Conference Championship Values

For the past few years, the debate has raged on as to whether or not the BigTen and Pac10 football conferences should add more teams to their league so they can have a Conference Championship game.

The other three power conferences, the Big12, A.C.C. and S.E.C. all have one. The obvious reason for creating this game is to generate even more money for the conference (although of late, the ACC championship game has been about as crowded as an Air Supply Reunion concert).

We've seen in the past, these conference championship games give some schools the added boost they needed in the BCS computer, by stamping one more quality win onto the resume. Conversely, we've seen some undefeated teams get burned via an upset to a lesser opponent, thus crushing their national championship hopes.

As we are about a week away from the Florida/LSU matchup, I began to wonder - does the conference championship dilute the regular season just a little bit? When you take a conference and split it up into two divisions, in theory, any game out of your division won't affect your ability to still get to the conference championship game. This coming Saturday is the perfect example: Florida plays in the SEC East and LSU plays in the SEC West. Both teams are undefeated, yet the loser of this game can still win their division and get to Atlanta for the title game, where they could meet again, and this time post a 'W' and perhaps propel themselves into the national title game. In other words, they can afford a conference loss and still be in the hunt for the BCS Championship.

Conversely, a team like USC, in the PAC10, can't afford to lose one game all year long in conference play. One conference loss, more often than not, knocks them out of the national title race. Imagine if there were two divisions in the PAC10 (say a North and South division). Assume USC played in the South, and Washington played in the North. USC loses to Washington, but could still win the South and make it to the PAC10 Conference Championship game and face a very stout Oregon Ducks team. Would a win in that game be enough to propel them into the National Championship? I don't' know the answer to that, and sadly, neither does college football.

It's almost as if the NCAA likes the fact that every conference DOES NOT have a title game. The way it stands now, as soon as a USC, Penn State or Ohio State loses, they get eliminated from national title contention. Then it becomes as clean and simple as tabbing the SEC and Big12 Conference Championship winners for the BCS Title game. If the PAC10 and BIGTEN had their own conference title game winner, would that not muddy the waters even more?!?

The debate will rage on. Perhaps the simple solution is that all major BCS conferences must have a title game and those winners all get an invitation to a playoff tournament. (Sounds eerily familiar -- it's called college basketball!)