Originally Posted by
arkansasbob
the polls were flawed first, which garanteed that the bcs would be flawed because they use the polls. the one consensus national championship that usc DID win, they didn't get a chance to play the best team in the country, either. auburn was probably the best team in the country that year, but the only reason they weren't in the bcs championship is because they started out off the poll. of course the computers aren't any better, they probably made it even worse.
the best way to determine a champion is obviously a tournament. but if you want to determine a champion in the polls, the best way would be to make a few changes to the ap poll:
1) make the number of ap voters each state gets perportional to the number of d1a football teams in that state, and try to spread them out accross the state. you could have 2 voters per dia school, which would give you 234 total voters. ten sports writers from louisiana would have votes, 18 in texas, six in mississippi, 14 in california, etc. this might swing the bias a little toward schools with more teams in their state, but that would be better than a bias toward schools with more tv coverage, or a bigger population base.
2) don't allow any voting until the 5th or 6th week of the season. as i mentioned above, auburn's low start in the polls in 2003 quite possibly cost them a national championship. this would make it a little more fair for the teams that might get overlooked in the preseason.
3) do not, under any circumstances, allow a team to play for a national championship that did not win its own conference.