Pac-12 Logic: Why Two Divisions and Ending the Annual So-Cal Rivalry Can Help Cal Reach the BCS

Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott has the final say on the upcoming divisional split.

Here's a Devil's Advocate argument for Cal fans.

Many of you are vehemently against a split that would put the Bay Area schools in the same division with the Washington and Oregon schools because it would take a few games against the L.A. schools off the schedule in certain years. In other words, the new Pac-12 proposal to bisect the conference below Palo Alto would look like this:

NORTH DIVISION: Cal, Stanford, Washington, Washington St., Oregon, Oregon St.
SOUTH DIVISION: Arizona, Arizona St., UCLA, USC, Utah, Colorado

In such an arrangement, Cal would play the five teams in the North Division, then play four in the South on a rotating basis.

What that means is that the annual two games against in-state rivals USC and UCLA, a staple of Cal Football schedules for almost a century, would come to an end, since certain years would arise when the rotation would not include the Southern California schools.

And the Cal athletic department is on the record as stating they are fully against it.

While I totally understand the logic behind such reservations as far as the L.A. media market, the superior gate receipts because of the proximity of the schools, and recruiting-rich So-Cal, I think from a competitive standpoint, such a format could help Cal ON the field as far as earning its first Rose Bowl berth since 1959.

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS

In 2004, Cal went 10-1 and Pittsburgh went 8-3. Guess which team received an invitation to play on New Year's Day?

In every regular season this decade (2000-09), no Pac-10 team has ever made a BCS bowl without winning 10 regular season games.

Let's compare that stat to the other BCS conferences whose champions are automatic qualifiers (AQs):

BCS Bowls for teams that won 9 reg. season games or less, 2000-09:
Big Ten: 4 (Purdue '00, Michigan '04, Ohio St. '05, Illinois '07)
ACC: 3 (Florida St. '02, Florida St. '05, Virginia Tech '08)
SEC: 2 (LSU '01, Florida '01)
Indep: 2 (Notre Dame '00, Notre Dame '05)
Big East: 1 (Pittsburgh '05)
Big 12: 0
Pac-10: 0

So what contributes to a team making the BCS with only nine or less regular season wins? Many things:
1. Weak conference => underwhelming record still leads to automatic bid due to winning conf. champ game (Pittsburgh '05, Florida St. '05)
2. Traditional conference tie-in to bowl (Illinois '07)
3. Strength of schedule and/or media bias (Notre Dame '00, '05)


WHAT'S YOUR POINT?

Florida State could have gone 6-6 in 2005 and still have printed these shirts on their way to the Orange Bowl.

My point? Well, I want to look at #1. One of the reasons why college football purists hate the conference championship two-division format is that it de-values the regular season. They are absolutely correct. But is that such a bad thing?

Let's look at Florida State's 2005 season. They went a pedestrian 7-4 overall, and 5-3 in ACC play.

In the Pac-10, those numbers are usually good enough for a third-tier bowl. For example, if you look at conference records, Tedford went a comparable 5-3 in 2003 and 6-3 in 2008. And yet, due to the round-robin format:

2003: 5-3 (T3rd) => Insight Bowl
2008: 6-3 (4th) => Emerald Bowl

But guess what? FSU ended their season in the Orange Bowl, and there was nothing the voters or computers or whiny Big 12 coaches (ahem) could do about it. Why?

The Great Equalizer, a.k.a., the ACC Conference Championship Game.

Because 5-3 was good enough to win the Atlantic Division, they faced off against the Coastal Division winner, Virginia Tech (10-1, 7-1) in the ACC Championship Game.

And the Seminoles pulled off the fluke upset, becoming Orange Bowl-bound.

In addition, I think it's worth nothing that theoretically, FSU's three non-conference games became virtually IRRELEVANT. Sure, going 3-0 in those games would've gotten them into the at-large discussion had they lost to Va. Tech, but realistically, they could've gone 0-3 in non-conference and still would have a BCS life preserver in the form of a conference title game.

In other words, FSU could have had a 5-6 regular season record heading into the ACC title game in 2005, and would have still been ONE GAME AWAY from the BCS.

Honestly, considering the fact that we haven't been back to the Rose Bowl in 51 years and counting, would YOU complain if we backed into the BCS in a similar fashion?

Absolutely not. If the national title game is out the window, then playing in Pasadena on New Year's Day with a 6-6 record is the same as playing in Pasadena on New Year's Day at 12-1.

That's why I welcome the 12-team conference, two-division format.

While I would love to preserve traditional in-state rivalries, would it be such a bad thing if it meant an easier road to the conference title game, i.e., weaker division rivals?

Oregon is formidable NOW, but over the past century, we have historically had more success against them (39-31-2) than USC (30-62-5) or UCLA (31-49-1). Moreover, it still remains to be seen if Chip Kelly can build a long-lasting monster, or if his blur offense is just a fad.

While USC and UCLA might be suffering a deficit at head coach now, they will always be a force to be reckoned with because of the schools' location, which leads to its natural ability to recruit players, which in turn continually fosters the potential to attract a big-time coach in the future once Rick Neuheisel and Lane Kiffin are eventually shown the door.

Can we say the same thing about the Ducks? They've got Nike money and facilities, but they're still a relatively new power to the college football world. It was only 15 years ago when Rich Brooks took the Ducks to the Rose Bowl and it was seen as more of the exception than the norm.

Besides, if the money lost from future So-Cal gate receipts is the main issue behind the angst, maybe the Bay Area schools can negotiate a Texas/Big XII-style deal where we give up playing both So-Cal schools every year in exchange for a bigger piece of the TV contract pie.


CONCLUSION

With the new divisional format, maybe Cal fans won't have to wait another 51 years to see one of these.

With today's Pac-10 round-robin nine-game conference schedule, there are only two roads to making the Rose Bowl or any BCS Bowl:

1. Win the conference outright or by tiebreaker
2. Win 10 games and put it in the hands of the voters (We saw how that went in 2004.)

I don't know about you, but I hate how our Rose Bowl hopes are usually over by mid-November year after year.

Under a two-division format, we would be in the hunt more often than not, especially if our division rivals have off-years.

This way, the Pac-10 positions themselves in the most advantageous manner possible. If a 7-5 Cal upsets a 12-0 USC in the Pac-10 title game, then not only does Cal get the automatic BCS bid, it would be absolutely tough for the voters to deny a 12-1 USC an at-large bid.

Every conference dreams of having 2 teams sharing BCS money every year. Well, in the situation above, The Pac-10 wins hands down.

If the media and the voters are going to deliberately screw us every year as far as lack of coverage, then as cynical as this sounds, I think we need to screw them right back by taking advantage of the system.

I guess that's why I don't feel as entrenched in the thought of keeping all three in-state rivalries intact on an annual basis.

Would a Rose Bowl really be that bad of a scenario for Cal Football?