Someone Please Explain to Me Why College Football is a Democracy

Gymnastics. Now there is a sport that makes sense. Surely you may disagree with the scores from time to time but it always works the same, each move/combination is given a degree of difficulty and depending on how well it is executed, an appropriate score is given to determine the rankings.

Then there is swimming, another sensical sport. If you touch the wall first, you win. If you don't, you lose. If you get DQ'd well then, that is just an epic fail.

So one would assume that football, specifically college football would follow a pretty concrete format. The team with the best record would be at the top of the BCS and advance to the correlating Bowl Game. If you score the most points, have the best record, you advance to the Championship Game, right?

Wrong.


People hate college football. Just kidding. Photo from flickr.com

For those of you unfamiliar with the BCS and trust me I am a little fuzzy on some of the details but essentially what happens is that the BCS takes polls and computer reports on what teams are favorable and place them in a ranking order. So even if you win a game, you could still be a loser that week in the polls. For example this week Texas lost to a ranked team and Florida lost to an unranked team but yet Florida is still ahead of Texas in the standings despite losing to an easier team.

Make sense? No it doesn't make sense to me either. Since when did sports become a democracy? America can barely get out and vote for a solid Presidential candidate half the time (cough Bush 2 terms? cough) why should they be allowed to pick the top teams in college football? Football is based on a points system, which has proven to be a pretty foul proof way to determine a winner of a game, so why wouldn't they use the same concrete unarguable system to determine the overall rankings? Referees don't choose the winner of a game, why should polls determine who plays in the BSC Bowl Games?


Cmon there had to be a behind shot, it's football. Photo from Flickr.com

And I know some of you out there probably fiercely defend the system because it gives you something to obsessively check at work (between facebooking of course) and talk about over the water cooler (do people even have water cooler talks anymore?) but it's ludicrous and I have some pretty strong backing on my stance: Barack Obama.

One of the most important statements Barack Obama made during his first 72 hours as President elect is that the BCS should switch to a playoff system. Now, if he had only promised to make that a reality during his campaign, he would have won over the entire Southern region of America.


Epic Fail. Just like the BCS system. Photo from Flickr.com

And I have to say I agree with Obama. A playoff system is a fair and square way to determine who rightfully should play in the BCS Championship Games. It's done in virtually every other sport, why should college football be any different? It's not different than regular ol' football just younger players who major in basket weaving and are allowed to interact with the cheerleaders, why should they play the game any differently? A playoff system is a foul proof way to determine the best teams that year and is a simple answer to solving this largely argued about BCS conundrum.

Then again, if they were to change things, ESPN would have nothing to complain about on their College Football page and super fans would have nothing to comment on. So maybe they need the drama. But I say, leave the drama to the game, pit the best teams against one another in a playoff system, send them to the proper Bowl Game, crown a victor. End. Of. Story.