BCS, Take a Note
There are many things to hate about the BCS. Too many to list here really. We’ve probably gone over them before at some point or that may have been a dream. We tend to blur the lines between what we say, what we write, what he hear, what we read, what we dream, and what we hope. We may have been staunch supporters of the BCS in the past (in both 2006 and 2008 for example), but also could have wished for its downfall.
Like we said, there are many things the BCS gets wrong. One was painfully evident last night. Sundays mean the NFL. Therefore, the NFL plays its championship game – that event you watched last night referred to as the Super Bowl – on a Sunday. It’s played on a Sunday because the league’s fans are accustomed to the sport on that day of the week. It’s also played at a reasonable enough time that even those of us on the East coast saw it end just a hair after 10:00 pm. Those of us getting older by the second continue to have responsibilities that no longer allow us to throw caution to the winds of sport. It’s a sad reality, but one we begrudgingly accept. Due to that, we are thankful for sporting events that end at a reasonable hour. Until the day this becomes our “real” job, we need to get to bed people!
Like Sunday means NFL, Saturday means college football. But does the BCS schedule their National Championship game on a Saturday night? No, of course not. That would make sense and the BCS does little of that. Instead they have it on every day that isn’t Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. The last time the game was held on one of those days was following the 2003 season when LSU beat Oklahoma on Sunday, January 4, 2004. Since then, Fridays and weekends have been off limits. Last season’s game started at 8:38 pm on a Monday and wasn’t until January 10. So much for the tradition of New Year’s Day (although that isn’t something we should really be complaining about anymore since that went away years ago).
People will give you the standard arguments as to why it happens. Things like “the NFL Playoffs dominate the weekends that time of year” and “it’s the BCS, what do you expect?” None of that is good enough. It should change. Simple enough. You may enjoy playing the role of “oh well, it won’t change, what’s the point in debating it,” but that’s a boring existence and we don’t stand for it. The game starts late on a weekday because of the West coast. On a Saturday it could start at virtually anytime, although we are partial to the Super Bowl’s start time. Think viewership is good on a Tuesday? Imagine what it would be on a Saturday.
We hold no hope in it changing. Things we dislike rarely change. For instance, we are still required to wear pants to work. The BCS doesn’t change and supports itself strongly whenever it is questioned in anyway. Next year we will have another weekday game. Millions won’t make it to the second half, let alone the end. It’ll continue because it can and we will debate it because we can as well. But hear this again, Saturday means college football and we’ll continue to talk about the things that can be fixed.