Bracket Pool

Here's an interesting Article from the Wall Street Journal suggesting what having a 64+ team tournament ala basketball might do to football.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576235191915692976.html

In addition to the points this writer made, the March Madness tournament makes the regular season less important for many schools. Major conference schools don't have to win their conference or their conference tournament, just schedule enough winnable OOC games to get a tourney invite. Kentucky was only the third best team in regular season SEC play, but who cares? With a good OOC record there was no question they were going to the tournament.

To get a BCS bowl bid, the pressure is on from game one, and every game counts. Colin Cowherd made this exact point this last week (it scares me that I agree with him). He said he doesn't bother to talk about college basketball until the first of March. But college football has critical games worth paying attention to from day one. Oregon-LSU this Fall will probably knock one pre-season top-5 team out of the Natty contention. UP could have beaten Kentucky in the Rose Garden and they'd still be playing today.

W W Winkie wrote:Here's an interesting Article from the Wall Street Journal suggesting what having a 64+ team tournament ala basketball might do to football.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576235191915692976.html

I couldn't disagree more with the writer. For starters, yes, I love underdogs...and there is no proof whatsoever that the BCS system works for college football. Someone gets excluded every year, and we still don't have true champions. Winning in sports is about overcoming pressure packed situations, and college football won't give us that without a tournament. Plus, college bowl games are corrupted by money. Lousy 6-6 teams get into bowl games if they can draw enough fans. I believe that the best teams can handle the pressure of a one and done system and still come out on top.

One-and-done tournaments bring us the best drama in sports: the World Cup in soccer and the NCAA tournament. Other sports events suffer from being too damn predictable. How often does the home team lose in game 7 of the NBA playoffs? Almost never. Why is the Super Bowl often called the Super Bore? It's because it often is worse than the games that came before it. Tournaments add drama, and that's their strength. I want to watch David beat Goliath.

How is World Cup a one-and-done tournament? There's group play, goal differential, teams playing for a tie to get through, etc.

up7587 wrote:How is World Cup a one-and-done tournament? There's group play, goal differential, teams playing for a tie to get through, etc.

Well, obviously it is not that way at the group play stage, however, it changes later on. My point is that tournaments are something that make sports entertaining and unpredictable. Even in the group stage, the lesser known US team beat out England to advance further on. In the NCAA tourney, we get to see the 12 vs. the 5. Yes, Boise State over Oklahoma was a great upset in a bowl game, but, overall college football is lacking the same kind of drama that a championship tournament would bring. I dislike feeling like I know what the outcome is going to be in sports before it happens because of homefield or homecourt advantage or because the home team almost always wins game 7 (in the NBA).

Anyone who looks at this year's NCAA tournament and uses it as evidence that the best teams don't always make the final so a tourney would not be good for college football (and the BCS system works) is kind of missing the boat of what sports should be in my opinion. Everyone knows that the best teams in the NCAA are losing players to the NBA, but, no one is admitting that the senior-laden mid major teams like Butler might actually be good. So, fine let's watch David beat Goliath until they start to give us mid majors some respect. I'll enjoy every minute of it.