In the past, if one of the Rose Bowl's traditional opponents, the Pacific 10 Conference and Big Ten champions, was selected for the national championship game, officials could take the conference's second-place team....Starting with the 2011 game, the Rose Bowl must fill the empty slot with a non-BCS team if that team is ranked No. 12 or higher....But once the Rose Bowl takes one non-BCS team, it has fulfilled its obligation and can revert to the old rules until the current contract expires in 2014.
I believe this is because of the Rose Bowl avoidance of them in the past (i.e., the Rose Bowl is the only major without a non-BCS to play there) so in order for the Rose Bowl to continue to be a part of the BCS it needed to agree to this. So for purposes of this year if Oregon or MSU head off to the Championship game Boise or TCU or Utah will take their spot.
2 comments:
No kidding...interesting. I understand it now. The Rose is the only of the BCS bowls with two conference tie-ins. Under the selection rules:
1. The top 2 teams are assigned to the Championship Game.
2. Then the champs of the BCS conferences are assigned to their "host" games (only the Big East has no tie-in).
3. Then the Bowl Games that lost teams to the title game get to pick.
4. Finally, the remaining teams (which could be as many as 4) are selected to the other open slots.
Since the Rose has an open spot only if the Big 10 or Pac 10 (or both) champs are #1 or #2, the Rose will always get to fill its slots ahead of the other bowls - and the assumption is that the Rose would take a BCS conference team over a Boise State or TCU (a good assumption, as MJ will remind all of us about the relatively weak ratings of BCS bowls featuring non-BCS schools). So the only way to level the playing field is to force a non-BCS school to the Rose every so often.
It's a fair rule. I'd rather it didn't exist because I don't care for the BCS at all and would rather see Big10/Pac10 no matter what. But in light of the current scheme, it's fair.
I agree with Hitman... would rather see big10/pac10, but it's a fair rule given that the other bowls are always having to take non-AutoQualifying teams.
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