This image shows what could have been the playoff bracket for the 2009 college football season. It appeared in multiple publications such as Sports Illustrated as well as the book Death to the BCS. The rhetorical strategy with the creation of this simulated bracket was to show the fairness of a college football playoff system as opposed to the current system of selecting two teams to play against eachother in the championship. The bracket system shown in this bracket is described as being the only truly fair way to run college football. The bracket includes the champions from each of the major Division 1 conferences as well as 5 at large bids for teams that were good but came in second place in a conference or teams such as Notre Dame who aren't in a conference. The argument behind this system is that no matter how outmatched a team from a conference such as the SunBelt Conference or Conference USA may be they would still be given a chance to compete for a national championship. Under the current system teams such as Boise State are overlooked because they are from tradiotionally less competitive conferences, even if they go undefeated for an entire season.
Much what keeps the BCS alive today is misleading information put out by the BCS to give themselves credibility that their system is correct. An example of this technique is the fact that BCS executives claim how it would be too difficult to change systems. Simple pictures like this can help disprove all of this information. This simple bracket shows how easy it would have been to create a playoff. This obviously isn't the only piece that would take apart the flawed BCS system, but information such as this will help convince people that the system needs to be overhauled.
This post makes a lot of sense; you did a good job at explaining the rhetoric of your image and how it points out the unfairness in the current playoff system. The one thing I would point out as being slightly flawed is the introduction into your post. It took me a little while to fully understand what the image represented and its relation to your claim, which perhaps it would make more sense if you took the "backdoor approach" to developing your topic: instead of just stating it in the first sentence, begin with a more global statement and narrow the focus down to the image and its rhetorical intents. Of course that's just my opinion. But other than that, you presented how this image is used to criticize the complicated system that BCS uses very well, and provided information regarding the topic as a whole too, which I found very effective in articulating your point and strengthening the analysis of your image.
ReplyDeleteJared, this image is perfect to use. In terms of this specific post, Nick is probably right. If I did not know your topic, I probably would have been confused. Remember, though, that you will be including this picture into a much larger argument. Therefore, you won't ultimately be as concerned about introducing it as you will be about transitioning to this evidence from your previous evidence. Make sure that you frame your presentation as part of an argument in your final paper. At times, you do this in this post. It will have to be clearer in your paper.
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