Choosing an absolutely undeserving Virginia Tech team will cause the standards for being an at large team to become even more sharply defined for teams in AQ conferences.
Excuse my ignorance here, I haven't researched the rules of selection. Could they not have taken Arkansas?
Seriously, Michigan State just got what I like to call "Tennessee'd." The Vols beat the Gators in 2001. The Vols lose the SECCG. The Gators go to the Orange. The Vols go to the Citrus. I feel you right now, Sparty. I feel you.
Apparently not, tvols and cotton lay out why not in the BCS thread. Can't have more than two teams in BCS bowls unless #1 and #2 don't win their conference.
The best idea I've seen, short of a playoff, is to make the BCS simply the NCG as opposed to an altogether different class of bowl games with specific selection criteria.
Didn't they say that starting next year the BCS will just be used to determine 1 and 2 and the rest of the bowls will be left intact? Or did they not actually decide that yet? I think that if they are going to leave it like it is now with 5 BCS bowls (including the National Championship), they should make the Cotton Bowl the 5th BCS game.
I've advanced that thought several times, and the Sugar just showed you why. Rather than pretend that an algebraic equation that identifies teams as somehow worthy of being in an elite club with a humongous payday, the bowl just picked the most popular kids in school. As a result, they will have decent ratings and a full stadium rather than hosting a major bowl game in a half-full arena that engages the entire state of Idaho and half that of Kansas while being of no interest anywhere else. I don't blame them. And I'm sure, if the rule is changed, that it will be designed to make sure a major bowl game is forced to play in a half-full arena that engages Idaho and half of Kansas while being of no interest anywhere else. Under the cotton rule, this would still be possible, but the fault for it would be completely at the feet of the bowl, who made bad decisions with its conference tie-ins, rather than with a system that forces one or more bowls to take one for the system each year.
This is the best way to do it outside of a playoff or +1 or whatever. But as I've maintained elsewhere, there is almost no difference in your system and the one in place. Take this year for example. In your system, Arkansas probably plays in the Sugar Bowl instead of Va Tech. Big deal. Matters for those teams, for sure. But to the rest of the country? Not so much. I don't see any other changes that would have happened this year under your system.
You are correct. Only the things that would be different would be different. The things that would be the same would still be the same.