Thanks Oklahoma
Thanks for giving us a Sugar Bowl between Hawaii and Georgia, a game in which I actually feared for the physical safety of one of the supposed top quarterbacks in the nation. Had the Sooners merely beaten Boise State last year perhaps a BCS bowl involving a team like Hawaii could have been avoided.
Going into the game Hawaii had the top scoring offense statistically in the nation at 46.17 ppg. As was widely suspected this was a fraudulent statistic having been built on the backs of opponents like Idaho and Charleston Southern. Even after playing Georgia, Hawaii ends the year with the 114th ranked schedule in the NCAA. So what does the "number one" offense built with the 114th ranked schedule get you when you play a real team? 10 points, that's what.
Which reminds us once again that Boise State - Oklahoma was the exception, and Division I-A college football really is a "league" containing opponents of massively divergent talent. The BCS rule allowing a non-BCS team to compete is almost as if the NFL had a rule permitting one European league team to participate in the playoffs.
While we are thanking folks, let’s also thank the Rose Bowl committee who, with their historical inclinations to choose Big Ten against Pac Ten teams, gave us the complete mismatch between USC and Illinois, the second year in the row the “GRAND DADDY OF THEM ALL” has been a total dud. Note to the Rose Bowl committee – if you can’t get the number one Big Ten team (Ohio State both this year and last), don’t pick the leftovers – it makes for lousy games. You could have had Georgia for goodness sake!
As for the remainder of the BCS games – wake me up when it’s over. Coachless West Virginia against Oklahoma in the Fiesta, followed by Kansas – Virginia Tech in the Orange. Yawn.
Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
10 comments:
The Rose could NOT have had UGA--at least not without the Sugar's consent.
http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/eligibility
So maybe I missed something that got announced at one point or another. But I keep seeing everywhere that the Rose Bowl could've picked Georgia to play against USC. According to the official BCS website selection process (located at http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/eligibility), under Team-Selection Procedures, 3C:
"When two bowls lose host teams, then the bowl losing the number one team may not select a replacement team from the same Conference as the number two team, unless the bowl losing the number two team consents."
So the Sugar Bowl would've had to agree to giving up Georgia, which would've left them with their pick of West Virginia, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona State, Illinois or Boston College and would you have actually watched any of those teams play against Hawaii? Would anyone have actually cared to watch any of those teams play Hawaii? At least with Georgia people will talk about the game afterward.
and I seem to have gotten beaten to this point
Since the Sugar wasn't going to give up Georgia, the Rose should have picked Missouri. That likely would have sent WVU to the Orange to play VT (since the Orange historically has had a Big East tie-in) and Illinois to the Fiesta to get hammered by OU.
This year was a perfect example of why the BCS is a farce. The Rose (USC - Illinois) and Sugar (Georgia - Hawai'i) bowls did not pair evenly-matched teams, and the outcome of each was obvious.
I expect to see Oklahoma have somewhat of an easy time with West Virginia now that Rich Rodriguez is gone, but Kansas - Virginia Tech should be more of a contest. Same with LSU-Ohio State in this year's NC game (FWIW I'm picking the Tigers to win this year, and naturally they'll have a home-field advantage playing in NOLA).
I'd still like to see a playoff instituted at this level, but as long as generating revenue and satisfying the media seem to be the impetus driving the BCS system I don't see any changes in the near future. The integrity of the sport suffers as a result, and that's the biggest drawback.
I'm going to do you one better Mergz and say that it was this stupid Bowls and polls system that created the Hawaii fraud. Hawaii, to their credit knows it plays in a weak conference. They actively try to get respectable non-conference opponents and don't require return games in Hawaii. Hawaii begged to get on Michigan's schedule and the Wolverines athletic director instead chose App. State. A Michigan win there would obviously have set their season in a different direction and a loss would have been more respectable. Look blowouts are going to happen no matter what system or pairings you use and even if you implement a playoff. But the current system encourages big football programs to play patsies in the regular season. And for that alone it should be blown up.
The initial post and Gomez's reply=pure brilliance.
At some point, shouldn't having a competitive game be a factor? I'm too naive and stupid to understand how BCS bowls can arrange such bad matchups and still rake in so much money and high TV ratings.
And it's not as if the Rose Bowl hadn't broken tradition in a non-title game before. Texas-Michigan anyone?
If the BCS wants a working system they need to take over the bowls from the selection committees and pair up the top 10 teams regardless of conferences. A better idea would be to take the top 4 in a plus one and make the other two BCS bowls #5s-8.
Unfortunately, contracts for the BCS bowls don't all end on the same year, so unless when they re-sign the contracts with the bowls in 2009 (I think) to go through the same year the Rose Bowl contract ends in 2013 (I think) we're not seeing a change any time in the next decade.
You know, it’s games like this that show why you shouldn’t let mid-major teams like Oklahoma into the BCS. Sure, sometimes they’ll have a good enough season to keep up with a mediocre conference champion like Boise State, but most of the time…
We can pretty much agree as a consensus that the BCS sucks and needs to be replaced with a more credible way of determining a national champion, but after the Orange Bowl I want to give a shout-out to Kansas for their win over Virginia Tech last night, and to be honest I was looking for and hoping for the KU upset.
Screw Illinoise and moRon Zook - the Jayhawks were the "feel-good" college football story of the year!
Post a Comment