Kvetch Like A Champion: Selection Sunday, GOP Primaries And BCS

Selection Sunday is that one day a year when, for a fleeting moment, the Bowl Championship Series doesn’t seem so bad. For the other 364 (365 this year) days, the BCS is recognized for the hot mess it often is. However on Selection Sunday, the nation gets a clear reminder that the flawed BCS is a more accurate indicator of the sport’s champion.

When the computer prints out its rankings the first Sunday of December, the argument for No. 1 is between the top 3-to-5. On Selection Sunday, Seth Greenberg laments his 72nd ranked team not getting a shot at becoming No. 1. Imagine the BCS selection show opening a forum for Paul Rhoads to spit fire and brimstone over Iowa State’s snub. It’s roughly equivalent.

The NCAA Tournament vs. BCS argument has been made ad infinitum and doesn’t need further compare/contrast. However, it is worth noting both systems suffer from the same intrinsic problem: because the NCAA is so vast, any comparison of teams is apples-and-oranges.

Now, any reasonable purveyor could deduce South Carolina was much better than say, UCLA despite the two playing much different schedules. Likewise, the NCAA Tournament committee won’t have to deliberate the merits of Stanford basketball opposed to Notre Dame for an at-large.

The problems don’t stem from the easily assessed comparisons. The subjective debates are what cause conflict. Should Oklahoma State be rewarded for winning more ranked opponent games, or should Alabama be given the bid for losing to a higher quality opponent? Does the regular season champion of a mid-major conference deserve a postseason berth more than the 10th placed team in the deepest power conference?

It’s all subjective because of how deep the pool goes. There exists an ilk of bellyacher that laments college football not having a system akin to the NFL, but the NFL is paring down its postseason from a field of just 32, not 123. The answer would seem to be just adjust the playoff to scale, but Selection Sunday negates that notion.

The playoff argument is choosing an at-large for the basketball tournament is less meaningful than snubbing No. 3 in the BCS. While that’s often the case, VCU was among the last, if not THE last selection of the 2011 Big Dance. VCU nearly played its way to the national championship.

Furthermore, if the at-large bids are that lacking in significance, why bother having a postseason that includes them? Seems counterproductive.

Everyone under the sun seems to have what he or she believes is the recipe for solving college football’s championship system. President Obama’s discussion of a plus-one on Bill Simmons’ ESPN.com podcast threw the discussion into the political arena. Great. To paraphrase the late Mitch Hedberg, we do not need to bring legislation into this.

The political world has its own problems with choosing No. 1. Not long ago, we had a president who didn’t receive the most votes but because of a system devised for a pre-mass communication world, earned more arbitrary points. Before kvetching too loudly about the BCS, remember that.

And what if the college football championship was determined like how the Republican party is choosing its presidential candidate. The team that represented Mitt Romney would go into the title game with a .500 record.

Rick Santorum is coming off a lot like Iowa State, whose upset of Oklahoma State served only to screw over the conference’s pay day. Meanwhile, Ron Paul is an FCS bodybag game only around for the money and national exposure.

On second thought, maybe the BCS and presidential primaries aren’t too unlike.

So our system for crowning football champions sucks. The system for basketball sucks. And the system for political leaders really sucks. Is there anything that won’t solicit widespread griping?

I’m confident about the answer.