The BCS is at it again.

[johnny1212]

By Brad Halfond

Now those geniuses have added a fifth BCS bowl contest to be hosted by the same city that hosts the BCS National Championship game. This year that honor falls to Glendale, AZ and the new home of the Arizona Cardinals.

The fifth BCS game will be played on Jan 1st under the old name of the Fiesta Bowl. Apparently the new BCS title game will simply be called the National Championship game and that contest is scheduled to be played on January 8th, 2007.

There aren’t that many more imaginative bowl names left, either, and perhaps that is why this bowl will go unnamed for now. Just yesterday, the popular names of the International Bowl, the New Mexico Bowl, and the Birmingham Bowl were taken by the three new bowl games slated for the end of this year.

Between us, let’s just call this new BCS game, the “I’m sorry we have been ignoring the other 150 or so NCAA Division I teams Bowl.”

Whether or not this fifth bowl game makes everybody happy remains to be seen. Already there are rumblings about why this game couldn’t be the “plus one” contest that most fans and some coaches desired. The “plus one” concept would match the teams with the best record from the original set of bowl games into an ultimate national game – the fifth BCS game.

As usual, adding another BCS game and three more bowl games adds up to more money for everybody, which is the bottom line. The NCAA also approved new rules that will allow teams with .500 records under certain conditions to qualify for bowl games too. There is a definite possibility of 32 bowl games this season, up from 28 just a year ago.
In reality, the fifth BCS game was needed to placate the people from the non-BCS conference schools to make it appear that there might be a better chance for one of these schools to compete in a major bowl game.

The only non-BCS team ever to crack that list was Utah, who qualified for the 2004 Fiesta Bowl. The new rules this season will add a level of conferences called “the coalition,” which will likely include the WAC, the MAC, the Mountain West, and a few others. If one of these schools from the coalition finishes in the top 14 of the BCS standings (used to be top 12), then that school is eligible for an invitation to a BCS Bowl as an at-large team.

I’m trying to figure out this new formula and it doesn’t seem like it will make much of a difference in the end result. The likelihood of a non-BCS team going to the national title game is still minimal.

To begin with, that non-BCS team will still have to finish either 1st or 2nd in the final BCS standings to qualify. The only thing that this new bowl game gives teams is a chance at a watered down fifth BCS bowl, which in turn means they will be getting more of a payout than, say, going to the Holiday or Peach Bowl.

This decision is not one the fans of America want. Everybody seems to desire a true playoff system that would ultimately include non-BCS teams to determine the national champion. The newsflash here is that it isn’t going to happen for a while and if it does, some of us might not really care anymore.

The strange thing that needs to be mentioned is that most of the university presidents on record are opposed to a playoff format, yet those same people approved adding this fifth bowl game and a 12th regular season game as well.

There are already enough bowls out there, so adding a fifth BCS game doesn’t make much sense from anybody’s standpoint, except of course the TV networks and other folks who will profit from this game.

A non-BCS team or coalition team basically would have to schedule and beat some BCS conference foes before they actually cracked through the glass ceiling. Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon and I fully expect the status quo to remain the norm for a few more years.

The format for determining the bowl eligible teams is remaining the same and that has led to the last two of three years having the wrong two teams in the championship game. If the college football head honchos really want to make some changes that will shake things up, then that system is what should be tinkered with first.