For years and years, the SEC has proudly and indignantly proclaimed that they are head and shoulders above the rest of the college football world.
And for the last 13 years or so, the BCS, to their credit, kept the SEC at bay and in competition with the rest of the college football world.
But no longer.
For the first time that any one can dig up (if you find an older example I would sincerely love to see it), a major sporting championship will take place between two teams from the same section of the same bracket.
How could this happen? The problem is that college football does not have a playoff system, leaving us all to assume that the “regular season” is simply one long playoff tree, ever unfolding as the wins and losses pile on. There is no setting for elimination, merely one for qualification, which I suppose is how one becomes eliminated, if they fail to qualify.
So how exactly does a team qualify?
That is a different question to different people. I know many resident “experts” who can spout off the BCS rules and regulations for selecting teams, yet there are so many ways a team can get in or be left out based on several season shattering clauses that the system has somehow created a way to do what it wants or what it needs, yet rarely combining the two.
Not convinced? Think the BCS is a great system that consistently puts together respectable Bowl games? Fine, explain to me and the rest of those with raised eyebrows how exactly #7 Boise State was left out of a BCS bowl game, chosen behind at-large teams #13 Michigan and #11 Virginia Tech. (Don’t waste your time, no one can. The answer is that they were screwed, and we all know it).
The real answer is fairly simple. It really comes down to this: You have to walk a thin line. You have to be the cool kid in school with all the right friends and all the right toys, the one who gets in to enough trouble to look dangerous, but not too much to appear criminal. You have to shake hands and pucker up to the right people, and praise yourself in front of the lesser crowds. You have to appear confident, but rarely arrogant. And when you are nominated for class president, whether you are better qualified than others or not, you must win that election.
In essence, the BCS has just elected LSU and Alabama winners of a high school popularity contest. And that, believe it or not, is all that you need to know about the BCS.
There really is no other explanation for it.
In addition, the BCS has gone a step further and incorporated yet another infuriating and complex ingredient to the mix that is the ever-endless recipe for earning an invitation to their party.
You see, the problem is that the last time they tried to do things legitimately, it blew up in their faces.
In 2006, #2 Michigan was outlasted by three measly points against #1 Ohio State in the final game of the regular season, and was eventually pushed out of the way by Florida, as many human pollsters saw the Wolverines defeat correctly as a loss, and not the “near-win” many fans wanted to see it as.
Ohio State ended up being destroyed by Florida in the title game, leading to our disaster this year. More than likely this game resulted in helping to persuade voters this season.
How else do you explain SEC runner-up Alabama retaining the #2 BCS spot after #3 Oklahoma State had finished wiping the turf with #10 Oklahoma to win the Big-12 championship? So far there is not any acceptable reasoning being offered from anyone in a position to make such a choice, and I do not expect to see any coming our way.
By ranking SEC At-large Alabama ahead of Big-12 conference champion Oklahoma State, the BCS has essentially stated that conference championships do not matter. Being in the same division of the same conference, does not matter. Being technically the third best team in your conference, does not matter.
Yes, Oklahoma State did lose in overtime to listless Iowa State, in a classic “trap-game” no less. The Cowboys were clearly looking ahead to their impending battle with the Sooners, and were caught coasting by an unexpectedly capable Cyclones squad.
And yet the following week, the BCS somehow and inexplicably let the idle #5 Cowboys leapfrog #4 Stanford, following the Cardinal’s 28-14 defeat of then #23 Notre Dame no less. This seemed to set the table for a matchup between the Cowboys, one of the nation’s best offensive teams, against the Tigers, one of the nation’s best defensive teams. It was a match made in BCS heaven, sure to go down in title game lore.
There are some people, experts even, who figured the Cowboys to be a fraud, and that the title game would be a joke, with LSU cruising to victory. The SEC would have you believe that the football gods saw this grave injustice about to occur, waived their hands, and just like that, the Cowboys title hopes were dashed.
Yet it was the BCS and their supposed “system” that beat the Cowboys, not a real team on a real field with real plays, but in a computer program that uses human opinions to create a machine’s conclusion.
The fact is that the BCS would rather see a rematch of BAMA-LSU than pin their revenue and ratings hopes and dreams on whatever LSU-OKST might bring, even though Alabama already lost to LSU in overtime on November 12th.
The problem with all of this is that OKST-LSU has as much potential to go just as well or as poorly as BAMA-LSU-II does, and either could be the 2005 Rose Bowl or the 2004 Orange Bowl or somewhere in between, no one knows for sure, that’s the whole point, yet the folks backing the BCS claim that the Cowboys would not be a “toss-up” opponent quite like the ‘Tide are.
The BCS is essentially stacking the deck. They are guaranteeing the SEC a sixth straight national title, something no conference has ever done, and they are also refusing to get any where near an undisputed champion, as they have left the Cowboys out in the cold, with no real explanation as to why or how it was done.
And what if LSU or Alabama routs the other, can we get a make up game between the winner and Oklahoma State?
Nope, the BCS does not do make-ups. Anyone who was closely following the 2001 Oregon Ducks understands that.
At the end of the day, LSU-BAMA-II is what we are stuck with. Would LSU-OKST have given us an undisputed champion? In this man’s opinion, yes. LSU was undeniably the best team by the end of the regular season, as they had already defeated Alabama, considered by many to be second best, or perhaps even the best team in the nation. Therefore, if the Cowboys beat the Tigers, they would have reached the BCS summit, and we would have to agree with it, even if we did not like it.
For most of us in most years, the BCS might as well be one of the all time greatest “who-dunnit” mysteries, ranking right up there with the JFK conspiracy.
Here is what we know: Oklahoma State was left out of the party, the one team that could have made sense of the whole BCS mess, for the 2011-2012 season at least.
What we don’t know is, why?
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