Do you know what the Bowl Championship Series reminds me of?
Communism.
I say that because at one time many people believed Communism was the best way to run a country, just as today many people believe the best way to determine a college football championship is through the complicated formula concocted by the BCS.
Now we know, of course, that Communism doesn’t work and I’m convinced that one of these years the BCS people will abruptly throw up their hands and admit they were just as wrong as Karl Marx.
Meanwhile, the BCS continues to tweak, tweak, tweak as it protects its turf, turf, turf.
College football’s anointing acronym announced Thursday it had simplified the formula for determining the two teams that will collide for the national college football title.
Hooray for simple.
Under the new formula, we are told, the Associated Press writers’ poll, the coaches’ poll and a combination of computer rankings each will count for one-third of a team’s overall BCS ranking.
Thrown out were strength of schedule, team record, quality wins, Danny Sheridan’s shoe size and the number of beans in a jar on the desk of BCS chairman Kevin Weiberg.
“This formula goes a long way to eliminate some of the controversy surrounding previous matchups as we continue to improve upon the system,” Weiberg said.
Notice that Weiberg, who also is commissioner of the cash cow known as the Big 12 Conference, didn’t say it would eliminate the controversy, only that it would eliminate “some” of it.
How much is anybody’s guess.
I mean, how can the new plan be more precise if basically half of the previous determining factors have been removed? It’s like the government throwing out half the deductible items on your income tax form and then telling you they did it to make your tax compilation easier and fairer.
Basically, the BCS has given us nothing more than window dressing. They want us to know they’re concerned, and they’ve done something about it. Not that they’ve really done anything. But people tend to believe words spoken by people in authority.
The BCS is no different than the package of soap granules that trumpets: “Now makes clothes 10 percent brighter.” Or the box of cereal that proclaims: “Two scoops of raisins in every serving.” Ten percent brighter than what? A dishrag? What kind of scoops? Thimbles?
Along those lines, the BCS has thrown us some numbers.
A team’s score in the AP poll, we were informed, will be divided by 1,625, which is the maximum any team can receive, while a team’s score in the coaches’ poll will be divided by 1,525.
In other words, mumbo divided by jumbo equals gumbo.
Furthermore, the BCS said, the final component will come from six computer rankings. A team’s highest and lowest computer ranking will be thrown out and the other four will be used to determine a figure to add to those from the two polls.
Thanks goodness they cleared that up.
Thursday’s announcement, which made it sound like the BCS had consulted armies of accountants and actuaries, really was just a knee-jerk reaction to the controversy generated by the embarrassing fact three teams have had legitimate claims to a spot in the championship game in three of the last four years.
You have to be awfully naive to believe the new system will prevent any future eggs on the BCS face.
Big football is big football is big football, and big football knows it cannot afford to disrupt the bowl system.
So from time to time, big football has to make us believe it actually is leveling the proverbial playing field when in fact it is really reinforcing the fence around the golden goose.
