Sports, School Briefs Change is coming to the BCS

FSU lacrosse team to host game, clinic at Rec Center

The Florida State University lacrosse team will hold a intersquad game and a clinic at the Rec Center October 18.

The clinic, which is from 9 a.m.-noon, is $65 per person. Boys and girls ages 8-18 are invited. The price of the Garnet and Gold intersquad game, dubbed 'Showdown at the Beach,' is also included.

Tickets for the game only are $5. For more information, call Matt Dorf at 934-4150 or log on to www.eteamz.com/gulf- breezelacrosse.

Soundwave Band selling Holiday Greenery

Members of the GBHS Soundwave Band are once again selling fresh cut greenery from the Aroma Cottage for your holiday decor. The greenery is from Washington State, fresh cut and delivered to the school approximately the first week of December. There are several items to choose from, ranging in price from $22 for a centerpiece to $42 for a 25 foot cedar garland.

Orders and payments are being taken by any GBHS Soundwave Band member now through Sunday, Oct. 19. For more information, contact Sharon Bernard at 916-4903 or email at GBHSBandBoosters@aol.com. Thanks for supporting the GBHS Soundwave Band!

GBHS Wrestling fundraiser Saturday

The Gulf Breeze High wrestling team will hold a fundraiser at Chili's on Bayou Blvd. in Pensacola Saturday.

From 11 a.m. to midnight, 1- percent of all sales will benefit the program. A car wash from noon to 5 p.m. will also be offered.

Sarah Brown Memorial Golf Tourney Oct. 25

The second annual Sarah Brown Memorial Golf Tournament is Oct. 25 at 8:30 a.m. at Osceola Golf Course.

Entry for the four-person scramble is $400, with proceeds going to the Sarah Brown Memorial Scholarship, awarded to two GBHS seniors. For more information, call either Kristen Brown-Sanders (934-5903) or Brad Brown (251-609-9922). Odds are changes to the BCS system are very, very close

Last week I left off with this question: Could the BCS formula select the best two of 119 teams?

The answer is an emphatic NO!

It can, however, provide a general idea of say, the top 20 percent, which is about the equivalent of the Top 25. Anything more specific than that should be determined by fair competition on the gridiron.

An undisputed national champion will never be consistently produced by a ranking system that just isn't very accurate. Also, as we've seen, the top two RATED teams aren't necessarily the two BEST teams in America.

If rankings are so important, then why do none of our professional sports leagues have an official season-long overall ranking? Because you can't fairly determine the top two teams without a playoff system. In the NFL, teams in the two conferences are only ranked in order to seed them for the Playoffs.

Why can't the BCS rankings to do the same thing?

Use the system to seed the top teams for the BCS National Championship Tournament. Under this system, the top eight ranked teams in the BCS would be seeded and play the traditional BCS bowl games as the first round of the National Championship Tournament.

There hasn't been a team in history that was ranked outside the top eight that had a legitimate gripe with being denied a shot at the title. There would still be the potential for debate over the last few spots in the top eight, but I would rather see the seventh or eighth spots in question, as opposed to No. 1 or 2.

Many people argue that it would take some of the luster off of regular season games, render the other bowl games irrelevant and make the season too long. That is not true!

As for the importance of regular season games: How many teams finish in the top eight in the final regular-season poll with more than one or two losses? The answer is ZERO. Since the creation of the BCS, not one team has made it into the Top 8 with more than two losses. Regular-season games would be no less meaningful.

When has any team, under the current BCS system, playing in the Outback or Music City Bowls--or any of the non-BCS bowls for that matter--ever argued that they deserved a shot at the national championship? It doesn't happen. So how exactly would the other bowls be affected?

For those who say a playoff would make the season too long, consider this: We've already added a regular season game, so why couldn't we just take it back and play 11.

The BCS bowls, or in this case the first round of the playoffs, could start the last weekend in December. With an eight-team playoff, the season would be longer by only one week.

So why can't college football fans have a true, undisputed national champion?

It could be that the current system only stays in place, making marginal changes each year, in order to serve a different, financial purpose.

Check out this next phrase from the BCS website.

"The bowls were to be provided flexibility to exercise freedom of selection that would create locally attractive games to enhance ticket sales."

Sounds like that flexibility might interfere with the determination of a true national champion, or is it the other way around. Maybe the truth is that some are worried that a fair system might interfere with ticket sales?

Also, the current system ensures that the six founding conferences--ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC--are awarded annual automatic qualification. That is blatant discrimination against all schools in other conferences, or independent of conference affiliation.

The Notre Dame automatic qualification clause is even more ridiculous. If ND wins 10 games, they're automatically qualified. Talk about preferential treatment.

The point is that the college football community is being denied their right to a true national champion, determined by fair competition in a playoff format.

Conference commissioners, BCS officials and university administrators are doing all this in the name of money and prejudice.

Can you say $320 million BCS TV deal with Fox Sports?

Do they not realize how profitable, and most importantly FAIR, an eight-team playoff would be?

This system is so unfair it almost seems like a violation of players', coaches' and fans' rights. It is a system controlled by financial dominance and discrimination, much like the corrupt legal systems of Southern states that figures like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. faced headon in the 1960s.

So when will college football's version of MLK arise, take action, and completely transform the landscape of the national championship?

It may not be soon enough for some, but with the track record of change during the BCS era of college football, the 2009-2010 season will surely be different than this one, even if only by a fraction of a percent.