ARTICLE OF THE DAY

BCS Take Note
by Josh Spence
4/7/05

For the first time in about 30 years, the teams seeded number one and two competed for the national championship in college basketball.  However, in college football it is not a tournament format that allows the number one and two seed teams to meet for a championship game because college football uses a skewed BCS system that leaves many teams, coaches and fans angry and on the outside looking in each year.

Many call the NCAA tournament the greatest sporting event of all, 65 teams with a shot at being number one.  The funny thing is, most people I know prefer college football to basketball.  But who prefers the BCS system to the NCAA tournament?  So why can't college football have a similar style tournament?  I realize that it would be next to impossible to have 65 teams enter a single elimination tournament in football.  But the current system is a joke compared to March Madness.  Only the top teams in a handful of conferences get a chance to play in the few bowls that mean anything.  This past year was a perfect example: Three of the "top teams" go undefeated and are ranked 1,2,3 in the BCS.  USC blows Oklahoma out of the water in the national championship game and Auburn is left wandering, "What if?" 

Winning the national championship in college football is an extremely difficult task to accomplish.  To be in a position to even play for the title you almost always have to go undefeated while playing a difficult schedule.  Every year it seems that something is debated at the end of the college football season.  Some teams are complaining that the BCS didn't give them a fair shot.  Not in basketball.  If your team is good enough to win its way through the NCAA tournament, you are the undisputed champion.

Fans love the upsets and Cinderella stories. The BCS just doesn't allow for this to happen and until it does, the NCAA tournament will be considered the best way to decide a champion in collegiate athletics.