Bull Championshit
The fact that college football’s corporate-sponsored, computer-generated Bowl Championship Series is devoid of any redeeming competitive value hasn’t been a secret to anybody since the format’s inception ten years ago.
Each year, there are multiple mind-numbing controversies about which two teams should ultimately square off in the title game, and while that’s burdensome enough, it’s really just a surface irritant.
The real burr up our crawl is the fact that a system designed to settle things on the field does anything but … arbitrarily selecting two teams out of as many as five or six that have legitimate claims to the throne.
Or claims to the game that will decide who sits on the throne.
Take this sheer lunacy from this morning’s Boston Globe sports page:
Unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Alabama faces once-beaten and sizzling hot Florida in the SEC title game in Atlanta Saturday. The winner will be in the BCS title game.
Oklahoma will play in the Big 12 title game against Missouri because the BCS computers tell us the Sooners are the highest-ranked Big 12 team – the final tiebreaker to decide the South Division deadlock among Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech, each of whom went 11-1 and whose sole losses came against each other. Texas beat Oklahoma, Texas Tech beat Texas, and Oklahoma beat Texas Tech.
If Oklahoma wins the Big 12 championship game Saturday in Kansas City, Mo., it almost certainly will be in the BCS title game.
However if Missouri pulls off the upset, then Texas, No. 3 in the latest BCS standings, will move into the national title game against the Alabama/Florida winner.
However, with the BCS, nothing is 100 percent certain. What would happen if Florida beats Alabama on a last-second field goal and ascends to No. 1 and the computers drop the Crimson Tide from first to second in the final BCS standings?
An SEC rematch in Miami?
What would happen if Florida beats Alabama in a dull game lacking offense, and the pollsters and computers move up the No. 2 and No. 3 teams in Oklahoma and Texas, rather than No. 4 Florida?
An Oklahoma vs. Texas rematch in Miami?
The sticking point right now is the Texas-Oklahoma question. The Longhorns beat the Sooners by 10 points on a neutral site in October and yet are behind them in the BCS standings, which gave OU its spot in the Big 12 championship game.
Fair or not, there is precedent. In the 2000 season, Miami beat Florida State during the regular season, but the Hurricanes found themselves behind the Seminoles in the BCS standings when it came time to determine the national title game.
Yeah … not only do you feel dumber having read all of that, you actually are dumber.
Like we said last year … pick the top eight teams and play ‘em off … you’ll never completely escape controversy, but at least the national championship game wouldn’t be some computer-generated farce.
Anyway, as it stands now we would seed the teams as follows …
#1 Alabama v. #8 Texas Tech
#4 Texas v. #5 Southern Cal
#3 Oklahoma v. #6 Penn State
#2 Florida v. #7 Utah
And yes, you can argue “at the fringes” all day long.
You can vigorously debate the merits of say, choosing Penn State over Boise State, Texas Tech over Ball State (yup, they’re 12-0, people) or Ohio State over Utah … but you can’t argue that a team emerging victorious from the playoff we outlined above wouldn’t be the undisputed national champion.
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