Why the BCS plus one system wont work

Over the last month and a half as the college football system has come to an end there has been an increased amount of attention for a playoff system. The month of December revealed ongoing debates on who deserved to play Ohio State.... Should it be Florida? Michigan? USC? Ahhhhh...once again the plus one system is being trotted out as the solution....and in some ways I think if the plus one system is implemented it will act as the final poison pill in the tempestous history of the BCS.....with each tweak the BCS poobahs claimed that they now had it right and that the BCS would be soooo much better. However, like a detergent that never takes the words "new and improved" off the labeling we have all come to know better that even with their changes the BCS system is deeply flawed and we are stuck with it till 2010.


Why wont the plus one work? Let me tell you why... I will use the 2006-07 bowls to show my reasoning. With the plus one system in place you would most likely have seen an Ohio State vs USC matchup in the Rose Bowl (#1 seed vs #4) which would have made the Big 10 & Pac 10 purists very happy and in the Fiesta Bowl you would have Florida vs Michigan (#2 vs #4) which would be a great game too since there definitely is some bad blood (maybe there could be a Carr-Meyer bout on the undercard)....then a week later the top 2 teams meet in the BCS championship game in Glendale AZ.....so why Dawger is this a problem?????....did anyone forget about poor Boise State? No, I am not suggesting that they are one of the top 4 teams....the problem is that with this format they get left out since the plus one format takes away a BCS bowl from two teams....with the added 5th game in the BCS series that was supposed to placate the non BCS conferences since every few years we would see a Boise State or Utah in the mix. The plus one eliminates that.....like the 12th game that was added to NCAA schedules this year I see that the 5th BCS is here to stay for a while....What other problems exist with the plus one? Glad you asked! Let me list a few:

1) Bowls - do you think the Rose Bowl wants to play the role as a playoff site. No way....the last thing they want is the players, fans and announcers to be talking about the next game as the biggest game. The Bowls want the focus on this being the final game of the season and this is the granddaddy of them all....not just a preliminary game

2) Fans & students - here is where the BCS designers really fall flat in their thinking.....your team plays in the Rose Bowl....do you make plans to the Rose and the natl championship (this would cause most fans to be on the road for more than a week....why? Hotels would require minimum stays for fans....so you come in to town for the Rose Bowl on the 30th or 31st of Dec and leave on the 2nd....do you go home till just before the 8th?....or do you fly to Phoenix....think of the airplane, rental car nightmares and hotel issues that would occur after midnight.....yeah!!! we won the play in Rose Bowl game...now how the hell do we get to Phoenix....and where do we stay?....or oh crap, we lost and now I have worthless air tickets to phoenix and the hotel will be assessing me a cancellation fee. If you have endless amounts of cash this wouldnt scare you.....but what about the students? They have no money....but hey screw the students and forget the bands...they dont need to be there.

3) non BCS schools - ok so with the plus one system not only do you miss out on BSU but also $$$$ going to the WAC or other non BCS conference...with only 8 schools making the BCS again there are less opporunities for those conferences...doubt that they would sign off on the new arrangement.

How could the plus one work??????? Glad you asked. The only way to make it work is if you have 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 play each other in early December....there simple solution...after the conf championship games you play the next week.....you would have a pretty good idea a month before the game what the possibilites are.....#1 and #2 get to host. Then after that game you have the BCS championship game set....then the other 4 bowls can set their lineups....bowls dont get used as playoffs and still are viewed as rewards for a good season.