TopFrog
Lifelong Frog
ESPN: A tough few weeks for the BCS
By Andrea Adelson
It has been a tough few weeks for backers of the BCS.
First, Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee spouted off about teams from outside the power conferences, equating their opponents to the "Little Sisters of the Poor."
Then earlier this week, Jerry Palm discovered a major error in the Wes Colley computer rankings that affected the finishes of LSU and Boise State. Colley is the only one of the six BCS computer programmers to make his formula public, and hence the only one who can have his math double checked. There is no transparency provision for those computer rankings, but there clearly should be after this embarrassment. Imagine if the error had affected who was playing in the BCS national championship game?
Mid-week, we had Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and his cohorts threaten to go back to the old way of doing business if the non-AQs continue to push for more access. The forum in New York featured Delany, Larry Scott of the Pac-10, John Marinatto of the Big East, Karl Benson of the WAC and Dan Beebe of the Big 12, but did not do anything to make any of us believe the big conferences want to play nice. Those threats are nothing new, of course, and are an attempt to get the non-AQs to back down and accept the system for what it is -- something that has given them unprecedented opportunities. ...
By Andrea Adelson
It has been a tough few weeks for backers of the BCS.
First, Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee spouted off about teams from outside the power conferences, equating their opponents to the "Little Sisters of the Poor."
Then earlier this week, Jerry Palm discovered a major error in the Wes Colley computer rankings that affected the finishes of LSU and Boise State. Colley is the only one of the six BCS computer programmers to make his formula public, and hence the only one who can have his math double checked. There is no transparency provision for those computer rankings, but there clearly should be after this embarrassment. Imagine if the error had affected who was playing in the BCS national championship game?
Mid-week, we had Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and his cohorts threaten to go back to the old way of doing business if the non-AQs continue to push for more access. The forum in New York featured Delany, Larry Scott of the Pac-10, John Marinatto of the Big East, Karl Benson of the WAC and Dan Beebe of the Big 12, but did not do anything to make any of us believe the big conferences want to play nice. Those threats are nothing new, of course, and are an attempt to get the non-AQs to back down and accept the system for what it is -- something that has given them unprecedented opportunities. ...
