Why March Madness and the BCS Make a Bad Comparison
by Year2 on Apr 5, 2025 4:50 PM EDT
in SEC Football
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PrintLast night's stinker of a national title game did nothing to placate those who don't like postseason tournaments. What were you expecting matching up the second place team in the Horizon League against a 9-9 Big East team?
Of course, that's a red herring. This year's BCS capper was an ugly game only an Auburn fan could love, and we've seen plenty of unwatchable blowouts since a national title game was initiated in 1992. No matter what system you use, there's never a way to guarantee that any one particular game is going to good.
That said, there is plenty of room to disagree on postseason formats. When doing so, it's important to remember that football and basketball operate off of entirely different principles.
Football goes by a principle of scarcity. It is the only sport that truly does, and it has no choice given the brutality of it. College football in particular works this way, given that it has the shortest regular season and postseason tournament of the major American sports. Yes, you read that right. College football has a tournament; it's just a two-team tournament.
College basketball works on a principle of abundance. The marginal value of any one regular season game, rivalries and the like aside, is much lower than the value of a college football regular season game. The sport makes up for that lower value in volume.
The trick is knowing whether you are operating from scarcity or abundance and playing to the strength of the format. If you're going to mix the two, you want to have abundance in the regular season and scarcity in the postseason. The last thing you want is scarcity in the regular season and abundance in the postseason tournament, because it drops the value of the regular season games considerably.
That's the main, and supremely valid, concern of those who are against expanding college football's tournament beyond two teams. Can you do it without sacrificing scarcity?
Of course you can. Opening it up to a four-team playoff does the trick, and I could be persuaded to go up to about 10 teams like with Matt Hinton's playoff plan. I would absolutely be against a 16-team monstrosity involving the champions of all 11 conferences. The trick is making sure that playoff creep doesn't happen and expand the field too far, but if you can keep a playoff at two teams indefinitely, you can keep it at whatever number you want indefinitely.
Ultimately, both college football and college basketball have the same problem: their divisions are too big. Does anyone think Arkansas and Arkansas State are on the same level in football? Does anyone think Connecticut and Central Connecticut State are on the same level in basketball? Of course not, but they're in the same NCAA division. Fix that first, and then we can squabble about the postseason.
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I don't mind
having so many teams in Division I for basketball. While obviously Central Connecticut State isn’t competing with UConn, there’s more potential to be able to compete in basketball. First off, obviously the split division I in football because it’s much more difficult to compete with the big boys in football than in basketball. Not only talent wise but financially as well. There’s just too big a gap.
It’s not inconceivable for Central Conn State to win a national title. Unlikely, absolutely, but very possible. Lets say they luck up and get a handful of underrated recruits that turn out to be good. Lets say you luck up on 1 star (all american) 1 great player (honorable mention all american) and two good players (all conference). You rip through your weak conference, and rip through your conference tourney, and get an 8 seed. Get lucky in the tournament and who knows.
If you’re Arky State, lucking up on 4 underrated players is certainly a help, but that’s 4 of 22 starters, not 5. Even if you had a playoff format that gave the sunbelt (??? too lazy to look it up) champion an auto bid, it’d still be be 10 times as difficult to win a championship in football (I’m not saying non bcs schools couldn’t win, I’m just saying there couldn’t be a dramatic 2 year nobody to champ dynamic that you could have in basketball. Boise has spent a decade working to stay consistent and TCU was always more of a bcs school that wasn’t in the bcs.)
Long story short, I like having so many schools in basketball because it presents a lot of cool matchups that are like one game rivalries. I like the fact that if you were to ask me how many schools play D1A football in VA its an easy question, but in basketball I have no idea.
And I like waffles too.
by Mark Mandingo on Apr 5, 2025 5:19 PM EDT reply actions
I get what you’re saying given Butler’s runs of the last couple of years, but CCSU isn’t going to pull that off. There’s a hierarchy among the non-BCS conferences in basketball, and the Northeast Conference is near the bottom. It’s always a one-bid league, and it always gets 15 or 16-seeds. It, the Patriot League, the SWAC, the MEAC, and the Great West aren’t just supremely unlikely to produce a national champion, they’re not likely to produce a single tournament win (not counting play-in games).
Those are the kinds of programs that need to get the boot.
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by Year2 on Apr 5, 2025 6:29 PM EDT up reply actions
Simple Solution
Revert the bowls to their traditional tie-ins (with none playing later than January 1st), run the BCS once again AFTER that and THEN match-up the top two teams left in a championship games one or two weeks later. The BCS Title Game suffers from rust and turnover due to the long layoff between the regular season and that match-up. This strengthens the bowls AND the championship game, without expanding a playoff and sacrificing the regular season.
MileHighReport.com member since 02/06/07, promoted to "Position Coach" (i.e. new staff writer) on 02/16/10!
by ejruiz on Apr 5, 2025 5:32 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Its an interesting idea
But I don’t think you could preserve the original tie ins. Say for instance Undefeated #1 NC State (totally possible!) loses to #12 Big East Champ TCU in the orange, #3 ranked 1 loss Vanderbilt wins a sloppy, tough defensive game against the big 12 runner up #5 ranked Iowa State in the sugar, and 1 loss #2 ranked Indiana beats #21 ranked Arizona State in the rose. It would be a mess sorting that out with more positioning and controversy than ever before. Some teams will be matched up with tough teams, some with not so tough teams, should the team that played the highest ranked team be given more credit for a win? Yes. But wait, its not Indiana’s fault the pac 10 sucks….etc.
It’s one thing when a school creates it’s own schedule. People can always say “they should’ve played a better non conference schedule then they wouldn’t have this problem”. It’s another thing when it’s not the school or the conference calling the scheduling shots, but the men in the funny jackets that pick the at large teams and determine the match ups that will determine who plays for it all.
by Mark Mandingo on Apr 5, 2025 6:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Wow...
Your choice of concrete examples really threw me through a loop! Seriously though, I think that the computer polls (not necessarily the rankings they use in the BCS) are quite good at solving the sort of scenario you posit. I think that devaluing the human polls would be a good starting point. Maybe make each of the human polls and each of the computer polls equal in the calculus would help.
MileHighReport.com member since 02/06/07, promoted to "Position Coach" (i.e. new staff writer) on 02/16/10!
by ejruiz on Apr 5, 2025 11:26 PM EDT up reply actions
I think you're right about the computer polls
it could be sorted out, I just thing the resulting controversies would me too much for the “sport” (i.e. university presidents, ADs, Bowl presidents) to take. In the end, I think it would give us a more muddled picture than we have now. (affiliation note: I’m pro bowl, anti playoff).
As for using computer polls more, I have no problem with that (given that its a poll whose formula I can understand and isn’t crazy like some in the formula now). The problem is that whatever poll “system” (human or computer) that has dominance in the formula is attacked no matter what. Until 2003 the computers had dominance in the bcs standings. But then a #1 ranked USC team doesn’t get into the championship game because a team that lost it’s last game got in there. Everybody pitched a fit. “How can you have a team that lost it’s last game and we humans think is the best, not in the championship game!!” The polls’ advantages suddenly became it’s liabilities in the media.
Now, people seem like their going back the other way again. “ESPN has too much power! They’re able to influence SIDs and other media by the games they show and funnel opinion to the SEC/ABC primetime teams/Charles Woodson!!! We need a more unbiased way than human opinion!!”
The sad part is, I agree with both sets of opinions. I do think ESPN intentionally or accidentally has too much influence on other media members opinions. And sometimes the computers make some stupid choices.
by Mark Mandingo on Apr 6, 2025 10:54 AM EDT up reply actions
The numbers don't really work out.
About 20% of NCAA DI basketball teams make it to the Big Dance. To have a similar percentage participate in a football tournament, ~22 teams would be required. So, even if a 10-team tournament was implemented, it wouldn’t come anywhere close to letting “cinderellas” in, unless it was at the expense of major teams who truly deserved to be there.
by dxf04 on Apr 5, 2025 6:59 PM EDT reply actions
Right
I don’t want Cinderellas in the football tournament.
Going the abundance route in a football playoff would be stupid because the regular season is on the scarcity model. Bids in the football tournament need to remain scarce, even if two is not enough.
With a small number of bids (i.e. a smaller percentage than most if not all other sports), you don’t want Cinderellas. A 12-0 non-AQ team is probably fine (depending on the schedule) because it’s 12-0. An 8-4 UConn team or a 10-2 MAC team would not be.
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If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
by Year2 on Apr 5, 2025 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions
If you’re going to mix the two, you want to have abundance in the regular season and scarcity in the postseason.
BUD SELIG, ARE YOU LISTENING?!? Of course not. That would require you to care about what the fans think, and we all know the score on that one.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Apr 5, 2025 11:27 PM EDT reply actions
The great thing about March Madness is that anyone can win it!
For instance, the last five champs are plucky, little known programs Florida, Kansas, UNC, Duke, and UConn!
Don't Panic.
by 4.0 Point Stance on Apr 6, 2025 11:18 AM EDT reply actions
But you see, we should feel better about the fact that Butler had the opportunity to lose to UConn, and they should be grateful for that opportunity to lose.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Apr 6, 2025 2:22 PM EDT up reply actions
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