such a playoff will lead to the equivalent of “four bowl games for titles contenders” and “lots of injuries.”  He also argues that if you shorten the regular season to eleven games, to compensate for a longer post-season, the revenues of “lower-end teams” trying to compete with Texas, Florida and Ohio State will be reduced.

      Phew.

      He’s wrong about injuries.  Just look at college football’s lower divisions.  In all of the lower divisions of football (FCS, Division II, Division III, and even high school), the champions play 15 or more games.  If those divisions can handle the load, why can’t the bigger, stronger players in the FBS?

      Secondly, the argument that reducing the season to 11 games reduces the revenues of “lower-end” teams is misleading.  It also reduces the revenues of “high-end” teams.  We all know that “high-end” teams use those extra weeks to pad their schedules with home games against FCS teams.  In reality, reducing the length of the regular season would help the lower-end teams since they are forced to schedule more away games to fill up their non-conference schedule. 

      Since Mr. Cowlishaw’s argument about Congress meddling in this issue was aptly addressed in a prior blog post, I will move on to the next point.  He ends his article with a condescending line that “the BCS…is filling the bank accounts of the Mountain West and WAC this holiday season like never before.” For some odd reason, he forgot to mention that even in the best of years those conferences receive less than half of what the big six conferences receive: http://bit.ly/8AVa2M.

      It’s bad that the BCS exists.  It’s worse that people try to defend it.