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Since writing and posting this blog my worst fears came to pass and Alabama, a team that couldn’t even win its own conference division nor play in its own conference title game let alone win it, will play for the national title tomorrow against LSU. Fellow 1-loss teams Oregon, and Oklahoma State won THEIR conference and proved in their bowls against quality competition to have been more deserving than the Crimson Tide.
The college football season is winding down and my frustration is winding up. I can’t stand the idea of a team that fails to win its league championship, or even play in its league championship game, playing for a national title. It completely blows away the concept of what a championship is supposed to represent. Shame on the NCAA. Shame on the BCS. Shame on the media and for the American public for being so willing to accept it.
With just this weekend’s games remaining before the bowl season match-ups and the 2012 BCS Championship game
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opponents are announced it seems abundantly clear that we will all be watching a rematch featuring the Number one ranked Louisiana State Tigers and Number 2 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. The Tide doesn’t play this weekend. They share the same division as LSU. LSU’s 9-6 overtime victory in Tuscaloosa November 5th gave the Bayou Bengals the divisions lone spot in the Southeastern Conference Championship game against 10-2 Georgia. If you believe what is being said and written across the country, LSU doesn’t even need to win to be picked for the National Championship game. Were that to happen you would have two teams from the same league playing for the National Title despite neither having even won their own league’s championship. Hello! Either way its likely one (Bama) will participate having not proved worthy.
It’s happened before. The first time was January 2002 when Nebraska played Miami in the Rose Bowl for the “mythical” National Championship despite the fact that Colorado was the winner of the Big 12 League crown over the Texas Longhorns. Big Red didn’t even play in it’s league’s championship. They played for the title. I was absolutely sideways. Fortunately the Hurricanes put a serious whooping on Nebraska sparing us the indignity of crowning a fake champion.
Should Alabama land the BCS birth this year other worthy league champions who will be denied could include Oklahoma State of the Big 12, Oregon of the Pac 12, Boise State of the Mountain West, Houston of Conference USA, Virginia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Wisconsin or Michigan State of the Big 10. Additional regular season games or conference championship games remain to be played for most of the above mentioned teams at the time of this writing. But of those mentioned all have no more than 2 losses. Houston is undefeated.
If the NCAA’s argument is that Alabama and LSU represent the two best teams in the country based on the results of this season. I would ask two questions: How do they know? and Are you saying the championship game in all sports always represents the two best teams? Because they frequently don’t. Were the 10-6 New York Giants the best team in the NFL in 2008 when they beat the undefeated New England Patriots? No. They were just better that day. Was Villanova the best when they beat the Patrick Ewing led Georgetown Hoyas for the NCAA Men’s hoops title in 1985? Absolutely not. But for that one game they shot an astounding record 90% from the field and beat one of the best teams in NCAA history.
Until the NCAA finally gives us the football playoffs we all crave all National Champions will be only a matter of opinion rather than being decided on the field of competition like every other NCAA crown. And if its going to be just opinion it should include a minimum requirement that the participants be the champions of their respective leagues. Doing so would make the regular season much more significant, and it would make each league championship significantly more valuable. And it would embrace that All-American value of fairness. After all its all just opinion.
Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.
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- BCS National Championship 2012: Tide, Tigers Have No Problem With Rematch (sbnation.com)
- BCS National Championship: 10 Reasons to Love Alabama in This Game (bleacherreport.com)
1 Comment
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M Schuett blah blah blah 
Ola! Mschuettblahblahblah,
I know what you mean, College football at its best, BCS Championship Game (Bowl Championship Series) is one of the pinnacles of the whole year. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a selection system designed to pair the top two teams in college football against each other in the BCS National Championship Game, with the winner crowned the BCS national champion. This championship puts the best against the best, selecting the top ten best teams from the year to match up to determine the national champion of all college football teams of the nation.
Keep up the posts!