Sports Update

By Ben Brake

With football just around the corner and hopes of K-State finishing the season undefeated, it brings one thing to mind, The
bowl championship series (BCS).

What happens if K-State slips again to a little school like Nebraska or what if they don’t?

Would they be rewarded for their season or just find an excuse to put a team of their choice in the National Championship
Game or BCS bowl?

Some good excuses I have heard are scheduling weak teams, scheduling too many home games, they don’t have tradition
(mainly from OU fans), and Bill Snyder in no Gary Barnett (my favorite). My response to the Gary Barnett comment is
usually THANK GOD!!! I have Barnett’s resume’ on a post-it note somewhere.

The BCS is good only to the point of picking the number 1 and number 2 teams in the country. After that there is still a major
problem. K-State fans know better than any other fans in the country. The commissioners of the BCS chose Michigan over
KSU for a BCS bowl game. Michigan had 2 losses and was 8th in the BCS standings and Kansas State was 6th. One loss
went to Michigan State and the Other to Illinois. K-States only loss came to Nebraska, the 3rd ranked team in the country.
Maybe they thought Nebraska was a Div. 1AA school.

K-State has been left out of a BCS game two years in a row when ranked higher than those selected to the games (how
many years has the BCS been in place? What a coincidence!).

I believe the BCS needs to be revised to allow fairness to all schools.

HOW THE B.C.S. COULD WORK WITHOUT A PLAYOFF

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was formed to take out the controversy in ranking the No. 1 and No. 2 NCAA
football teams in the country. The problem with this is that there are 4 B.C.S games to be played for large amounts of money.

I believe they have a great system in place to minimize the biases that had taken place in the previous ranking system to
declare who was no. 1 and no. 2. There are still biases when the sports writers and coaches place their votes. But those
biases have a much smaller effect on the outcome of who is No. 1 and No. 2 compared to what it did in the past. By
computing all the major polls, computer rankings, point differential, strength of schedule, opponents strength of schedule, and
Einstein’s theory of relativity they have been able to reduce the weight of one persons vote in the polls.

Where the problem comes in is when it’s time to select the rest of the BCS bowl games. The Bowl Championship Committee
then throws out all the polls, computer ratings, strength of schedules, and decides that Einstein’s theory was just a theory.
They then look at what is important, personal opinion and MONEY.

The same people that put the BCS together to remove the bias from selecting the top two teams in the country from the
sports writers and coaches, now have all the power in selecting the next six teams regardless of the teams BCS ranking. This
seems so ironic it isn’t even funny. Welcome to the BCS Kremlin, you will watch what they want you to watch and forget
Democracy or fairness.

THE SOLUTION IS SIMPLE. Take the top 8 teams and pair them off. No. 1 with No. 2, No. 3 with No. 4, No. 5 with
No. 6, No. 7 with No. 8. The winner of the No. 1 and No. 2 game is then declared No. 1 and the loser would then be
declared No. 2 and the winner of 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8 would work the same.

This system could even work for all the bowl games. Where every body is paired with the team that is either 1 rank ahead or
1 rank behind them. Then you have evenly matched games all the way down the bowl schedule.

The BCS did a good job trying to bring fairness to the top two teams in the country. Now it is time they bring fairness to all
the teams. Don’t discriminate against a school because they don’t have good fan support. Don’t exclude a team if they don’t
have a large TV audience. They need to start rewarding the teams for their accomplishments and not leave them out because
they like another team better.

It would have been great if Rev. Jesse Jackson were a Kansas State fan. There would have been one heck of a purple
parade at the BCS office with a tail-gate party.

If you have any comments, questions, concerns, stories, or jokes e-mail them to bbrake@msn.com.