Why ESPN hates the BCS

By David Martin Sports Central Columnist

I have two problems with the way college football is covered by national media types. First of all, most of them, e.g., ESPN, have a pro-playoff agenda. The second problem is that once they see a team they love, like the above-mentioned Oklahoma Sooners, they declare the de facto title crown winner.

Oklahoma hasn't played a team with a running game. They haven't played a team that plays hard defense. In my mind, the Sooners still have something to prove. The national media types will tell us OU are akin to college football gods.

ESPN and others bash the BCS system for making no sense, for being too prone to computer aberrations, for not paying attention to this when they should pay attention to that. Two years ago, ESPN and columnists throughout the nation barraged the BCS and NCAA to get rid of the margin of victory component.

The BCS obliged, convinced its computers to drop margin of victory from their formulas, and now... ESPN and columnists around the nation are wailing to have margin of victory re-installed. They act as if they never begged for it. They want it reinstated despite the fact that anecdotal evidence suggests that 77-0 scores are much less prevalent than they were even two years ago.

One might suggest that the retirement of Tom Osbourne from Nebraska, Steve Spurrier from Florida, and the precipitous fall-off of performance by the Florida State Seminoles account for most of elimination of such lopsided scores. Still, after the supposed slight suffered by Southern Cal in last week's BCS rankings (when they were leapfrogged by Ohio State after OSU survived an overtime home win, while USC routed a pathetic team on the road), the sports pages were a-pumpin' for plumped up scores.

Whatever.

What ESPN wants, of course, is broadcast rights to a college football playoff. No matter how successful the BCS became over time, ESPN would bang the drum of its failures. They would say the 2002 Fiesta Bowl, in which the nation's only undefeateds played one of college football's greatest ever games, was a lucky fluke. Meanwhile, they'll ignore that not a single talking head among them believed for a second that the 2002 season would either end the way it did, nor will they tell you that had they chosen the matchup, as they might have preferred, Ohio State would have been left at the alter, even undefeated.

Whatever.

As far as college football playoff ideas go, the Worldwide Leader has left its collective mouth reasonably shut this season as to what one should look like. Realistically, nothing will happen for the four-letter network on this matter for some time. The BCS committee continues to meet regularly to decide what should come next, and the NCAA Division 1-A college presidents remain in stern opposition to a playoff.

What seems likely at this juncture, from leaks from BCS committee meetings, is that there may be a play-in game for some of the non-BCS conferences that will get them into a fifth high-payoff bowl game, added to the current four BCS bowls. And while it's not as probable, the possibility does exist for a matchup to take place after the bowls between ... well, that hasn't been worked out. Perhaps the BCS No. 3 if they win their bowl game, perhaps two bowls will pit BCS No. 1 vs. BCS No. 4 and BCS No. 2 vs. BCS No. 3, and the winners of those two bowls play in an "official" (that is, ESPN-sponsored, but ABC-broadcast) national championship game.

Whatever.

Still, would the Sooners withstand the Trojans of Southern Cal? Maybe, just maybe, the BCS will let us find out. Would the Buckeyes have been able to control the passing game the Sooners dominate the college football landscape with? After OSU's performance against Michigan this past Saturday, that seems pretty unlikely. LSU has a dominant defense among the best in the nation, yet, they're on the outside of those looking to take on the Sooners.

The point is this: there isn't just one other team in the land that may or may not provide that challenge that football fans and television networks want. ESPN and others will continue to bang the USC drum, and with good reason. But, how much of that drum-banging is because the Trojans look good, and how much is because the Trojans play in a lucrative TV market?

Would LSU garner more consideration from the TV folks if they played in a top-10 TV market? Probably so. Call me cynical. But ESPN would be happy if the national title game always involved Notre Dame, with their TV ratings being very high when the team's playing well.

Whatever.

For my part, I stopped caring exactly who won the national championship trophy at about the same time Sears became its sponsor and the Rose Bowl no longer hosted the Big 10 vs Pac-10 champions on an annual basis. I thought the discussion after the season was much more enjoyable after a split in the coaches' and writers' polls than all the ranting and raving that goes on about how awful the BCS is for college football.

If it were all that bad for the sport, don't you believe, ESPN, that it would have been eliminated by now? Instead, the margin of victory component will return to the network's boos and hisses next November, the gutted Big East will send a team to the BCS that it's never sent before (barring Pitt's attendance this year), and mighty Boise State will run off another no- or one-loss season to almost zero fanfare, and Florida State will somehow survive Miami's entrance into the ACC. And ESPN will complain.

Whatever.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.

By - Sports Central