An appropriate interpretive visual

News reports are proliferating that Nebraska will join the Big10 Friday, meaning the Big12 is on ice. For that matter, so is the rest of college football as we know it. Here's ESPN, Chicago WGN/Tribune, Omaha World-Herald. The next big pieces of realignment are outlined here (nothing new, just that it's going to happen) LATimes (saith the Times's source: it's "locked and loaded"). Colorado apparently has already been invited, and has accepted. Here's the Pac10's press release saying as much.


What remains to be seen is how the pieces will fit together once reassembled. One thing's for sure: Baylor is being left out in the cold. Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech are pledging solidarity among themselves as a trio, but not as a Bears-included quartet.

The MWC, from the outside looking in:

Few glimpses into the psyche of the cartel could have been more revealing than the ESPN news story posted today on the (self-proclaimed) World Leader’s website. The story examined Kansas’s predicament, facing all of the expansion talk as a spectator, with the possible outcome being a retreat to the Mountain West. (The story didn’t name that conference specifically as a destination, but it made clear that this was the species of hell that the school was contemplating, with increasing sweat and seriousness.) “Kansas' status as a major player in college athletics has been placed in [jeopardy]. … strip Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State of the safety and privileges of membership in a Bowl Championship Series conference.” You know: one of those outsider conferences.

What would joining the Mountain West be like?

The pertinent expansion question in three words: double BCS autobid?

Amid the rumors that suddenly jumped to fever pitch Thursday lurks an issue that is yet fully aired: under which circumstances will a super-conference be given two autobids to the BCS? Will a 14-team conference with two divisions get them? Or will only the truly mammoth sixteen-team conference get them?

The Wimple believes this has become the critical issue driving expansion, now that it is settled that humongous TV contracts will follow BCS conferences that are at least 12 teams large. For example, there is no way Texas and OU will join USC in a conference that gets only one measley autobid to the big January bowls. That's just too many big fish in the pond-- who cares how big the pond.

More seats at the polls in 2009

In the run-up to this season, the Wimple noted that the non-cartel teams were, on average, appearing in the polls more often than they had in the past. That trend continued in 2009. Using only the AP poll for the data set, an average week of the 2009 season had 20.5 ranked cartel teams, and 4.5 ranked non-cartel teams- a slight increase over the then-record breaking '08 season.

2009-- 72, 4.500
2008-- 73, 4.294
2007-- 30, 1.875
2006-- 28, 1.750
2005-- 37 (23 without Louisville, a tweeny in '05), 2.313 (1.438)
2004-- 57, 3.563
2003-- 48, 2.824
2002-- 33, 1.833
2001-- 44, 2.588
2000-- 37, 2.176
1999-- 47, 2.765
1998-- 22, 1.375
1997-- 29, 1.611
1996-- 41, 2.278
1995-- 5, 0.294
1994-- 33, 1.941
1993-- 21, 1.235
1992-- 10, 0.588

Why an 8-team playoff is the best kind

Almost a year ago, the Wimple endorsed an eight-team playoff for the top eight ranked conference champions in D-1A, instead of a plus-one or 12- or 16-team playoff. The reasoning for preferring this system over any others remains as prescient today as it was when Kansas and Missouri were hot topics:

Even though Kansas and Missouri wouldn't have made it into this proposed playoff, the argument against their inclusion is strong: they didn't win their conference! West Virginia would have made the cut.

In a world with this kind of playoff (which is, admittedly, a fantasy of the highest order) the BCS/non-BCS distinction would lose most of its meaning, because in most years two of the five non-BCS conferences would suddenly have a guaranteed place at the table. This would re-incentivise geographically-defined conferences, because all conferences would be created (nearly) equal in the post-season.

On-the-field performance is the only real metric we have for to measure sports teams. Allowing only conference champions to participate in a playoff would enthrone on-the-field performance as the ultimate arbiter between post-season haves and have-nots. Do you want a berth in CFB's playoff? Win your conference.

Is your conference too hard? I think of Texas Tech, Connecticut, Oregon State, Missouri, Ole Miss, Georgia, Clemson... These are just some of many teams from privileged conferences that sniff occasionally at a title crown, but never seem to get themselves together enough to snatch it away from the entrenched elites in their respective conferences. What hope for them in a champions-only playoff?

There's an easy answer; so easy it's reducible to one word. Move.

The SunBelt would faint with joy to include Mississippi State and Clemson; Oregon State to the WAC? Texas Tech to the Mountain West (not necessarily a downward move for the Red Raiders...)? Why not? An evening-out of the D-1A conferences would be the best thing that could possibly happen to college football, and allowing only conference champions into an eight-team playoff would be the best way to prompt that change.

Besides: if winning the conference is the ticket to the playoff, there's no devaulation of the regular season to worry about. Conference championship games would be even more important, and best of all, the BCS crystal trophy would actually mean that awful line that's said about it when given: from the eleven BCS conferences...

r-e-s-p-e-c-t look like this:

An article from ESPN's Brad Edwards gives some specifics:
"With its highest-ranked team being fourth this season (TCU) and sixth last season (Utah), the league has performed better in this area than every other conference but the SEC and Big 12. And with three teams being ranked in the final Top 25 each of the two seasons, the Mountain West is as good as the ACC and better than the Big East"

Numbers: BCS payouts to non-cartel conferences

In their revolting glory, here are the revenue rules for the cartel (from page 13 of the BCS Media Guide, emphases added):

A total of approximately $1.8 million will be paid to ... Division I-AA... Also, independent institutions Army and Navy each will receive $100,000 for making their teams available to play in BCS games if selected.

Nine percent of the net revenues from the arrangement, which was approximately $9.6 million in 2008-09, is guaranteed in aggregate to Conference USA, the Mid- American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and Western Athletic Conferences for their participation in the arrangement. When a team from one of those five conferences plays in a BCS bowl game, the conferences will receive an additional nine percent of net revenues. When more than one team from those conferences play in the BCS bowl games, those conferences will receive an additional $4.5 million for each additional team.

Notre Dame is guaranteed 1/66th of the net revenues after expenses, or approximately $1.3 million. ... The share to each conference with an annual automatic berth in the BCS ... is approximately $18.3 million. When a second team from one of those conferences qualifies to play in one of the games, that conference will receive an additional $4.5 million.

In a nutshell, that says the five cartel-outsider conference are treated as one conference, and in years without a BCS buster, they together share about half of what a single cartel conference gets. In one-buster years, they share about two thirds of a single cartel conference's share.

The wrinkle in this year's BCS money drama is Boise State, which is the second non-cartel team to win a BCS berth-- a new thing under the (Glendale) sun. Using last season's revenue numbers, that translates into 18% + $4.5 million to be split among the five non-cartel conferences, or 21.03% of the net cartel revenue, or $31.169 million. That's about one and one-sixth of a single BCS conference's share of the pile.

The Wimple does not know how the five non-cartel conferences share that dough.

Poinsettia II (a.k.a. '10 Fiesta)

Lately the Wimple has eschewed link lists, but conveying the consensus is important now.
Here's SI's Cory McCartney, ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski, Yahoo's Matt Hinton and Holly Anderson (who quotes others), BCSGuru's guru, CFN's Fiutak & Cirminiello, CBS's Dennis Dodd, the Washington Post's John Feinstein, the Trentonian's Matthew Osborne, RealClearSports's Matthew Sanderson, all saying TCU-Boise is a slap in their respective faces. Thank you very much, BCS. You've managed to relegate the outsiders to the outside, even when they pluck off two berths in your playpen. And now you'll pay them both half the announced payout, and send them home without giving either one of them a chance to prove itself on your grand stage.

Shame on you. Really.

With contrary sentiments, here's SI's Stewart Mandel; and, um... anybody else? A Phoenix newspaper likes the matchup-- especially after Iowa fans (suckers!) sold out the bowl prior to selection Sunday. SI's Andy Staples has moved from calling it the "Separate But Equal Bowl" to a great game that should be the national semifinal. The Wimple heartily agrees.

Oh well. Here's Mark May and Lou "Thkippy" Holtz on the matchup:


...and here're Ivan Maisel and Pat Forde, both of whom go on record preferring TCU over Texas for the title game berth:

An open letter to non-cartel coach voters: put TCU #1

Dear non-BCS coach-voters in the USAToday Coaches' Poll:

Few observers in the sport see more clearly than you do how the BCS cartel handicaps your teams, and all of the D-1A non-cartel teams (the so-called "non-AQ" teams). But more than seeing the damage, you all have a unique opportunity to weaken the damaging divide between the BCS cartel's haves and have-nots. You have a vote in the polls-- a say in how college football's best pie gets divided among its teams and conferences.

Why cast your first place vote this week for a member of the cartel that plays a weaker schedule than TCU? Why cast your first place vote this week for a team less balanced than TCU, which is the only team in the NCAA featuring a top-5 offense and defense? (Florida comes closest next: it has a top-5 defense, but its offense is only 15th nationally!) Why cast your first place vote for a team that cries to momma about how unfair it is to be scrutinized by the press and other coaches, while TCU puts up, shuts up, and kicks butt week in and week out?

Your first place vote for TCU would not be an indefensible protest; some of the most prescient commentators on the sport have made powerful cases for TCU already. Here're Matt Hinton's and BCSGuru's, for example. Wyoming's players-- the only athletes in D-1A who've played both TCU and Texas-- say TCU is the better team. Utah's coach called this year's TCU team the best he's ever seen-- and he's seen some great ones.

In short, isn't it time to put the burden of proof on the cartel members for once? Why not cast your first place vote for TCU, and demand the BCS cartel show why an all-time great non-cartel team doesn't deserve to outrank opponents from within the cartel that are less balanced, play weaker schedules, and whine about it?

--Purple Wimple

November 25, 2009

Hug your loved ones, the world's coming to a close.

Word has filtered out that ESPN Gameday is going to the TCU-BYU game in a week.

And that world hunger has been solved.

watch this movie

It's a documentary about Boise State's dream season (2006), with a heavy and proper focus on the Bronco's Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma. Link is in the title of this post.

The epitaph for the BCS will begin, "When BSU beat OU in the '07 Fiesta Bowl..."

Seats at the polls

Last season, the Wimple was curious to see the press take interest in the relatively large number of cartel-outsider teams in the polls: as many as six non-cartel teams were ranked at a time in 2008. Being ranked is one of college football's most overlooked Big Deals. Ranked teams get press coverage merely because they're ranked; they get little blurbs on ESPN, in the newspapers, in score rundowns at halftime, etc. Ranked teams are familiar teams, by sheer volume of mentions, if nothing else.

It follows, then, that any non-cartel team on the polls is taking away a certain amount of press coverage from a cartel team: and the Wimple applauds.

So just how unusual was last season's splurge in ranked non-cartel teams? Here follows a survey of non-cartel teams' appearances in the last 17 college football seasons' AP polls, with each season's per-week average. (that's key, because the number of weeks-- and polls-- in the season varies.)

2008-- 73, 4.294
2007-- 30, 1.875
2006-- 28, 1.750
2005-- 37 (23 without Louisville, a tweeny in '05), 2.313 (1.438)
2004-- 57, 3.563
2003-- 48, 2.824
2002-- 33, 1.833
2001-- 44, 2.588
2000-- 37, 2.176
1999-- 47, 2.765
1998-- 22, 1.375
1997-- 29, 1.611
1996-- 41, 2.278
1995-- 5, 0.294
1994-- 33, 1.941
1993-- 21, 1.235
1992-- 10, 0.588

source: AP Poll archive

Clearly the broad trajectory for the outsiders is up; and just as clearly, 2008 was a banner year for press attention to cartel-outsiders. 2009 may exceed it: look for TCU, Boise State, Nevada, BYU, East Carolina, Southern Miss, and perhaps Utah, Air Force, Houston, UTEP, and Central Michigan to spend multiple weeks in the polls.

Hating the BCS, round 109

Lest a day go by without a thought about how despicable the BCS thieves are, here's a visual reminder.

Que puking sounds, and fresh awe of teams like Boise State and Utah who crashed the cartel's party, and won the hottest girls' hearts therein.

And while you're at it, cue fresh jeers for teams like Baylor, Mississippi State, Syracuse, Washington, who cannot convert every possible monetary advantage into a bowl berth or final ranking.

The title of this post links to the whole article.

BCS, shmee-C-S...

The BCS is a mess. Kansas beat Virginia Tech in lastnight's Orange Bowl; West Virginia upset Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl the day before. Neither is eligible for the national title, even though both title-game participants lost to lower-ranked teams in the regular season.

To alleviate these (and other) difficulties, the Wimple hereby endorses a modest playoff. A 16-team marathon isn't necessary; a field of eight will do. Conference champions only, please-- Notre Dame can play if it has one or no losses, and is ranked higher than four other conferences' champions (which is a silly stipulation, considering how adoringly the press slobbers whenever the Domers are over .500). One more tweak-- keep the BCS rankings, but return strength-of-schedule to them. This would remove the incentive to go Buckeye, and schedule a bevy of 2-A teams before hitting one's conference schedule. An increase in LSU-Virginia Tech style matchups in September would be awesome.

Even though Kansas and Missouri wouldn't have made it into this proposed playoff, the argument against their inclusion is strong: they didn't win their conference! West Virginia would have made the cut.

In a world with this kind of playoff (which is, admittedly, a fantasy of the highest order) the BCS/non-BCS distinction would lose most of its meaning, because in most years two of the five non-BCS conferences would suddenly have a guaranteed place at the table. This would re-incentivise geographically-defined conferences, because all conferences would be created (nearly) equal in the post-season. Thus the entrance fee for top-tier post-season bowls would be a tough schedule and a conference championship.

And in a year like this one, where upsets never end, we would have at least a rational basis on which to proclaim one national champion: head-to-head results.