Posts Tagged ‘Bowl Championship Series’
This college football game was first played in 1902 and has hosted some of the greatest college football players and teams over the years, including 18 Heisman Trophy winners and 28 National Champions. The Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California is the host of this annual clash. The game has historically hosted the champions of the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences. That isn’t the rule anymore as the Bowl Championship Series dictates where the top teams go. The BCS title game rotates among the top venues, and the Rose Bowl Stadium has already hosted two championship games in 2002 and 2006.
But this year’s Rose Bowl on January 1st is not a championship tilt. Instead, it’s a classic matchup of perennial college football powerhouses – USC vs Penn State. This game holds more meaning than the classic Pac-10/Big Ten drama of a Rose Bowl though. Since both teams only have one loss, they can argue that they should be playing for the National Championship. But the fact that their conferences were both weak this year, that argument isn’t very strong. But nonetheless, this is the best matchup on the New Year’s day program.
Although the game has featured famous players like O.J. Simpson and Vince Young, the real draw of this year’s game is the coaches. If the Rose Bowl is the Grandaddy of them all, then Penn State’s head coach Joe Paterno is the grandaddy of all college football coaches. He has coached his team to the most wins in NCAA history(383) in his 43rd year in charge at PSU. In recent years though, he has been under fire for losing his winning touch. But his team responded this year with an 11-win season, its only blemish a last-second loss to Iowa. That record earned the 82-year old “Joe Pa” a 3-year contract extension.
Across the field from him will stand USC’s Pete Carroll. Carroll doesn’t have 383 wins yet, but he’s on a pace to surpass the legend Paterno. The 57-year old coach is 87-15 in his tenure as USC coach. That includes two national championships, which ties him with Paterno. Carroll is 4-1 at the Rose Bowl in his time with USC.
Another intriguing matchup in this game besides the coaches will be the defenses. USC comes into the game with the no. 1 ranked defense in the NCAA allowing only 7.8 points per game. Penn State boasts another great defense with the no. 4 ranked defense in college football. Penn St. has the higher ranking on offense, but defense is sure to rule the day on January 1st.
LSU’s football team plays in the NCAA Division I-FBS college football division. The home games are played in tiger Stadium which is a rather large stadium. It holds 92,400 people. The student section is always packed at every game and no one who has seats in this section sits down for any part of any game. The team at LSU has won four national championships with their most recent being 2007 as of this writing. This has place the LSU Tigers as the first team to ever win two Bowl Championship Series titles. Their national championships were is 1958, 2003, and 2007. They have won 10 SEC Championships in the years 1935, 1936, 1958, 1961, 1970, 1986, 1988, 2001, 2003, 2007.
The Tigers will enter the 2008 season with some impressive stats. They can claim 693 victories. This makes them the 12th team with the most wins in NCAA history. They are also the 4th most of all the SEC teams. They only are behind Alabama with 787 wins, Tennessee with 771 wins and Georgia with 714 wins.
The team’s official mascot is Mike the Tiger. He can be found on the campus in his state-of-the-art facility and up until recently has been the traditional Bengal Tiger. The last two Mikes were mixed breeds but were still beautiful. Since the 1950s at games, Mike the Tiger is portrayed by a student in costume. LSU adopted the “Tigers” nickname in 1896. The name is a tribute to the state of Louisiana’s Confederate heritage. The Troops of the Louisiana division of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia became the Tigers during the Civil War. This was due to their courageous and heroic deeds of the two New Orleans brigades, the Tiger Rifles and the Washington Artillery. The Washington Artillery had a logo featuring the face of a snarling tiger head.
The first Mike lived a long time with LSU. He had a life span of 20 years from 1936-1956 and was purchased by the LSU student body from the Little Rock Zoo for a big whopping $750. He is now on permanent display in the LSU Natural Sciences Museum on the campus in Baton Rouge.
Rumors and superstition surround each of the tigers that have had the honor to be named as Mike the Tiger. LSU’s football team’s winning and losing streaks are attributed by many to the health and happiness of each of the 6 tigers that have lived on the LSU campus since the first Mike came to live there in 1936. With four of the five previous Mikes having lived to at least seventeen years of age, there may be something to these rumors. The present Mike VI is kept in splendor at a $3 million habitat built in 2005 especially designed for the needs of Mike. The funds came completely from private sources and the habitat has state-of-the-art amenities. Mike is kept in style with a 24 hour on-call veterinarian from the LSU Veterinary School always in attendance. The place has lush plantings, a waterfall and a flowing stream with a wading pond. There are rocks for Mike to sun himself on and the preserve is 15,000 square feet in size.
There are traditions that the LSU football team observes with Mike. Some are quite entertaining. Mike rides through Tiger stadium just before the start of home games with the LSU Cheerleaders perched on top of his cage. Everyone knows that LSU will score a touchdown for every roar that Mike lets go of on game day. And the most humorous tradition involves the opposing team on home football game days. Mike’s cage is parked by the door of the opponent’s locker room located at the southeast end of Tiger Stadium. The opposing team has to walk (or run) by Mike in order to get to their locker room.
LSU football is all about tradition and Mike is a great part of that long tradition.
The BCS (short for Bowl Championship Series) system is meant to determine who plays in the National title game. Only the top two college football teams will be selected. This system was created in 1998 as a way to select the top two teams for the national level games.
Initially, when considering the best system to adopt, human votes were taken into consideration. However, this would be a biased system because if based solely on human votes, teams who are not performing but highly popular may be voted to play year after year. There is always the danger of people voting out of biasness instead of performance. This will hardly keep the general population happy.
To address this problem, computers came into the picture. Besides taking the votes of Associate Press writers and coaches into account, the BCS system also uses seven computer ranking methods to come up with a total score. Various factors such as number of losses, number of wins when matched against top teams etc., make up the ranking formulas. The two teams with the lowest total score will be playing in the National title game. However, this system is not without its share of problems.
For example, in 2000, both Florida State and Miami lost only one game. When the human votes came in, Miami was voted as the second team, and Florida State came in third. However, to everyone’s surprise, when the computer made the calculations, Florida actually came in second – ahead of Miami. That meant that Florida State actually qualified for the National title game. Obviously, some enthusiasts are not happy with the results.
In 2001, Nebraska lost to Colorado during the final game and they did not win their conference. Colorado came out as the stronger team by winning their conference. The human voters agreed, and most rooted for Colorado. However, when the computer rankings came out, everyone was once again surprised – Nebraska qualified! Everyone thought that the BCS system must have gone bonkers.
But how can computers be totally at fault? After all, they are just following a set of instructions input by human beings to choose two supposedly well deserved teams to play in the national games. Their primary function is never to make everyone happy. In fact, that may be an impossible task.
Whatever teams the BCS system chooses, there will be some who will be happy. For sure, every college football enthusiast wants their favorite team to qualify. If the team that they are supporting fails to qualify, they will be unhappy, and they will blame it on the BCS system. Perhaps that’s why year after year, news of flaws in the BCS system kept regenerating.
Obviously, no system in this world in perfect. All the major sports leagues like the NFL or the NBA have their own systems, and they are not perfect. But the bottom line is, they get the job done. Until a better system can be proven to work better than the current system, the BCS system will be staying.