By Leopold Geans

 

My new name for the BCS is, (drumroll please) "the amazing assumption."

Because "an amazing assumption," is what it is.

The first seven words describing the BCS are "the BCS is a five-game arrangement," which means agreement, compromise or deal then it goes on to say, "for post-season college football that is managed by the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conference and institutions. Its purpose is to match up the top two teams in a bowl game and to create exciting matchups in four other games."

Dangling millions in front of college presidents is what keeps everybody hush on the "amazing assumption."

These powers that wrote this agreement have a stranglehold on college football and "assume" who will play in the national championship game by picking them.

College football players just want to play football and thats what they do, they shut up play football and listen to their coaches who are telling them to shut up and like the bowl system because they give their school money.

Now lets think about that for a second, universities are given money by a system that picks the teams they are going to give the money to.

A loud, high pitched ding sound just rang in my head.

Why even compete when your 12 game effort is going to get swept under the rug and forgotten about fast as most radio guys are not talking about you and your 11-1 football season.

Especially since you weren't picked.

Boise State coach Chris Petersen on the BCS, "everybody is just tired of this system... it doesn't makes sense to anybody." Boise 11-1 will face 6-6 Arizona State in the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl on December 22.

This is why the Associated Press does not associate with the BCS.

In 2004 the AP threatened to sue the BCS issuing a "cease and desist" order to stop using the AP rankings to pick a national champion.

You have a real journalistic entity separating itself from an unethical system and then the BCS promoted their computer system which has 33% say in who plays in the national championship.  

Weird huh? 

There is a major ethical blunder here but there is also an agreement, the BCS agreement. And the money blinds out this background music.

There is little hope and I have led a mighty vigilant campaign over the years on the unethical stench of the BCS.

Understanding how we got here is important, it was in 1997 and college football was on the cusp having its first ever playoff in 1997.

Prior to '97 the AP picked the No. 1 and No. 2 college football teams in the country. 

ABC which is also ESPN swooped in, embedding their media groups into the aesthetic of the college gridiron. 

The Bowl Alliance formed into the BCS in 1998 with ABC obtaining rights to the original BCS system. Today ESPN owns the rights to all BCS games.

University presidents and athletic directors yielded to the advertisers and the money. The NCAA used to dish their money out to individual schools but were taken to court in 1984.

The Supreme court ruled that the NCAA could not pick and choose, limiting teams to up to three televised games per year.

Today we have games galore and so much money schools are fighting over it.

It is also clear today that the NCAA is run by ESPN as the streams of money are shattering conferences and leaving some programs with crumbs.

Many programs are oppressed even if they overachieve as radio mouthpieces run them out of the race because they are a small school.

Boise whooped Georgia last I checked and LSU and Alabama haven't seen an offense like USC or Oklahoma State all season.

The beauty of college football is the small school.

The David's that constantly crush Goliath's like Boise State. 

If you took one print journalism class in college you would know this system wrong, so wrong on so many levels but ethics isn't stopping this train.

The old timers are coming out of the woodwork and many are being more vocal about our duty to a better system.

For years many sportscasters wouldn't touch the better system idea because of the sponsors and higher ups reminding them to just report on the game and the great system we have in place. 

It's pretty clear that this is what weve come to?

 

This is it.

 

A new era where ESPN rules the world and has college football in its back pocket while making the squeeze on pro football even subsidizing NFL pay for players to begin in 2013, according to the new NFL CBA.

ESPN dropped $15 billion for Monday Night Football alone.

 

Super-conferences are jumping ship and going after the super money.

The conference shifts are all sparked by the april 2010, $10.8 billion CBS TV contract to televise "march madness."

Imagine what a college football playoff would rake in.

 

The Big 12 lost a staple in Nebraska who jumped ship shedding tradition for the Big Ten which consists of 12 teams. So as you can see the numbers are off to begin with.

 

Then Colorado left the Big 12 for the Pac-12 and Texas got their Longhorn Network which infuriated Texas A&M as the hot blonde in burnt orange and other beautiful women sideline report sports.

Conferences are re-alligning under the ESPN moon of money.  

 

I took a lot of journalism classes in college and can only wonder if these educational institutions are able to keep up with these mock speed changes in journalism and modern media.

 

Advertising and sports are morphing into one entity.

 

College presidents and administrators do whatever the money tells them.  

 

If you step back and look at the BCS games minus the facade, blank out the fireworks and the bands, silence the crowd and look at how these teams were picked to play in these games and how these institutions are given multi-million dollar deals is absurd. 

Looking at it objectively there is no question that this process is unethical above all, its just bogus.

 

Conferences are suing their own members for rushing to the money. The Big East Conference has filed suit against West Virginia in an effort to enforce conference bylaws enforcing a 27-month waiting period.

 

West Virginia wants out and into the Big 12 Conference for 2012 looking to fill that spot left by Colorado and TCU looking to fill in for Nebraska.

I could go on forever.

Pure mayhem I tell you.