Pac-10 to Consider Getting Rid of Round-Robin Scheduling

In a decision that isn’t all that predictable, but certainly disappointing, the Pac-10 will discuss dropping round-robin scheduling in favor of an uneven 8 game conference schedule. The change will move the conference from balanced scheduling, to allow teams to add one more nonconference game, most likely used to add either a home game or a cupcake victory (probably both).The league added the ninth game in 2006, deeming it a logical, balanced, and an easy decision, with hopes that other conferences would do the same thing. Unfortunately, as Ted Miller of ESPN.com reports, no other conference followed suit."When the schedule went from 11 to 12 games, it seemed like the logical thing to do,” said Jim Muldoon, the Pac-10’s associate commissioner for communications.Yet in the era of BCS rankings and opinion polls, the Pac-10 has seen the added conference game become a large hinderance. The conference hasn’t gotten two teams into BCS games since 2002. According to Miller, a straw poll taken among the coaches at the Pac-10 meetings in May, coaches voted 6-4 on changing the schedule back, and a recent poll conducted by the Pac-10 blog had the same results.Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh is one of the coaches in favor of the change. “There’s a reason no other conference plays nine conference games,” Harbaugh said.Add this to the running list of reasons why the BCS is completely broken. When a conference like the Pac-10, which made a completely logical and commended switch to playing every team in their conference feels like they’re at a disadvantage because they’re doing it, there’s something wrong with the system.