Bill James wants us to Boycott the BCS
Posted on | January 8, 2009 | No Comments
Boycotting the BCS. This argument starts every year around the day of, or the day after, the BCS National Championship game. President Obama, whom at least a majority of Americans believe in, even knows that this system does not work. Bill James, the top statistical geek and number cruncher in the country, claims that mathematicians who agree with the numbers here are mistaken because the system does not work. Anyway, below are a few of my biggest arguments with the system:
1. Style Points? What is a style point? It sounds like something that should be used in a beauty contest or on American Idol. From my recent past, I see “style points” as how bad you can beat a team. So Nebraska is playing Youngstown State and is winning 41-3 at half. Rather than come out and run to make the clock go, they need to try to put 70 points up so that the BCS recognizes the panache and style in which they kick Youngstown’s butt. To me this is encouraging bad sportsmanship and can set up many revenge scenarios down the road.
2. Strength of schedule. I agree with this but only to a point. Look at it like this: Utah plays pretty much the same schedule every year. If it were an unfair schedule, the Utes would never get strength of schedule points. In reality, they usually do not run the table. Is there a way to level this out? Shall we let the almighty Mark May decide which teams are the strongest each year so the schedules can be realigned and deemed fair?
3. Use of polls. If we valued the opinion of the USA Today poll, the coaches poll, or any other poll, then why did we create a BCS again? So basically, we are taking data that is no good and factoring it in with other things to spit out a positive result. I don’t buy it!
These are my opinions. At the very worst, they can have a plus one game as early as next season where a Utah plays the winner of the Oklahoma vs Florida game to determine the national champion. I would be interested to see what you think. Please leave a comment!
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