Did the BCS Get It Right?

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Filed on December 3rd, 2007 in Featured, NCAA Football ⋅ ⋅

Did the BCS get things right this year by matching up LSU and Ohio State for the National Championship? Well, I guess they didn’t get it wrong. In a year where there were many combinations of games that would have been acceptable to me for the national championship, I think they came up with the game that pleases the most people.

There was only one undefeated team – Hawai’i, and they weren’t going to get the support of the computers because of their anemic schedule (which isn’t there fault). Of the one loss teams, you have Ohio State and Kansas. Kansas made the terrible error of losing too late. Had they finished the year with one loss and lost in September, they’d be playing in the title game. Unfortunately, the awful system that we have now kills you if you lose too late (unless you’re in the SEC). So of these three teams, only Ohio State has a legitimate (in the eyes of the BCS) argument to play for the title. They’re in.

Of the two loss teams, you have LSU, USC, Missouri, Arizona State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, BYU and Boise State. For the same reasons that Hawai’i isn’t playing for the title, you can cross off BYU and Boise State. Then you have Georgia and Missouri who both lost their conferences. Voters obviously didn’t want them to play for the title. Arizona State lost the Pac-10 by a tie-breaker (technically, so did Georgia in the SEC), but more importantly, lost their second-to-last game of the year to a higher ranked USC.

LSU lost two games in triple-overtime. They also have four wins by seven points or less (all of which they were losing in the fourth quarter) against pretty mediocre teams (Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee). And before the entire southeast of the country e-mails me, remember that Alabama lost to Louisiana-Monroe, Tennessee got thumped by Cal, Auburn lost to South Florida and Mississippi State at home, and Florida has three losses with perhaps more talent than anyone in the country (and no defense). I don’t consider those good wins for LSU, they were simply avoiding terrible losses. So they are a two-loss team that could easily have finished 6-6. Not what I look for in a national champion.

Then there’s USC. Their two losses were to Oregon – no shame there, and Stanford – unforgivable. Since those two losses, however, USC has dominated. They have won four in a row, including at then #6 Arizona State. They may be playing the best in the nation right now, but it’s hard to have a national champion that lost as a 41-point favorite.

Next up is Oklahoma. They also have a case for playing better than anyone right now. Their two losses were at Colorado by three (bad loss) and at Texas Tech by seven (not as bad). They’ve beaten Texas and Missouri (twice) on their way to winning the Big 12. The loss to Colorado is tough, but their resume is as good as anyone’s.

Missouri — they lost twice to Oklahoma. It’s pretty hard to justify them over the Sooners based on this. They had their shot to play for the title and they lost it on the field. I’m okay with that. They should have, however, made it to a BCS game over Kansas. They both had one loss in the regular season, and Missouri beat them head-to-head. Kansas likely would be a two loss team now also if they had to play Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game. No Missouri — no problem here.

West Virginia lost their last game of the year as a four touchdown favorite. Not only is this loss indefensible, but the timing of it assures them of no title game.

Virginia Tech has two losses, but one of them was a 41-point blowout loss to LSU. Pretty hard to justify putting them ahead of LSU for the title game.

Arizona State has two losses, but lost the two biggest games of the year. A win against either Oregon or USC might put the Sun Devils in the title game, but they lost it on the field. They should have made it to a BCS game, though, ahead of Illinois.

I mentioned Georgia earlier as a team that couldn’t win it’s conference, and I stand by that. They had a chance to play LSU in the SEC title game, but lost to Tennessee. Simple as that. If you can’t win your conference, you can’t win the country. There may be situations where this isn’t true, but generally speaking, I think that’s a pretty good guideline.

So it ended up LSU vs. Ohio State. In a year where nobody is “the best team in the country” or at least nobody is making a case for it, this matchup to me is the two most deserving teams. I don’t think LSU is as good as USC or Oklahoma. I think they’d lose big to both, but when comparing the resumes, I give the edge to LSU.

I think the BCS is a waste and a joke, but I think the system put the two most deserving teams in the title game.

One side note… When I say that the BCS put the two teams in, all I am really saying is that the voters voted for the two teams they thought should play. How LSU jumped from #7 to #2 is beyond anyone. The computers have Virginia Tech as the number one team in the country. They have LSU number two. If anyone says the computers spit out LSU vs. Ohio State, they’re wrong. The voters gave you Ohio State vs. LSU. If the voters had kept Georgia and Virginia Tech ahead of LSU (where they were a week ago), you might have a different title game. Somehow LSU’s seven point win over Tennessee is that much more impressive than Virginia Tech’s 14-point win over Boston College. So much that LSU leap-frogged Va. Tech in the rankings, vaulting them right into the title game. It’s not all about the computers. The voters decided that they wanted LSU and Ohio State, and that’s exactly what we’re getting.

The system worked to the extent that the two most deserving teams are playing for the title, but the human voting is what made this game happen. That the system should have given us a different game is proof enough that the system sucks. It’s time for a playoff. Let’s make it happen.

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