Utah & the BCS...Its a sham/shame.

[79 Bull]

Gary, good points, but 2 issues.

1.  Wouldn't we have seen the tinkering already by the coaches looking ahead?  They have placed Utah 1 slot behind the AP poll since the BCS has come out.  I think we would already see a wider discrepancy.

2.  I imagine you would have the oppositte effect and it would be a wash.  The non-BCS (or MWC) coaches would vote Utah higher (like #1) to assure they get into the top 6 and get their share of the money.

[WoolyBully]

Which again underscores the need for a paper trail when it comes to these voting ballots....

[The_Reaper]

I love it. It just goes to show ya that this is purely a money battle, not a sport battle! Big business is being exposed and they are scrambling like rats to find dry ground. You just watch. Their partners in crime, the NCAA thugs will interject and throw a "new rule" in to save their collective asses at the last moment. Just like they did to us on our first bowl attempt when we were an indie!  >

[goodknightfl]

Utah definately needs help.... aub beating ga would be the start of that..

[jfcohio]

Utah needs to win out. The last few years there has been this type of scenario, and they teams that felt they were getting scammed lost - thus, the complaining stopped immediately.

They may need some help along the way, but it's weird how things seem to work out if you just keep winning.

There is still enough football to be played where there will be upsets, and changes in the top 10.

[dabull80]

You guys are way off.  The BCS is working perfectly.  The whole purpose of the BCS was to give us a championship game and draw alot of attention to it.  Bowl games have been there to reward players,coaches,alumni and fans with a week of vacation and partying.  The demand for a non-mythical national champion became so strong that the BCS was born to give us that game.  But can you ever really be sure the best two teams will play each other ? IMPOSSIBLE- Auburn might be able to match up with USC and be able to beat them 3 outa 4 but couldn't beat OK or Wisconsin or any of many different scenarios.  Now when it comes to the rest of the BCS bowl games lets not forget whose bowl games these where to begin with.  All of the BCS bowl games where from major conference match ups with the Rose Bowl being the most historic.  Of course they don't want some non BCS conference team in their bowl game.  Would you ? So they threw a bone out there and it had a string attached to it.(Kinda like the cart being pulled by the donkey with a carrot attached to a pole hanging in front of the donkey).  Its there but you really don't have many carrots so you don't give it to the donkey.  Maybe someday that rare occurance happens when the donkey gets the carrot but it will be rare,as it should be.  I think had UL beat Miami this year and finished undefeated they would have gotten the carrot but Utah, no way.  As a bowl organizer you could handle UL because  they are known on a national level(of course from BB) but they have name recognition but it would be a hard pill to swallow if you had to take Utah.  So lets start acting like the BCS team we are and forget these lower level conferences wanna bees.  Just imagine how you would feel five years from now after wining the BE to be told sorry you are not going to a BCS bowl because Utah is taking your place.

[Jim Johnson]

Here's another huge problem with the BCS, which by the way I've not heard anyone mention yet...

Let's say it's the last poll of the season. And you're the head coach of a 10-2 major-conference runnerup that's #8 in the polls. Your vote in the Coaches Poll helps determine whether or not Utah gets its automatic BCS invite... which incidentally would cost your team a major bowl game and probably $5 million in revenue.

Wouldn't you be tempted to stick Utah at, say, #12 in an attempt to weaken their overall BCS position?

And wouldn't all coaches in your conference, who stand to lose a healthy chunk of shared-conference revenue, be motivated to do the same?

The idea of a coaches' poll determining post-season bids is a MASSIVE conflict of interest. And there is no rule in the BCS that would account for it. There's nothing in the rules to prevent someone from voting Utah out of the Top 25 altogether. For that matter, there is nothing to prevent the coach of an unbeaten non-BCS team from voting his team #1 in an attempt to win his team the automatic invite.

This has been topic #3,746 in a series of 10,000 entitled "Why The BCS Sucks."

First, I would prefer a playoff.  However, short of that, I think the current BCS system (the third iteration) is good -- but they should use more computer rankings...

Okay, now to respond to the conspiracy theory above...

Let's look at the breakdown of the 61 coaches.

BCS: 34 votes (out of 64 schools - 53.125% of the coaches)

ACC - 6 of 11, Big East - 3 of 7, Big 10 - 6 of 11, Big 12 - 7 of 12, Pac 10 - 5 of 10, SEC - 6 of 12, Ind - 1 of 1 (ND)

Non-BCS: 28 votes (out of 53 schools - 52.830% of the coaches)

C-USA - 5 of 11, MAC - 7 of 14, MWC - 5 of 8, Sun Belt - 4 of 9, WAC - 4 of 10, Ind - 0 of 1 (Navy)

BCS schools represent 54.7% of Division I-A schools and 55.7% of the coaches voting.  Non-BCS schools represent 45.3% of the Division I-A schools and 44.3% of the coaches.  (45% of 61 is 27.6 - so 28 Non-BCS coaches is the appropriate ratio).

Let's assume that the coaches (who only see the scores since they usually rely on their SID's to help with the rankings) will act in their own self interest.  First, we all know that there are not 61 schools who receive votes - so some of the coaches do not put their teams on their top 25s.  If all coaches acted in their own self interest, there would be 61 teams getting votes...

Second, recognize that only 3 teams receive first place votes (USC - 50, OK - 10, Auburn - 1).  Which means that those coaches who do have a good team (Wisconsin, Texas, Georgia, etc) and have a vote don't vote themselves number 1.

Third, the difference in the polls between each position in the coaches poll is more than 25 points -- which means that if the 10-2 runner up left Utah off their ballot completely, it would not matter.  Now, if all coaches in one conference left Utah off, it would have an effect.

Finally, while I would agree that it may be possible for one coach to act in an unethical manner, I can't see a broader conspiracy.  Especially because coaches have to put their names on their ballots.  Moreover, I am sure the American Football Coaches Association Code of Ethics might even speak to those voting in the poll.

Just my two cents on this.

[Bullpride08]

At the conclusion of the season.  If Utah wins out and everything plays itself out.  All the BCS schools will have beaten at least one top 10 team, and one top 25 team.

Utah will not have beaten a top 25 team, and over half their schedule was against opponents with losing records.

It's tough to look Wisconsin in the eye, or Texas and tell them Utah is better because they went undefeated against an inferior schedule.  I can understand two loss teams, or teams that don't have top 25 victories, but Utah would go 8-3 at best with Auburn, USC, and Oklahoma's schedules.

[GarySJ]

In response to JimSig and 79Bull...

There wouldn't need to be a massive conspiracy or OVERT attempts to sink Utah's auto-bid. If everybody just moved them down a couple spots in the coaches poll, it would cost them couple points in the BCS poll, which could make the difference in auto-qualifying or not. You could hurt their bowl bid and stay well within the realm of plausibility.

I don't really expect anyone to really vote Utah #1 or #30 out of blatant self-interest. I'm only pointing out that it can happen, and if so there's not a **** thing anyone can do about it.

In other college sports, where an NCAA selection committee choose the post season participants, there are mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest. In football, they don't, and it's going to be a problem someday.

[bulls96go]

i am still very suprised that utah is ranked top 10 esp by the coaches

fully expected to see the non-bcs bias. most may expect them to lose a game and solve the auto bid problem