No BCS at the Outback Bowl
(January 5, 2004)

The Outback Bowl organizers can be proud of another successful effort. For University of Florida fans, the outcome of the game could have been better, but the Tampa bowl game exemplifies the college bowl experience. With all the criticism of the flawed Bowl Championship Series, which failed to produce a clear number one team, the media fails to talk about what is right about the bowl system.

This year's Outback Bowl is what college football is all about. Two deserving programs are rewarded for the season's effort. Players and fans get to frolic on the beach and party in Ybor City. There is a football game too, Iowa dominated this year's Outback, but that is only part of the experience.

Some cry out for a Division I-A playoff system to determine a true national champion. That will never happen. Forget about it. While everyone knows the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a flawed system, we're stuck with it. If there was not this media obsession with having a national champion, we could do away with the BCS and go back to the traditional bowl alignments. The Rose Bowl should always be Big Ten versus Pac-Ten. The Orange Bowl should have the Big XII champ, the Sugar Bowl the SEC winner and so on.

Due to the all the bad press, the BCS will be tweaked. And since we're probably stuck with it, that is a good thing. One requirement to appear in its championship game should be that a team at least win its conference title. If that was the rule this year, and a similar thing happened a couple of years ago with Nebraska, then the BCS would not be taking the heat it is now. Another change will most likely be the inclusion of more conferences into the BCS mix. It is not fair for the Mountain West Conference, Conference USA and others not to share the BCS pot. Actually, litigation may be the driving force on that issue.

Other changes are extremely unlikely. There is talk of a game after the bowls between the top two teams. The fact is that anything that might diminish the bowl games will not happen. The bowl system has been very profitable for college football and the schools will not do anything to change that. As a matter of fact, just having one bowl being billed as a "Championship game" and messing with traditional bowl affiliations, could potentially do some harm.

There were twenty-eight bowl games this year, which means nearly half of the Division I-A teams went bowling. Are there too many bowl games? Ask those schools who had the opportunity, just like Florida and Iowa, to enjoy a football theme vacation around the holidays.

The BCS will see some minor changes, but there will not be anything major done to the current system. Playoff, definitely not. Extra game, probably not. The colleges take an if it's not broke, don't fix it position. They may be right.