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Selection Committee or BCS Formula?
Published: 7/14/2012 10:38 AM
Last Modified: 7/14/2012 10:38 AM

The ranking formula for the BCS championship has undergone a handful of tweaks over the past 14 years to the point that many believe it is now a decent way to pick the nation’s top college football teams.
So, why is the new BCS, with a four-team playoff, not going to use the formula?
BCS executive director Bill Hancock said last week on a taping of the OETA show Oklahoma Forum that it was a long and difficult decision. He said how to select the teams was perhaps the most hotly-debated issue.
The old BCS formula, which will be used the next two seasons to pair the nation’s top two teams in a championship game, is a good one.
However, Hancock said BCS commissioners wanted to inject more of a human element into the formula. So, a selection committee will choose the top four teams when the new four-team playoffs begins in 2014.
How ironic. The computers and use of two different human polls were used in the old BCS formula to try to limit the human bias in any human rating system.
Now, in the new system, the human element and any bias in it will rule college football.
We’re not sure that’s a good idea.
Depending on the makeup of the committee, you can have wild swings in opinion and results.
In the current BCS formula, there are so many elements that everything seems to balance out and you have a pretty solid ranking system.
We would prefer the old BCS formula. It is safer. There are so many elements in it that it usually ends up being a very good consensus.
The first time the new selection committee makes a congtroversial decision, by including a two-loss team from a power conference over an unbeaten team from a non-power league, will see a move back toward the current formula.
Until then, a dozen or so people will hold the future of college football’s playoff in their hands.



Reader Comments 2 Total
hawthorners (7 months ago)
I agree with you, Mr. Klein. The BCS formula already has a human element - two human polls, which can easily have human biases. But it's only 2/3 instead of the whole thing. I think the BCS does a good job picking the top 4.
LRHog/OUsooner (7 months ago)
The polls are a joke. Guess its number one goes to top selling mag and newsprint OU.
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Klein's Korner

Tulsa World senior sports columnist John Klein is in his fourth decade of covering sports. He started his newspaper career at The Daily Ardmoreite in 1977 and moved to the Tulsa World in 1978. He served 10 years as sports editor for the Tulsa World before being named to his current position in 2005. He also spent five years as the Southwest Conference beat writer for the Houston Post. He has won many writing awards and is a former Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year.

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