In response to Lee, I don’t know many — outside of a few contrarians and people at ABC Sports — who actually like the BCS. The new formula is amusing and more than a little ironic in that the whole point was to add to the accuracy and pull out some of the human element that helped screw up the national championship before hand. Unlike Lee, I think the problem isn’t so much with the AP Writers Poll as it is with the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. Stewart Mandel of SI.com (admittedly a sports writer, but not an AP Voter) addressed it in his mailbag.

The new BCS formula gives added weight to the AP poll. Does this mean some stricter voting guidelines could come out for the writers? Just seems that writers with an agenda could affect the outcome of who should be on the field rather then the players.

I don’t think you have to worry about that nearly as much as you do with the coaches, who have an actual vested interest. Believe me, 95 percent of writers are more interested in finishing their story before the bars close or counting their Marriott points than whether a certain team is ranked second or third.

That is where I’m concerned. Well, concerned is probably the wrong word.

With the Writer’s poll, there is some transparency. You can find out how the writer voted (some will even post their voting order online after the poll comes out). The Coaches’ Poll has no transparency. And you don’t think there is bias in trying to pump up your conference and teams? Then there is the issue of whether it is actually the coach who is voting and evaluating. Wasn’t it some coach in Central PA who had someone else in the athletic department fill it out for him? Plus, how much time does anyone believe a Div. 1 Head Coach is going to have to evaluate his picks? Please.

We’re stuck with a screwed up system until the college presidents help end the hypocrisy. Really, they are the ones who I blame. From PSB fave, Matt Hayes from a month or two ago:

We begin with a story of college baseball — the ping of aluminum, the double-digit innings, the 5-hour games … I’m already bored. We’re talking baseball because without it, we can’t see the BCS for what it really is: an exclusive, hypocritical, members-only club.
…
The Big Ten Conference is upset about (I swear I’m not making this up) competitive inequity in college baseball. The league that, along with the Pac-10, is holding the BCS hostage while dangling the lucrative Rose Bowl is upset because The Man is keeping them down. Yep, they say, forcing Big Ten teams to play baseball on the road in February and March because their fields are snowed under creates a competitive disadvantage for the league when it comes to qualifying for the NCAA Tournament and the College World Series.

So the Big Ten wants the baseball season moved back, beginning at least a month later (early March) and ending well into July. And it’s probably going to happen.

“I don’t see how it couldn’t,” says a member of the NCAA baseball committee.

The reason, of course, is money. When there is money to be made — college baseball is a clay-covered Cullinen diamond waiting to be spit-polished — everyone has his hand out.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we give you the connection to college football: By moving the baseball season back, the presidents of these prestigious universities are allowing an NCAA sport to be played not only beyond its proposed semester but beyond the school year. Meanwhile, the steadfast argument against a national football playoff has been that it would extend the season into the second semester. When the fifth BCS game was announced last month, it was revealed that the championship game would be played a week after the other four BCS games — or one week into the second semester.

Read the rest and laugh.

Although I try to follow all Pitt sports, I am — like most Pennsylvanians — primarily a football fan. Thus, once the season is done and all the recruiting gets wrapped up, I tend not to post all that often… unless some Nittany Lions get stupid or something like that. And since (1) there were (unfortunately) no large-scale riots at this year’s Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and (2) I don’t know enough about basketball to say anything worth reading, I’ve been quiet for awhile. I sincerely doubt that anyone missed me, since I sincerely doubt that anybody other than the authors reads this site.
 
But I thought that I’d better get my two cents in on college football’s new and improved BCS formula. The Associated Press summarizes the changes as follows.
 

“There will be fewer numbers to crunch in the revamped version of the Bowl Championship Series formula… Under the new formula, which goes into effect this season, the coaches’ poll, the AP writers’ poll and a combination of computer rankings will each count for one-third of a team’s overall BCS ranking. Strength of schedule, team record and quality wins, three components used under the old system, have all been eliminated.”

 
I think that most of us can agree that any system of determining a national champion without a tournament is inherently flawed. That being said, university presidents are obviously going to continue stubbornly refusing to give the vast majority of college football fans, players, and coaches what they really want. And since us fans are too disorganized to ever put together a boycott or something like that, we’re stuck with whatever scraps the university presidents let fall from their table.
 
So what can we say about our new BCS formula? Well, it’s certainly simpler, and that’s a good thing. However, it also gives the media much more power. And I’m honestly not sure how good of a thing that is. Assuming that all regional biases will continue to cancel each other out, I have a hard time believing that a cinderella — like last season’s TCU, Northern Illinois, or Miami of Ohio — would ever be taken as seriously by a media poll as it would by a computer poll. Ever notice how much higher TCU was ranked in the BCS than it ever was in either the AP or the ESPN/USA Today polls?
 
I’m not media-bashing (although it is funny to see the media falling over each other to congratulate the university presidents for their new media friendly formula). I’m just saying that it’s human nature to take a long-standing power like Ohio State, Michigan, or Miami more seriously than a TCU. Or (face it) a Big East team. And that isn’t entirely fair.
 
Yeah, I know. What’s being fair have to do with college football? And since when is it blogworthy to note college football doing something that solidifies the current hierarchy of football schools?
 
Incidentally, for those of us who live some distance from Oakland and get a little homesick sometimes, how cool is the new webcam on top of the Cathedral of Learning? You can actually wait in a queue to control where the thing points and the zoom and so on. And the wait is never very long. Try pointing it down Forbes Avenue on a sunny afternoon. You can almost smell the “O” grease and filth. Wonderful.
 
Finally, hail to the 4D’s Lounge — a large restaurant/bar located right beside the 17th Street Expressway, which is the major entrance to downtown Altoona. The 4D’s is building a big new outdoor patio facing 17th Street, which has been named (and prominently signed as) “The Pitt.” The DiVentura family, the good people who own the 4D’s, are Panther fans. Personally, I just love seeing that sign over the entrance to one of the most Penn State-friendly cities in the Commonwealth.
 
And I highly recommend the Friday night fish fry.