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Rooting for a BCS nightmare Posted: Thursday December 06, 2001 11:10 AM
CNN/Sports Illustrated's college football analyst previews Saturday's Tennessee-LSU game -- but he's more concerned with the possible title implications. The way I see it, there are three potential problems facing the BCS right now.
Who's No. 2?Two weeks ago, after the Nebraska and Colorado upsets, I was a bit alarmed when everyone started saying, "Well, now Florida plays Miami." I mean, they still had to win two more games. But I let it slide. Then after this weekend's events, the same people were going on TV saying, "Well, now it's Tennessee." How can you say that? Sure, the Vols are next in line. But like Joey Harrington says, it shouldn't be that clear-cut. Tennessee got beat by Georgia at home, while Oregon lost to Stanford, the No. 9 team in the BCS. And I think Colorado is the best team in college football, period. What's great about sports is you're a completely different team at the end of the season than you were at the beginning. I just don't think it's that easy right now to automatically say Tennessee is No. 2.
Heck, Miami was literally a dropped two-point conversion from losing that Virginia Tech game. If the Hokies had any sort of average quarterback play, they win that game. I agree that Miami deserves to be there. But how do we know it's Tennessee? Not to say that Maryland or Illinois would beat Miami head to head, but Maryland went through the ACC with only one loss, Illinois went through the Big Ten with one loss. What about Tennessee going through the SEC with one loss means they're a better team? It just bothers me. These teams are too close to determine that. In the end, I would say right now, if you took a poll of any Top 10 coaches, the last team they would choose to play right now is Colorado. If you called Frank Solich, if you called Mike Bellotti, and asked them, "Would you rather play Miami or Colorado?" I bet they'd pick Miami.
Flawed either wayIf Tennessee loses, Nebraska plays for the national championship, which would be a fraud. It's difficult for me to remove myself from the Big Red inside me that says, like the Huskers' players and coaches, "Hey, we only had one loss, we just lost late." But the objective part of me says, "Absolutely not!" This football team did not win its own conference. No way they should be able to play for the national championship, period. Especially considering the lopsided way they lost. But there's another issue at work here. Nebraska is No. 4 in the coaches poll, Colorado is No. 5. If LSU wins, if those coaches (or the people who vote for them) all of a sudden change their vote, to me, the validity of the coaches poll can never again be trusted. These two teams don't play this week. You can't reward or penalize for them for a week of practice! So I think there is a real issue here that exposes the problems of the BCS. Under the system we're dealt with, Nebraska should play for the national title -- but it would be wrong. If it happens, you'll see another "clause" added next year, saying you have to win your conference title to play for the national title. Every year, we're going to get "clauses" to correct what went wrong last year. It's ridiculous.
The ultimate splitFinally, the other issue is this: Oregon can still win the national championship. What's going to have to happen is, Nebraska beats Miami in the Rose Bowl, and the AP votes Oregon No. 1. Then you have a split national championship, the one thing the system was built to avoid. And if it's a situation where Nebraska beats Miami in the Rose Bowl and Oregon plays Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl, I think the winner of the Oregon-Colorado game could be declared national champ by AP. It could mean not only a two-loss team winning the national championship, but two teams sharing the national championship, one of whom beat the other 62-36! How do we fix this? In some cynical, stupid way, I hope this all happens. It would only exasperate the issue. This is big-time college football, and we're potentially letting SIDs, secretaries, water boys, or whoever it is that votes in the coaches poll deciding who plays for the national championship. This is way too big a thing to be just glossing over. Now I'm not someone to throw out complaints and not offer a solution. Next week in this space, I will offer a proposal that I think answers every question about the BCS.
Parting shotApparently, some people are starting to take notice of my cries for a change in college football's postseason process. ABC's Brent Musburger, defending the BCS in a USA Today article last week, said, " The Trev Alberts of the world forget that 10 years ago secret bowl agreements were made in October. The BCS ended that." Brent, if the days of underhanded bowl deals are over, why is Virginia Tech going to the Gator Bowl over a Syracuse team it lost to and finished two games behind in the standings? How come 6-5 Alabama already knows it's going to the Music City Bowl while 7-4 Ole Miss knows it's not going anywhere. Why did the Humanitarian Bowl pick 6-5 Clemson over 7-4 UCLA based on which school was willing to buy a $350,000 corporate sponsorship? If the BCS was supposed to end this sort of thing, it isn't happening.
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