I also think that it is a rare occasion when anyone puts any thought into the positive aspects of the bowl system and the BCS. I personally have no problem with the BCS. As I admitted before it's not a perfect system but it does deliver exactly what it was meant to: a national championship game between the two most deserving teams every year. The obvious problem is that every other year or so there are more than two teams that can make a case like this year with undefeated TCU and Boise State. If you really want every team in the country to have a chance to play for a national title you have to accept the consequences I laid out above. People also neglect the fact the teams have 3 or 4 weeks to prepare for a bowl game and know that it will be their season finale no matter what. I can't imagine Boise State winning that spirited game over Oklahoma if it were a quarterfinal game where the winner had to get ready to play the next week. The nature of bowl games is also such that players get a chance to showcase everything they have as there is nothing left to hold back. This is why scouts place so much value on how player perform in bowl games (whether they admit it or not) just look at Jamarcus Russell who put up huge numbers against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. Before that game very few people knew about him or about how physically talented he was. People only saw on tremendous game on a big stage, many of us failed to look at the legacy of mediocre quarterbacking at talent-laden LSU he had left behind him. Would anyone pick him number 1 overall again?
There's is much more I can talk about on both sides of the discourse but the core issue still stands: Do we sacrifice the game's independence from government action as well as the century of tradition and history of the bowl system in the name of fairness? We can argue all we want but no one will get anywhere unless that question gets answered.
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