Oh that wacky, wacky BCS.
It just seems like every year there is some sort of mess that stems from this controversial college football ranking system.MO< This year there is once again a disparity between the two human polls and the computer generated Bowl Championship Series.
Defending national champion Ohio State, ranked fourth in the Associated Press poll and the Coaches poll, has just leap-frogged USC, who is ranked second in both polls, and moved into second place in the BCS. If everything holds steady for the rest of the season, we could have No.1 vs. No. 4 playing in the Sugar Bowl for the national championship.
It could be a repeat of a couple years ago, when fourth-ranked Nebraska managed to sneak into the National title game by jumping up to second in the BCS through strength of schedule and computer rankings.
The real problem with the BCS is that it tries to produce two teams that stand out as deserving to play one game to decide the national title. With the exception of last year, that is never the case.
It is tough to say what team is deserving of the second spot in the Sugar Bowl. Oklahoma is the only team that has proven their worthiness to play in the National Championship game this year. After the Sooners, there are a handful of teams (in no particular order) that can make their claim to fill the other Sugar Bowl slot.
1. Ohio State: Defending national champion. 24-1 over the last two seasons. Toughest schedule out of any of the teams that are fighting for the chance to try and derail the Sooners, who have yet to really be challenged this season. Major drawback: They have to scratch out most of their wins and have numerous games in which they failed to score an offensive touchdown.
2. USC: Currently second in both of the major polls. 20-3 over the last two seasons. Their three losses were combined 13 points and two came against top 10 teams. Major drawback: A weak schedule and their loss came to a weaker opponent [California] than any of the other one-loss teams making a national title push.
3. LSU: Currently third in both major polls. They play in one of the stronger conferences in college football, the SEC. Will have to play an extra game at the end of the season, the SEC Championship, before they can get to their bowl game. Also probably lost to the strongest opponent [Florida] of any of the one loss schools. Now, the one nobody wants to hear.
4. TCU: The only other undefeated Division IA school besides Oklahoma. If they can win out, then they should at least be in one of the BCS bowls. Major drawback: Extremely weak schedule and they play in a very weak conference.
However, it is still an accomplishment to go undefeated in the regular season. If the Horned Frogs can keep on winning, than why not give them the consideration?
The last few weeks will just have to play out and see who is left standing when the smoke clears.
Most people (me being one of them) are not big fans of the BCS. Some sort of playoff system would be better suited to decide the national championship.
However, the BCS is definitely better than the way it was before. At least now there are no CO-national champions and no waiting for the polls to come out to see who is the national champion.
As flawed as it is, the BCS at least creates a national championship game and allows a team to celebrate a national championship on the field after they won it, not in their living rooms after the polls are finally shown on the news.
Hopefully the powers that be will take notice of the controversy that is going to come out of this year’s national title picture and start coming up with a more fair way to determine who should play for the national title.
Until they do, college football fans will have to continue their complaining about how the BCS does not do an effective job of determining who are the best teams in the NCAA.
