Even Oklahoma basketball better than BCS snoozer
I didn't watch one second of one defensive stop. Went for a run. Placed softballs on a tee for my daughter. Read from my Kindle, which I love the convenience of but still feel a twinge of guilt over all those bookstores swept away and buried in our merciless world of technological gadgets. Watched the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State basketball game and wondered how much of his massive salary Lon Kruger spends on late-night vanilla ice cream to drown his sorrows.
Alabama won college football's national championship as set forth by the fraudulent Bowl Championship Series, beating Louisiana State 21-0 on Monday evening in a game that, by all accounts of Twitter and newspaper reports, nearly put the nation to sleep for much of the 60 minutes of (non) action.
I had planned the personal boycott for some time. Thirteen years of watching the same sham is long enough.
Which brings us to possible change on the horizon of endless controversy.
Eleven conference commissioners and the athletic director from Notre Dame met Tuesday to exchange ideas on how better to improve the cartel and, for those wondering, there were no reports of injuries or walls crashing down from the mere presence of so many gigantic egos in one room.
No one should expect an instant overhaul. Now or perhaps ever. You have to understand those in charge of the BCS are creatures of unfair habits, and to convince enough of them that blowing up a system that has afforded their respective leagues such incredible riches and advantages within college athletics would be like expecting Peyton Manning to forfeit his $23 million salary from a season in which he didn't take a snap. Not happening.
The word out of those meetings was that while commissioners love the atmosphere of what the championship game has offered, they're receptive to changing how those who play it get there.
That while everything from keeping the cartel just as it is to forming a 16-team playoff was discussed in a session where 50 to 60 ideas were bandied about but nothing will be decided until summer.
Translation: The mounting pressure from all angles is getting to the suits, but they won't be rushed into taking action.
But TV contracts are soon to be renewed, and the current system as we loathe it will end after the 2013 season, meaning the need for the BCS to at least pretend it cares about the majority opinion is important.
And if a plus-one format is the best we can hope for once all the backroom dealing is done and the stuffy university presidents are convinced, then bring it on.
It's not the 16- or eight-team playoff so many desire. It's not the elimination of automatic bids. It's not total equality. But it draws major college football closer to a time when its champion can be more celebrated than dissected.
The plus-one format would match the No. 1 ranked team against No. 4 in one semifinal bowl game and No. 2 against No. 3 in another. The winners would play for the BCS championship.
It's not a perfect ending for countless reasons, among them the continued devaluation of lower- and middle-tiered bowls, where sponsorships and community pride and local economic impacts could be slowly and painfully destroyed as a form of playoff reaches Division I-A football.
It's also not financially sensible for the fans of the top four teams, because if you're going to spend an average of $2,500 to travel and watch a semifinal with a month's notice, how many could then afford to travel and watch a championship with a week's notice?
It won't mean No. 4 (for example, Stanford this season) will be more deserving of a title shot than No. 5 (Oregon, which beat the Cardinal 53-30) each year. It won't mean the system will lack another Boise State of 2009 or a Utah in 2008, teams that go 13-0 and are ranked sixth in the final BCS standings. It also would be better if the computers and polls that determine the BCS standings are replaced with a selection committee much like the NCAA basketball tournament uses (you know, with people who actually watch games).
Yep, a plus-one-format arrives with obvious flaws.
So many issues and yet so little realistic chance at a major overhaul. Six months from now, if the plus-one model has created enough juice to make it a viable option, bring it on.
At least that way, some will have to think twice about going for a run and watching an average Oklahoma basketball team over the BCS national championship.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.
BCS TO CONSIDER PLUS-ONE
NEW ORLEANS -- College football leaders, including Big Ten commissioner and staunch playoff opponent Jim Delany, are open to considering the idea of turning the Bowl Championship Series into a four-team playoff.
The commissioners from the 11 FBS conferences met Tuesday at a hotel in New Orleans to exchange ideas about what the system for crowning a national champion will be starting in the 2014 season. BCS executive director Bill Hancock said 50 to 60 possibilities for various changes were presented. He said the process will be deliberate, and he expects it will take five to seven meetings before July 4 to come to a decision.
"They have a lot of cans to kick down the road," Hancock said. "This will not play well on Twitter."
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said ideas were neither ranked nor ruled out.
"I think people realize there are flaws in the current system and people are ready to think creatively about ways to improve it," he said.
One of the ideas is a four-team playoff called a plus-one model that would create two national semifinals and a championship game played a week later. The idea was proposed in 2008 by Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive and supported by the Atlantic Coast Conference's John Swofford, but it was emphatically shot down by the leaders of the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big East, Big 12 and Notre Dame.
This time, there will be a serious discussion about the plus-one.
"Four years ago, five of us didn't want to have the conversation," Delany said. "Now we all want to have the conversation."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
