By Griffin Burrough ’14 , Staff Writer

The BCS, Bowl Championship Series, may just be the result of the most absurd set of decisions by college football ever .  For those unfamiliar with the system, BCS is a computer system that determines the top-ranked teams in the nation.  At the end of the season, there are five nationally renowned bowl games for the top ten ranked teams, but without any determination of which team is truly the best in the nation.

The BCS system is not completely foolish, as it does produce a plentitude of winners with so many championship bowl games.  However, the flaws in the system have been noted more prominently than its positives, as commented on by players, coaches, and fans alike.  For reference, according to a recent Gallup poll, 85-percent of college football fans would prefer a playoff system.

Just consider the striking and recent fates of Utah in 2008 and Boise State in 2006. In both cases these teams were undefeated, but there were teams that ranked ahead of them in the BCS rankings with records that included one or more losses.  Similarly, BCS does not seem to include a fair way to decide which team will play in the top bowl game in the case that three teams are highly ranked and undefeated.  This happened in 2004 when Auburn, USC, and Oklahoma were all undefeated, but unsystematically, USC and Oklahoma were chosen to play for the national title.

The BCS also makes the mistake of including conferences that serve as automatic qualifiers to bowl games.  This means that a better team outside of these conferences may be overlooked. According to ProCon.org, from 1998-2008, nine undefeated teams were excluded from the BCS National Championship game, while teams with one or more losses were included. Eight of those nine teams were non-BCS qualifying schools.

Many Newark Academy students who are ardent college football fans object to the BCS system, instead favoring an overhaul to restructure the postseason in the form of a playoff games leading up to a national title.  Matt Ratner ’14 comments that “It would be better for the NCAA to have a playoff system instead of the bowl system, because there would be much more hype and excitement for the playoff games, plus the bowl games are not very meaningful. Also, people would watch the playoffs more than a bowl game, because the playoffs truly determine a national champion.”

Echoing this sentiment, Tyler Park ’14 stated that one solution might be “To have the top eight teams in the playoffs. I think people would follow it a lot more and it would get college football a lot more publicity and following. In addition to that, it is a lot fairer to smaller schools like Boise State and TCU [Texas Christian University], and also fair towards bigger schools because they have to prove themselves instead of getting voted in by some panel.”

One remaining explanation for why BCS has not been overturned is simply connected to monetary interests.  According to ProCon.org, bowl game payments are expected to total more than $2.5 billion over the next ten years. More revenue apparently flows in from the hype of multiple bowl games than as anticipated in a playoff format.  A recent Sports Illustrated article also detailed that some of this revenue is also funneled to BCS itself, instead of towards collegiate athletic programs.