BCS Debate Resumes

Paul responded to D. Hawkins from Boise (soon to be Boulder, by the way) over this past weekend on his blog . I apologize for the slow posting:

The plight of mid-major conferences is the biggest thorn in the side of the BCS. I think we can all agree that mid-major conferences generally have less talent than the bigger conferences, or else they'd be the teams in the major conferences. But there are rare circumstances (like last season) when teams like Boise State and Utah go undefeated through the regular season, and the inability to deal with that is the biggest failing of the current system. But here are a couple points to keep in mind.
1) With a playoff a mid-major conference team would qualify about as often as such a team earns a BCS spot now, which is to say very rarely.
2) The bowl system would be weakened further by a playoff, as 7 out of 28 bowls would be given greater importance, instead of just one taking center stage. That means less money and prestige for the other 42 bowl teams, of which in most seasons you would be one.
3) This is just a guess but if 8 teams make a playoff that lowers the standard. Which means major conference teams with weak non-conference schedules could still make the playoff, disincentivizing scheduling good mid-major teams during the regular season, which is also is bad news for you.
That's a long answer to a simple question. So let me break it down. I feel your pain but don't think you'd be much better off under a playoff. Next time you want to go undefeated do it in a season where there aren't any undefeated big conference schools, like 2003.

First of all, even a graduate of Boise State University would know there is no such word as disincentivizing.

In 2004, Utah out of the Mountain West conference and Boise State of the Western Athletic Conference went undefeated. Utah received an at-large birth in the Fiesta Bowl (the least prestigious bowl that year) and Boise State was shut out of the BCS and sent to the Liberty Bowl. The lack of access to the BCS to mid-major programs is self-serving to programs in the “BCS conferences” in two ways.

1) It all but assures us we will never see anything like the “Cinderellas” and classic upsets we see on the first weekend of the College Basketball Tournament in March. There are no Vermonts, Princetons, or Valaparaiso-UCLA matchups for Americans without vested interest to cheer for the underdog. While Paul enjoys seeing superior talent prevail, the rest of America loves upsets or potential upsets which is proven by CBS’ ratings during the March Basketball Tournament. By leaving out the Boise States in favor of the Texas’ you eliminate these types of possibilities.
2) It makes it all but impossible for mid-major schools to recruit a collection of talent around a star player to make a National Championship run. Byron Leftwich, Brett Favre, Ben Roethlisberger, Marshall Faulk, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Randy Moss all have attended schools outside of the ‘BCS but they can not recruit ***** talent around them because the best seasons are likely rewarded by pre-New Year’s Bowl games like the Liberty Bowl. Signing Day at Utah is similar to the Baseball Winter Meetings at Colorado. While the predominant powers are celebrating the continuous flow of new talent, they are left celebrating the signing of College Football’s Jose Mesa.

Now while it is plainly evident that there is a gap between the USC’s Miami’s and Texas’ and the Fresno State’s, UTEP’s, and TCU’s special seasons by smaller schools need to be recognized in a playoff system so we can find out just how good these teams are. A simple statute that no undefeated team could be left out of the National Championship playoff would serve the best of these schools without diminishing the team pool.