A Playoff System: A Solution to the BCS

Anyone that follows college football knows that the current BCS system is one of the most controversial and ineffective postseasons in any sport. Every other major sport whether it's pro or college in the U.S. ends its season with a playoff of some sort to decide it's champion. There are different types of playoff systems, whether they are 7-game series or single elimination. The BCS is the only system that chooses its championship game on a ranking system that takes into account strength of schedule and quality of wins. Computer rankings, the media, and coaches' polls are all taken into account when determing BCS standings. This system has failed continuously and fails to clearly define a true champion. First I will name some previous instances.

1.) We will look at this year. As of Week 13, when I wrote this blog, the top 5 looked like this: Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, and USC. Oklahoma will play Oklahoma State this week and is favored to win to send them to the Big 12 Championship Game against Missouri. Next week it is very likely that Oklahoma will jump Texas even though last month Texas beat Oklahoma by ten points on a neutral field and both only have one loss, both to top 5 teams when they played them. Texas has a very good reason to be upset. Also Texas Tech will only end up with one loss, to Oklahoma. Although it was by a very large margin, they beat #2 Texas. We know that one of the teams in the big game will be the SEC Champion, either #1 Alabama or #4 Florida. This is not argued over, but Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and USC (whos only loss came at #17 Oregon State) all have reasons to complain. Even #6 Utah who is undefeated has a voice to say that they should have a chance to see what they can do.

2.) In 2004, three teams finished the year undefeated and at the top of the charts. USC, Oklahoma, and Auburn all finished with a record of 12-0. USC and Oklahoma was chosen to play in the title game, and USC dominated Oklahoma under the offense of Leinart and Bush. Auburn beat 4 ranked teams throughout the year including 3 in the top 10. This is not taking anything away from USC and Oklahoma but should a team that beats the 4,5,8, and 15 teams in the country not have a chance to play for the title?

3.) In 2003, the #1 team in the Associated Press was USC. Who was chosen for the title game? LSU and Oklahoma. The result was a shared national champion between LSU and USC. A SHARED NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP? In one of the biggest sports in America? This should never happen.

I believe that a playoff system is needed and I believe my proposal is one that would work, and would have very few if any criticisms. Lets go point by point.

1. The BCS Rankings stay as they are. However, there are no preseason rankings which give pre-determined rankings to teams on how they did last year and how they are predicted to do. Rankings will start after week 4. The coaches and media will still have their rankings which will be accounted for.

2. It will be a 16 team playoff system with the champions of the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac 10 guaranteed automatic berths. This means that the Big Ten and Pac 10 will institute a championship game to be held at the end of the season. Since the playoff system will result in a total of 4 extra weeks, the regular season will be shortened. Each team will play three non-conference games at the beginning of the season, followed by eight conference games followed by the conference championship. The regular season would begin the first weekend of September and finish the last week of November. The 4 big conference champions will have automatic bids, and the other 12 highest ranking teams at the end of the season will also make the playoffs. They will be seeded they way they are ranked at the end of the year with 1 playing 16 and so on. The higher ranked team gets home field advantage. Round 1 will be the first week of December. Then one week will be skipped in respect of finals for the student athletes. Round 2 will be third week of december, round 3 in last week of december, and championship game help first week of January like it is now.
3. The 16 team system makes it possible for mid-major teams to make the playoffs if they have a good enough record even if they did not have the chance to play any big school. This system allows for upsets which everyone loves and underdog stories. It gives a clear cut champion that no one can argue with. People will still argue about that #17 team that didn't make it, but that happens in every sport and people will come to live with the fact that you have to be top 16 or you are not going to the playoffs. This system also allows for many more amazing games between top teams that actually mean something. You could see 2 SEC powerhouses playing against each other which you would not see in a bowl game. For instance if this was in place this year, the second round could look something like Alabama vs. Penn St., Utah vs. Florida, Oklahoma vs. USC, and Texas Tech vs. Texas. You cannot tell me this would not get better tv ratings than the bowl games.
I think my system works, if you have any thoughts, please let me hear them.

Linkin Park. My Favorite. Yours?

Linkin Park began in 1996 in Agoura Hills, California. Originally the band, at first called Xero, consisted of three high school friends (Mike Schinoda, Brad Nelson, and Rob Bourdon). After graduating high school, the band became a more serious venture and the three friends recruited Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Mark Wakefield to join Xero. After at first failing to land a record deal, Wakefield left the band in search of other projects. Wakefield was the vocalist at the time. Xero soon found Chester Bennington to replace Wakefield. Bennington was such an easy choice for a replacement because of his very unique singing style. In 1999, the band changed their name from Xero, to Hybrid Theory. As the band began creating new material they again changed their name to Linkin Park, in reference to Santa Monica's Lincoln Park. Linkin Park signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records in 1999 and released their first album, Hybrid Theory on October 24, 2000.
Hybrid Theory sold 4.8 million copies in its debut year, and was the best-selling album of 2001. This is a very rare feat for a band's breakthrough album. This album consisted of singles such as "Crawling," and "One Step Closer." They were nominated for three grammys including best new artist, best rock album, and best rock performance for "Crawling."

This album is full of huge hits and is just an awesome album to listen to. In my opinion, there is not one song on this c.d. that i would skip over to go to a different song. They are all awesome in their own respect.
Soon Linkin Park began taking part in huge music festivals including Ozzfest and the Family Values Tour. They also formed their own tour, Projekt Revolution, and within a year, performed 320 concerts.
On March 25, 2003 Linkin Park released their new album, Meteora. It immediately went to #1 in the U.S. and U.K., and #2 in Australia. This album sold 800,000 copies in its first week. This album had huge singles such as Somewhere I Belong, Breaking the Habit, Faint, and Numb. Meteora is the shortest of Linkin Park's albums but it is also considered their heaviest. An interesting fact about Meteora is that it had 5 consecutive singles to reach number 1 on Billboard's modern rock tracks, an accomplishment unmatched by any artist in the history of Billboard.

On May 15, 2007, Linkin Park released their newest album, Minutes to Midnight, which sold 600,000 copies in its first week. This album had many huge hits in the mainstream, including What I've Done, Shadow of the Day, Given Up, Bleed It Out, and Leave Out All the Rest.

A big trait of Linkin Park is their use of two vocalists. Chester Bennington does more of the hard rock screaming vocals while Mike Shinoda does more of the rapping. In "Heavy Metals All-Time Top 100 Vocalists," they rank 46 and 72 respectively.

Alot of people do not realize how good Linkin Park's older music is. They have become very popular with their songs always on the radio and in movies, but their old music is just as good as their new music. I believe that if anyone likes rock music whatsoever that Linkin Park would soon become one of their favorites. They have done many different types of songs whether it is instrumentals, more rap oriented, alternative, or nu metal.

Bailout or Depression?

The week of November 17, 2008, has been a big one in the financial industry. The main issue: the bailout of the automotive industry. It is without a doubt one of the quintessential decisions in the economic sector in recent history. The Congress has already approved a $700 billion bailout bill to loan money to financial institutions in hopes of reversing the downward course the U.S. economy has been heading in for years now. There is no doubt that the U.S. economy is n a recession and without immediate changes to the way the system is run will end up in a depression.

When the bailout bill was first passed, financial institutinos such as AIG, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the first ones to receive money in assurance that they would stay afloat. This was an easy choice to make because these banks and lending giants controlled many peoples' finances and bankruptcy would be disastrous. The lending of money to these financial giants went without much debate once the bill had been passed. However there is a much heated debate in Washington right now about whether to loan $25 billion to the big three automakers to hold them over for two years until their new plans and car designs can be put into effect. The last two days have been full of lobbying and speeches by not only the CEOs of the big three but by the United Auto Workers as well. Many members of Congress, mostly republicans but also some democrats, believe that it would be better to let the big three file for bankruptcy to get rid of the credit debt they have accumulated and start anew with new ideas and policies.

First we need to understand why the big three is in such dire circumstances. It is a combination of things really: high labor costs, credit difficulties, poor car development, no policy changes as economy changed, and the economic situation as a whole. It is understandable that many politicians do not want to give out money to businesses that have continually stayed the course of decline and were ignorant in their policies. However, could you not say that AIG and the Lehman Brothers did the same thing? It comes down to this. If the big three went bankrupt it would be a fatal hit to the economy. Nearly 2 million jobs are either directly or indirectly connected to the auto industry. If the auto-industry goes under, the U.S. will lose a projected tax revenue of $100 billion over the next few years. Hundreds of thousands of more citizens will be without healthcare. And if Obama's plan of a type of universal healthcare is put into place, which is expected, taxes will go up because of the extreme amount of un-insured citizens. These congressman would rather have these businesses declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy than get bailed out. Chapter 11 is different from Chapter 7 because they are able to rid themselves of the debt they are in while still performing operations. However, many analysts believe that filing Chapter 11 would lead to having to file Chapter 7 in the future because of the uncertainty of buying from a bankrupt company and not being able to fully rebound.

So we went over what would happen if the loan was not approved. What is the big three's plan for the money they could possibly be receiving? They are asking for 25 billion dollars to hold them over for the next two years. By then, new car concepts and fuel-efficient models will be on the market and cost-saving will take place as was agreed upon in labor agreements with the UAW. The UAW will then begin to pay for pensions of retirees saving money for the auto companies. The big three believe that if they can hold out until 2009, pent up demand and savings from these labor agreements could once again skyrocket the auto industry in the U.S.

I highly doubt this loan will be approved any time in 2008. This is a considerable time to wait and GM might not be able to hold out that long, but I believe that once Obama is in office, the appropriate loans will be agreed upon. The fact is the bailout package has $60 billion unspent and $350 billion held on to until Obama takes office. $25 billion doesn't seem like so much when it could make or break millions of jobs and the economy.

Prologue to the Blog

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. I guess you could say I am behind on the whole blogging trend. My name is DJ and if you know me personally you know that I will argue every topic that comes up. Anything from politics, to sports, to current events, is fair game for an good old-fashioned argument. Warning to all: I will never concede an argument so if you don't end it, it could go all night.
I hope you enjoy reading my blog. I am positive that you will not agree with all of my arguments possibly none of them, but I will try my hardest to explain why I feel the way I do about each topic. I will tell you right now that I am a liberal in most senses of the word and you will be able to see this in almost all of my political blogs. There are topics I know more about than others, so most of my blogs will consist of these topics.
I guess this concludes the introduction to my blog. I hope it is entertaining and informative. And I hope you keep on reading.