The Old Bowls Were Better

Let me preface this by saying that I'm in favor of a playoff system. All of the arguments against one are inherently flawed and put forth by stakeholders who have the most to lose from the triumph of common sense. I'm not going to demolish the logically invalid crap that the BCS Conferences and their weak-sister enablers at the NCAA put out. That isn't the point and you can get that anywhere you want. My point here is that the BCS is so fundamentally flawed that the system it replaced was actually better. Never mind our faith in progress and evolving processes, we've actually gone backwards as far as college football is concerned.

It seems heretical to argue that things were better in the old days of back room deals when you weren't guaranteed to have the top two teams meet in an annual ultimate game, but I think it's true. Some advance the theory that the unusualness of a do or die Penn State - Miami Fiesta Bowl (1987) or a Nebraska - Miami Orange Bowl (1984) made it that much more rewarding when it actually happened. That's a pretty bass-ackwards was of reasoning because what happens when you take that thread to its logical extreme is saying it's good that things suck most of the time because of the heightened contrast when things actually work out. I like to think we can hope for more.

The reason the old system was better is because some of the other bowls actually meant something when it came to determining #1. Take away the proliferation of lower tier games matching up .500 teams that finished 6th in their conference. Take away the destruction of New Year's Day as the best day of the college football season by moving name bowls as much as a week further out. Other than the BCS Championship Game and maybe the Rose Bowl or the occasional Boise State - OU tilt, none of the other games matter to the casual fan. The awful Sugar Bowl between Florida and an overmatched Cincinnati team? The unwatchable Orange Bowl pitting Iowa vs. Georgia Tech? Did anyone who didn't have a rooting interest or money on the line actually make time to watch those games?

At least back in the day, if you didn't have #1 vs. #2, you might have #1 vs. #3 and if the top team went down, #2 could win it's bowl and end up with a National Championship. If things broke right, #3 or #4 might even have a shot or #1 and #2 might tie and who knew what the voters would do. Was it unsatisfying on a variety of levels, especially when many bowl match-ups were set before the end of the season? Hell yes it was! Nobody enjoyed the 1990 Orange Bowl which was supposed to be Notre Dame vs. Colorado for all the marbles, only the Irish got beat by Miami after they accepted the bid. It wasn't just imperfect, it was an outright bad system and it should have been replaced by a playoff but we all know it never was. Yet it at least made the other bowls relevant which is something that doesn't happen now.

If the bowls end up dying out, I'm sure they will blame it on a playoff system, but the BCS will bear a large proportion of the blame.