Pete Carroll insists he doesn't understand how the BCS system works. He understands enough to know he doesn't like it one bit.
"I think it stinks. I don't think it's the way it should be," Carroll said concerning how college football crowns its champion. "But all we can do is keep talking about it."
Carroll has expressed his displeasure over the years with the system, but things hit a new high for him over the weekend when the Trojans (7-1, 5-1 Pac-10) dropped from fifth to seventh in the BCS standings after they blanked Washington 56-0 for their third shutout in four games.
That is something to behold. We all knew the schedule would come back to bite USC but that is pretty tough to swallow. Win 56-0 and drop from 5 to 7?
What is the criteria of the process? Is it to pick the team that has the best season, that has the season that you like the most and feel best about voting for? Or is it the best team at the end of the year, the team that would win a playoff system if you did have it?" he said.
Asked if a team can properly be judged by the conference it plays in, Carroll replied: "I think you have to do the best you can. Can you properly? I don't know. Who can properly figure this thing out? It's so subjective, I don't know how you figure it out. That's why even presidential candidates want to see playoffs. Everybody wants to see 'em. Then we don't talk like this."
Carroll referred to Democrat Barack Obama's remarks of Monday night, when he said if there was one thing he could change in sports if given the opportunity, it would be for college football to pick a champion with a playoff system. The BCS chooses two teams to play for the title at season's end based on polls and computer rankings.
"I don't know how the computer thing works," Carroll said. "I don't get that part of it. I don't know how the computer knows how good another team is. I don't understand that. I don't know how they can evaluate who you're playing and stuff and all that.
"We should end our season with a championship game and a big party afterward. I don't have that nailed. The reason is you still are going to have to go to some type of an evaluation process to get to the final teams that would be part of the final tournament," he said.
Carroll suggested eight, as many before him have.
"You're still going to have some upset teams," he said. "But I think in taking eight teams, you're most likely not going to leave a team out of there that would win the whole thing. Could be. It could happen. So you're getting closer to it. Just three weeks later you can figure it out. Three games later, you can figure it out."
Carroll is also perplexed regarding who's in charge.
"The really interesting thing is, who is making these decisions? You guys can't even talk to the people that are calling the shots," he said. "You can talk to people that have opinions about it, who say they know somebody that might have a play in it, but we don't even know who this is. It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz -- somebody behind that screen there, but we don't know who it is.
"We're not playing to win the BCS. We're playing to win our conference," he said.
Speaking of Obama, he received Carroll's vote.
"[I] was excited about it, fired up for it," Carroll said.
Maybe this Obama guy won't be so bad after all.
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