BCS Fucks Over Cal
Today the Bowl Championship Series announced the pairings for the Bowl games, and Berkeley will be going to the Holiday Bowl instead of the Rose Bowl. BCS uses three different polls to rank teams (the Associated Press is a press poll and ESPN/USA Today is a coach's polls and there are 6 independent computer polls which are averaged together) and then uses this to assign bowl positions. The BCS website has the details behind all of these rankings on their website. (PDF)

Cal, which has been trailing the University Texas in the computer poll, was able to maintain our lead over them (and our shot at the rose Bowl) by maintaing a lead in the coach's polls. After our lead over Texas shrank in the coaches polls based on our slight victory over Southern Miss yesterday, Texas nudged ahead of us in the BCS ranking and secured the Rose Bowl slot.

We're going to go the holiday Bowl, against Texas Tech, which will be played in San Diego.

Some thoughts:
1) There is widespread anger over the BCS system, not only from Cal fans, and there will almost certainly be some reforms to the sytem. This year not were we screwed over, but there were three undefeated teams, making it that much more difficult to clearly say two should have a shot at the national championship. One interesting fix I've come across is to have a four team play-off for the national championship.

2) We're going to lose out on a moderate sum of money (little more than 200k) we would have received for playing in the Rose Bowl. That money could potentially be offset by alumni donations, if our loss of the Rose Bowl is played right. If alumni are convinced that all that stands between us and the Rose Bowl next year is the money to work on the stadium and convince Tedford to stay around, donations will probably come poring in. Perceived persecution can be the key to increased funding (just ask any Hillel on a campus with an anti-Semitism problem), and we are definitely in a position to play the victim card.

3) Tedford. He has said time and time again that he wants work begun on retrofitting the stadium, and it is entirely unclear where that money will come from. That being said, Tedford seems likely to stay for a couple of reasons. First, he has shown an extreme devotion to Cal and the players he has coached, including denying any intention of abandoning Cal to take an NFL offer. Second, he has within his grasp the ability to do even better next year than he did this year, and I can't see him walking away from that. Season ticket sales are way up, Berkeley's success has made recruiting easier, and clearly our trend is upward.

4) All other considerations aside, the Rose Bowl would have been amazing for our football program, and this is a considerable setback: "By ending their Rose Bowl drought, Cal would reap direct financial rewards, boost ticket and merchandise sales and possibly increase its chances of keeping Tedford." Now, not.

5) Fuck Texas

Update: More commentary from previous CalStuff Guest Commentator Ralph on why we missed out on the Rose Bowl and some other repurcussions.
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