Flaws With NCAA 2004's End of Season Bowl Matchups

[ADW]

First off let me start by saying that I've simulated the entire college football season as it actually occured with the dynasty mode in NCAA Football 2004. After a lot of work, I simulated each and every game from the Cal/K-State game in week 1 to the OU/K-State Big 12 championship game in the final week of the regular season. Of course I wasn't able to get the exact scores in every game, but I did simulate the games until I got score that was close to the real life score. This is how my final regular season coaches top 10 looked according to NCAA Football 2004.

1. LSU (12-1)
2. USC (11-1)
3. Michigan (10-2)
4. Texas (10-2)
5. Tennessee (10-2)
6. Oklahoma (12-1)
7. Ohio State (10-2)
8. Kansas State (11-3)
9. Florida State (10-2)
10.Miami (10-2)

Boise State's halfback won the Heisman with a whopping 2,300 yards rushing. As a matter of fact there were 7 2,000 yard rushers, and 98 1,000 yard rushers. That's a few too many in my opinion.

My biggest gripe about the final standings were the bowl matchups, in particular the BCS bowls. The BCS contract states that no conference is allowed to have three teams playing in BCS bowls during one year. With that in mind here are the BCS bowls in my simulated dynasty.

Sugar Bowl
LSU vs USC

Rose Bowl
Michigan vs Oklahoma

Fiesta Bowl
Miami vs Kansas State

Orange Bowl
Florida State vs Texas

That's three teams from the Big 12 playing in BCS bowls. EA Tiburon needs to fix this snafu.

Some of the bowl tie ins are incorrect.

Tangerine Bowl should be Big 12 vs ACC instead of ACC vs At-large.
Ft Worth Bowl should be CUSA vs Big 12 instead of At-large vs At-large.
Motor City Bowl should be MAC vs Big 10 instead of MAC vs At-large.
Houston Bowl should be SEC vs Big 12 instead of CUSA vs At-large.

With all of these At-large bids floating around I had a larger than usual number of MAC teams getting At-large bids. These teams were Marshall, Toledo, and Northern Illinios. Now granted these teams are probably worthy of getting a bowl bid this year, but usually the MAC will only get two bowl bids, the GMAC and Motor City bowls.

[ps2king]

Damn good job no way should the Big 12 have 3 BCS teams. Good find man this needs to be fixed for sure.

[XboxRocks1991]

I went undefeated with TCU and after the Conference Championship week here are my stats:
#4 Coaches
#6 Media
#6 BCS
5.0 Poll Avg.
5.56 Comp Avg.
4.68 Sched Rank
0 losses
0.0 Quality Wins
15.24 Total
Conference USA Champion
Best Coach

I go to the Liberty Bowl!!!!!!!!!!
According to CollegeBCS.com #6 in the BCS Standings automatically qualifies you for a BCS Bowl as an at-large.

After I won the Liberty Bowl:
#2 Coaches Poll
#4 Media Poll
Invitation to Big XII

[kirkdawg]

#6 in the BCS does not necessarily always qualify for a BCS bid. There are 8 slots available, 6 of which must be filled by the champs of the 6 major conferences. This year is a prime example where OU made the title game without winn their conf meaning that KSt gets an automatic berth. This leaves 1 at large slot. If there is a team rated higher than you in the BCS that is neither a conf champ or playing in the title game, they'd get the BCS bid over you.

[Yehhhhhhhh]

Quote:

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Boise State's halfback won the Heisman with a whopping 2,300 yards rushing. As a matter of fact there were 7 2,000 yard rushers, and 98 1,000 yard rushers. That's a few too many in my opinion.

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I have gone through the first year of dynasty mode 5 times (1 played, 4 simmed), and this guy won the heisman 4 out of the 5 times. What did EA do to this guy?!?

[kodiak]

Quote:

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kirkdawg said:
#6 in the BCS does not necessarily always qualify for a BCS bid. There are 8 slots available, 6 of which must be filled by the champs of the 6 major conferences. This year is a prime example where OU made the title game without winn their conf meaning that KSt gets an automatic berth. This leaves 1 at large slot. If there is a team rated higher than you in the BCS that is neither a conf champ or playing in the title game, they'd get the BCS bid over you.

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Sorry but finishing in the top 6 of the BCS does guarantee you a spot in the show if you are from a lesser conference. That's why when TCU was 6th in the BCS for that one week, everyone was wondering if they could stay there. Obviously we found out that answer.

[mazhirui]

Couple of things...it's possible the reason that more MAC schools got at-large bids was because there were not enough bowl eligible teams from the other conferences that were supposed to be there. Since you said you simmed it to match results exactly, I realize that's not the case, but it COULD have happened.

Secondly, this debate has raged before, but I swear that a conference that is NOT PART of the BCS (MAC, MWC, WAC, etc.) is NOT AUTOMATICALLY guaranteed a BCS birth simply by being ranked that high in the BCS. The debate with TCU was that if they stayed that high would they get a bid, because they were deserving, but could get shut out because they're not in a BCS conference. Only if you're in a BCS conference does a top 6 ranking guarantee you anything.

[ADW]

If a team from a non BCS conference is ranked 6th or higher in the final BCS standings they get an automatic at large bid to one of the BCS bowl games. If TCU would've finished 6th in the final BCS rankings one of the two at large bids would have gone to them. That means Ohio State (the second at large BCS team) would've been shut out of the Fiesta Bowl and replaced by TCU.