As it stands, USC will play for the national title game. Is TCU more entitled? Certainly no. If undefeated is the sole arguement, I will begin to schedule local high school at have a shot at the title game. How's it penalize the players? Like the players know nothing about the scheduling of their team when they come in to the school? Or they really believe they have a shot at MNC when they choose TCU over other school, given choices?
the current BCS contract runs through the 2005 season after that, I'm sure they could adapt any plan they choose to. But any plan will have to be approved by a vote of the Presidents of the schools.. FYI : in the 20 years before the formation of the BCS, only ONE non-BCS school (besides Notre Dame) appeared in the Sugar,Orange,Rose or Fiesta Bowls
Playoff or not, TCU won't be playing title game. If there was a playoff system, TCU would certainly lost in earlier round before it reaches title game. The Key here is to take every regular season game as a playoff game, which is to say, you need to schedule WORTHY opponents and WIN to play in the title game. You need BOTH aspects, not just one.
I would love the playoff system but we'll never get it. The status quo makes alot of universities very happy. But I think the next best thing which is being discussed has potential. Basically keep teh 4 BCS games (liek now) but have 2 of those games (they woudl ratoate year by year) match up the top 4 teams. Then the winner of those 2 games would meet a week later for the Super Bowl of College Football. So if the season ended today it would be: Oklahoma vs VT/Miami/FSU in teh Sugar Bowl USC vs Miami/VT/FSU in the Rose/Fiesta/Orange Bowl Then the winers would play a week later at anotehr site. Is it a perfect system, well no, but to me this would be an improvement over what we currently have.
I seem to remember Arizona being a pretty darn good team when TCU contracted with them to play this season. Sometimes even when you try to improve your SOS, the teams you pick hire former UT coaches and go into the toilet by the time the game rolls around. You don't know who is going to be good four and five years down the road when you start contracting these games. And it isn't exactly easy to schedule high quality non-conference opponents because it doesn't benefit them to have a TCU on the schedule. They aren't a cupcake, so it isn't an easy win. But they also don't sell tickets or create buzz on other campuses.
What if those 'worthy' opponents are scared to schedule you? Plus, mrpaige is right. Most schedules are made 4 or 5 years ahead of time. A good program can really hit rock bottom in just a few years. See Notre Dame, Penn State, UCLA, Nebraska, etc.
Show me anything in resemblance of any of the team that you mentioned here on TCU's schedule, then I will give you credit.
And believe me, not everyone (I'll refrain from saying no one) is "scared" to schedule TCU, not with so many good teams around.
Nobody said they were afraid, only that it doesn't pay to schedule TCU. There's little incentive to make such a deal because it's not a money game, not a game that will lead to increased ticket sales or anything like that. And especially if TCU wants to try and schedule a home-and-home, that can cost other schools money AND profile, especially if five years down the line, TCU isn't any good. What's the best case scenario for a Florida State or the like if they agree to schedule games against TCU? A game they win but don't get any real mileage out of winning because even if TCU is otherwise undefeated, it's not a quality win. But if they lose, it's horrible for a Florida State. There's no advantage for a Florida State to agree to play a TCU or any other non-BCS conference team. It's not a made-up issue, it's something that's been discussed when TCU and others have attempted to schedule bigger names to play (because playing big name schools, even if you lose, usually means good money). For the record, Arizona had just put together a 12-1 season when TCU made the contract to play them this year. So even if you do manage to get a team to agree to play you once or twice, you have to hope they're still good when you're putting together your best season, otherwise, it won't count and people will say "Geez, why didn't you guys schedule anyone good?"
For the record, Arizona had just put together a 12-1 season when TCU made the contract to play them this year. They also played both Nebraska and Marshall in 2001. And Northwestern in 2000 and 2002 - NW won the Big 10 in the mid-1990s, so that may very well have been scheduled around then. Texas already has teams scheduled for 2009.
To clarify: I guess someone did say "scared", but I don't think that's the right word. There's just no advantage for a big-time school to agree to schedule a TCU, even if the team is quite certain they'll win every time (heck, Arkansas won't play SMU anymore even though it's a pretty well guaranteed win and essentially a home game for the Razorbacks even when they play in Dallas).
In fact, TCU is right where it belongs in the poll, behind good teams like USC and michigan, above good teams like Purdue, Tennessee. yes, scheduling big name opponents might be difficult, but that's your AD's job. No one says its easy. Remember that team called Fresno State? Look at teams like Northern Illinois (Maryland, Alabama, Iowa State), Bowling Green (Purdue, Ohio State, these are not schools that happen to go 10-1 in one year either), scheduling some worthy nonconference opponents are certainly do-able. And it's not like TCU is playing lights out on the field either. While it's not TCU's fault, Arizona doesn't live up to their flute season when they schedule them, beating a crappy team who's 1-7, with the only win against UTEP, 13-10, doesn't give TCU a right to cry foul about the title game either. Especially when that exact Arizona team is the only non conference opponent worth mentioning.
My beef isn't so much with the title game as it is with the other two BCS Bowl games. There's no reason TCU shouldn't at least be in the mix for one of those should they end their season undefeated. But here is the deal, even if TCU had scheduled and beaten LSU, K-State and Oklahoma State this season, and remained otherwise undefeated, they still likely wouldn't be in the mix for the title game. A non-BCS school can beat everybody and still likely be left out of the title game even if they end up undefeated, especially if the polls (which do make up part of the BCS formula) still place them in or near the bottom half (they're 12th in the USA Today/Coaches' Poll and 13th in the AP Top 25). If the subjective rankings of the AP Poll and USA Today poll placed TCU higher, they would also likely be higher on the BCS. I don't know how much of a difference it makes, but if TCU was in the Top Ten or higher in both polls, is it not possible they would be in the Top Six in the BCS. If the BCS was based purely on strength of schedule, we might well see some differences. Adding in subjective measures like the polls, etc. only allows for more margin of error. They ought to just go back to the way things were before with conferences tied to bowls. Why pretend to have a national championship game anyway? I mean, is USC really any better qualified to play in a national championship game than Florida State or LSU or any of the other 1 loss teams from big conferences? But whatever the case, the idea that TCU can go undefeated and not get a BCS Bowl invite while the winner of the conference with Cincinnati, Louisville, South Florida, Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia, Rutgers and Temple will get an automatic BCS Bowl invite and big payoff next season (or whenever the realignment takes effect) seems arbitrary and wrong to me. You're telling me that champion will be more worthy than TCU is this season?
Of course, the Rose Bowl was the matchup between the Big Ten and Pac10 Champs. There was no way a non-BCS school could work its way into the mix. And at least half of the match-ups for the other bowls were contractually obligated to be offered to the conference winners they were tied to, significantly undercutting the number of slots available. Considering that a school like TCU was in the SWC, which had a tie to the Cotton Bowl, even if TCU had been good (which they rarely were in the SWC days), they likely would've been happier with a Cotton Bowl slot than a slot in the Orange Bowl. But prior to the BCS formation, the Orange, Rose, Fiesta and Sugar Bowls were no better than the Cotton Bowl anyway.
with that kind of "success", TCU find itself seperated from the likes of Miami(OH), and unable to find a worthy opponent in the country. Nobody wants to play them. They are all scared. might as well switch conference with that kind of success. WEll, if you read rest of my post...
i think TCU really got screwed by not being able to join the Big East...they had a shot at getting into a BCS conference..I'm not sure if Big East would of even looked at TCU as a member, but without being in one of the big conferences, TCU will be stuck in their current position..
