Column: Florida, OSU matchup exposes flaws in BCS
It was announced Sunday night that the Florida Gators would meet the Ohio State Buckeyes for a shot at the national title. Huh?
The selection of Florida is yet another example of just how flawed the Bowl Championship Series system is year in and year out. This year was supposed to correct those woes by creating an outright championship game. But, as the dust settles in Glendale, controversy will continue to swirl.
The last two weeks I swore up and down that a rematch would be preposterous. Michigan had its shot. They lost. End of story.
It would make no sense to put a team in the BCS National Championship game when they played the No. 1 team just two weeks prior and lost. Not to mention that this team did not win its own conference. But, after Sunday night, I have been dancing to a little bit of a different tune.
As much as I have been anti-rematch, I almost felt let down when they announced that Florida is on its way to Glendale.
It’s not that I don’t feel Florida is a competent squad. The Gators are the Southeastern Conference champion, which is no easy task. The amount of respect they are getting for this game actually reminds me of another national championship team: the 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes.
My problem lies within the BCS ranking system. How is it right that Florida leapfrogs the incumbent Wolverines in the polls now when they haven’t all season?
The BCS rankings are made up of three different polls: The Harris Poll, which is an Internet poll made up of former players, coaches and media members; the Coaches Poll, a ranking system where votes are placed by current college coaches; and computer points, which measures strength of schedule and opponents.
The final w standings released Sunday showed that Michigan and Florida were even in computer points but differed slightly in both the Coaches Poll and the Harris Poll. This means that second place was not chosen by computer points at all. It came down to voters who were obviously anti-rematch.
If USC would not have been upset by UCLA Saturday, the anti-rematch bias might not have been as obvious.
But, then again, this is what’s so great about the BCS: It gives sports enthusiasts, such as myself, an opportunity to waste valuable column space complaining about the imperfections of it. The system will always be flawed, and I don’t know if I would ever want it another way.
Contact sports columnist Jonas Fortune at [email protected].