Under Further Review: Delany’s BCS proposal: An appropriate first step

After years of scrutiny, the Bowl Championship Series may finally be in the first stages of replacement. The newly proposed idea, while not a monumental step towards perfection, would still provide more merit than the BCS does now. The BCS currently selects a winner based on biased projections and polls, and any change towards a playoff would provide some solace from a broken system.

Jim Delany, the Big Ten Conference commissioner, was an avid opponent to the yearly suggestion of eliminating the Bowl Championship Series in college football. He has previously argued fervently against a playoff system. In some ways, he has become the spokesperson for the anti-BCS coalition that seems to have formed across the nation's major conferences.

This stance makes Delany's recent efforts perplexing. The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday that Delany and the Big Ten have proposed a new postseason resolution to the controversial system that has been in place since 1998. Their solution is to use the BCS computer rankings to set up a playoff system. The top four bowls (Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl) would now become the penultimate matchup for the winning teams. A win would send them into the BCS National Championship game.

Delany and the Big Ten had previously argued against a playoff system for a few reasons.  First, scheduling becomes a daunting endeavor — student-athletes are dealing with finals as well as practices in late December. By extending the postseason by even one more game, the stress on the players increases exponentially. Even adding a conference championship was a contested topic for a while in the Big Ten. Second, college football programs and conferences make absurd amounts of money. In other words, the ever-increasing number of bowl games means an equally absurd amount of money rolling in to schools nationwide.  

In this regard, the newly proposed system makes for an excellent replacement to the current contentious one. All the present bowl games would be left intact, including the BCS games. The only exception is the current BCS Championship game, which would be replaced by a play-in setup matching some mix of the top four bowls.

If this newly proposed structure is introduced, it would not be much of a shake-up. It certainly is not as effective as the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) arrangement. FCS teams do not have to rely as heavily on politics and preseason polls to impress the computer system that the BCS uses to determine rankings. Instead, they have the relatively justifiable pressures of winning their conference and earning a place in the 20-team playoff  bracket.

While programs like the University of Northern Iowa football team do not share the same opportunity for massive revenues that a bowl systems allots, they are fortunate enough to play in a relatively fair system that is not heavily dictated by media, coaching and computer rankings.  

The current proposition would be a great first movement towards a just postseason rather than a winner selected by an arbitrary point system that is as complicated as it is ludicrous.