Proponents of an NCAA playoff may be disappointed in this assessment, but at least this year there's not too much to fault in how the BCS came out. Despite all the hype from the television folks, the BCS is not designed to select an undisputed mythical national champion. It is only designed to match up the teams ranked first and second by the concensus of the polls with a few more objective measurements thrown in.
By that measure, the 2004 BCS is a resounding success. There might be some argument about who's number one and who's number two, but undefeated or not Auburn is number three in both the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN polls, and in all six BCS computer formulas. You don't need a "consensus" for number one and two if you have unanimity for number three. Auburn could well beat Oklahoma or Southern Cal, but then on a neutral field maybe so could California or Louisville. We'll never know.
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The 2004 BCS did a little better than that.
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So, we really wound up with better matchups with the BCS than we would've had before the BCS. But even an unprogrammed VCR is right twice a day, and the 12:00's are flashing for the current BCS formula crying out for re-programming.
We'd probably have had four decent games this year if not for the Big East automatic berth. Utah deserved a better fate - the Utes earned an automatic spot on the field, Pittsburgh (at #21) got there's in a back-room deal (through no fault of their own).
Forget the Cal versus Texas argument, if it weren't for the Big East automatic bid both would be entertaining us this year. But there's an easy fix for this one. Just adjust the rules so that instead of "if a conference champion doesn't finish in the top 12 for four years we'll look at it" there's a hard and fast:
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This would not be too difficult to get past if they just threw in some money - for instance, a BCS conference whose champion doesn't qualify still gets the same cut as it's second qualifying team would get. These idiots are talking about giving that to Notre Dame even if Notre Dame is not likely to ever qualify, so parting with that much money is not too hard for them, and on top of whatever bowl their champion gets it is a nice paycheck. Not to mention, it keeps a conference from being responsible for the BCS' embarrassment.
Unlike most of the knee-jerk reactions, such a change would not be just an ad-hoc adjustment because of one bad year. By making it every other BCS conference second place finisher, it only covers the "unusual" year where one conference is really, really, bad. The bowls would buy it right away, because their aim is the same as the fans' - get a good matchup. The conferences would not have a legitimate objection as long as they still get a minimum share of the total BCS money. And there's plenty of precedent - the "Big East Rule" is already there, and more aptly named than ever.
One good thing the knee-jerk reaction after 2003 did was to give a lot of publicity as to how the human polls really work because they were given so much emphasis in the 5th new formula in 5 years. The news stories are now about the reporters (AP) and coaches votes in the poll instead of about the games. That's bad enough - the AP voters don't want to be the story, and the coaches want to coach - but for a variety of reasons, neither group is particularly qualified to do that job and neither particular wants the responsibility that has been placed upon them.
The very worst part of it is now everybody knows what some of us knew all along - the voters barely know records and margin-of-victory. The BCS committee very self-righteously kicked off the computer-rankings that took MOV into account, claiming it would be "unsportsmanlike" to make a coach have to take that into account. With the very next change to the formula, they gave two-thirds of the weight to voters who use only margin of victory against the Las Vegas spread.
The current BCS formula encourages (according to the coaches) "running up the score" (at the least, unsportsmanlike) and "beating the spread" (bringing gambling into an NCAA sport on purpose.
The Presidents need to step in again, and withdraw their support from the BCS or get the BCS to make their formula more objective. On the last day of the regular season, both Cal and Auburn declined to score against a defeated opponent, even though doing so (which would've been easy for either) would've made the outcomes look better to voters in the human polls (and in Auburn's case, satisfied some gamblers).
If the BCS sticks with what they have, they are condoning un-sportsmanlike behavior and encouraging gambling. I do not believe the NCAA will let that continue, nor do I believe it should.