everything that's on my mind

BCS has one letter too many

I’ve not posted anything recently as I’ve been spending what little free time I’ve had attempting to narrow down my favorite music of the year for a series of posts I’m going to begin (hopefully) later this week.

But since I haven’t complained about the BCS yet this year, I figure I need to get that out of the way.

“Alabama will crush Texas.”

That’s what I heard on the radio this morning. Of course, this was from a guy who picked Pitt to easily beat Cincinnati this past weekend. He was wrong.

However, this seems to be the prevailing sentiment out there over the last 36 hours or so: Alabama will run Texas off the field. I heard of one poll this morning that had 80% picking Alabama. It seems largely to be influenced by what happened Saturday night. Alabama essentially ran Florida off the field, and Texas was extremely fortunate to pull out a win over Nebraska.

If you base your feelings on this past weekend’s games, it seems obvious. I’ve only seen Texas play two games this year, and they struggled somewhat against both Texas A&M and Nebraska. Based on those games, Texas doesn’t look like one of the two best teams in the country. Of course, if I’d only seen Alabama squeak by Tennessee and Auburn, I might not be as impressed with them, either.

Here’s the problem with the BCS (and this is not news, of course): a group of people decide which two teams will be allowed to play in a single game to decide the national champion. (I don’t even have time to go into the fact that losing early in the season is usually far less damaging to your ranking than losing late, which makes no sense.) Meanwhile, as the pollsters and computers are deciding which two teams are the most worthy, there are always at least a couple of others that seem like they might belong, too. This year, losing a game is not even a factor at all as there are five – FIVE! – undefeated teams. And at least one of them might be better than Texas. They’ve all done what they’re supposed to do to be considered the best. They’ve won all of their games including beating some quality opponents. But at season end, two are deemed most deserving and get a chance to compete for the (mythical, I still say) national championship. The others are left to play in meaningless bowl games.

What other sport has a one-game playoff? The NCAA basketball tournament invites 65 teams. Granted, basketball is a different kind of sport and there are far fewer schools with football, so 65 is clearly overkill for a football playoff. But surely we could do better than two. All other sports that I can think of have a multi-round tournament that decides who is the champion. Even other divisions of college football have a playoff. But not Division I college football. They continue to refuse to join the rest of the sporting world and crown an undisputed champion.

Mike Lupica, who I almost always find irritating, said last week that the reason Utah beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl last year was because they got to play in the game. Utah finished 13-0 and beat one of the top 3 teams in the country in a bowl game. Florida finished with 1 loss and a national championship. Could Utah have beaten Florida or Oklahoma? Perhaps, considering they beat a comparable team in Alabama, but we’ll never know. Just like we won’t know how TCU, Cincinnati or Boise State would have done against Alabama or Texas.

Another BCS injustice – as I noticed last night and have already seen pointed out by several people today – is that they placed TCU and Boise State in the same bowl game. They don’t even get to play the so-called big boys from a BCS conference and prove they belong. They instead play each other where a win will be impressive (beating another undefeated team) but might not carry the weight of wins in previous years over BCS teams by Boise (over Oklahoma) and Utah.

And could someone tell me what other sport in the world takes a month off between the regular season and the playoff?? That is one of the reasons I contend that you can’t really know what is going to happen between Alabama and Texas. It’s a month away. A lot can happen in that time. Players could be injured in practice. Players, as seems more and more common, could be arrested and/or suspended for the game. Texas might get better in the areas of their game that have failed them recently. Alabama might grow overconfident with everyone picking them to win. Last year there were people who expected Oklahoma to handle Florida. It didn’t happen. Texas remembers being left of the title game last year due to a bad tiebreaking system in the Big 12 conference. They want to do what they didn’t have the opportunity to do last year: win the championship.

However, with all of that said, I do believe that Alabama will beat Texas. Saban is the better coach. Alabama is the better team. And Alabama, too, had a disappointing end to their season last year. They remember what happened in the Sugar Bowl and I suspect they’re determined to end on a better note this year. Even if there was a playoff system right now, I’d bet on Alabama. I think over the course of the year they’ve looked like the best team most of the time. And while I probably shouldn’t be, I think I’ll be a bit surprised if Texas walks away with the trophy.

The question I heard several times today was this: did the BCS get it right? It’s impossible to say, really, but the consensus seemed to be that yes, they probably did. And that may be true. I feel confident that Alabama belongs. But I still believe there are at least three other teams that deserve a shot, too. Hopefully, some day, such teams will get that chance. They may come up short when they do, but they deserve the opportunity.

The BCS is a stupid system which I abhor. I hate it with the white hot intensity of 1,000 suns. Some have argued it’s better than the past because sometimes #1 and #2 didn’t even play in the same bowl game. That’s a valid point, but being better doesn’t equate to being a good system. A playoff is the only way to produce a true, incontrovertible champion. Every other sport on every level seems to realize this fact. It’s long overdue that D-I college football does the same.

Alabama 27, Texas 13.

-gf