The Ice Storm

There was a nasty ice storm in Iowa today. Like a harbinger of the chaos to come in the world of the BCS, a snarling, drenching maelstrom descended upon the farms and fields of the prairie. Raindrops turned to ice before they landed on the frozen earth. Within minutes, everything was coated in a thick patina of glistening crystal. Sidewalks become skating rinks, roads become toboggan runs, and driveways are mortal hazards. Basically, it’s the kind of day that you are just better off staying inside and watching football.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what I wanted to do! Championship Saturday offered one of the most intriguing smorgasbord of contests all year: Army-Navy, USC-UCLA, The Civil War, The Big Game, The Desert Skirmish, Hawaii-Washington, and the championship games of the SEC, ACC, and Big-12. (The MAC and Conference USA championships don’t count). Best of all, they were all televised sequentially with no more than three going on at the same time, so by having two screens set up I could watch the whole thing! I invited some residents and students brave enough to trek through the storm, whipped up a batch of fresh guacamole, and put together the BCS centerpiece for decoration. Then I sat back and took one wild day of football.

How fitting that the year of the dog, where the top five has lost to an unranked opponent a whopping 12 times, ends with the number 1 and number 2 teams both losing on the same night! Sure, we all expected Oklahoma to repeat its performance against Missouri, but no one saw the Pitt –WVU upset coming. I just checked the picker website- no had the guts to take that one. The loss of one team put Ohio State into the finals. The loss of the other team sends the BCS system crashing into swirling winds of the maelstrom.

As the games ended Saturday night (I fell asleep before the end of Hawaii-Washington, which is too bad because I really wanted to see that one and Brennan’s latest comeback was one for the record books), we had no idea who would play in the national championship game. What kind of a totally screwed up system is that? That is completely pathetic and unacceptable. Reece Davis and Chris Fowler on ESPN appropriately pointed out how ridiculous it is. After the LSU-Ohio State matchup was announced on Sunday night, Kirk Herbstreit had the audacity to say that “the system worked’.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE INSANE.

I will concede that given the bedlam among the top 5 this year and being forced to choose the two most deserving teams, LSU and Ohio State are correct. Ohio State is a conference champion with one loss and LSU’s losses were both in triple OT. But when asked who are the two best teams in the country right now, the voters on ESPN.com picked, in order, LSU, USC, and Georgia. And what about Hawaii? They do everything they can and finish undefeated and they are not allowed to compete for the title because they’ve “never been good before” and they “just run a system, not a real offense”? A two-loss team gets to play for the title in the one-round playoff we have and the nation’s only undefeated team gets left out?

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE OUT THERE?

What if Hawaii actually beats Georgia? They can’t? OK- tell that to Pitt. Tell that to Stanford. Tell that to Notre Dame. Tell that to Syracuse. Tell that to Appalachian State. And, most importantly, tell that to the Boise State Broncos with their hook and ladder, statue of liberty, drop to a knee and propose Ian Johnson. And oh yeah- Hawaii beat Boise State this year to stay undefeated.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN”T GET IT?
Kansas has one loss. To Missouri. Kansas gets to go to the BCS. Missouri doesn’t . Kansas has one of the weakest schedules in the country (109th). Missouri played the 25th most difficult schedule. Missouri’s two losses were to the same team. That does not sound fair to me.

Missouri was the number 1 team. Oklahoma beat them soundly. Let me repeat that. Oklahoma beat the number 1 team in the country on Saturday night on national television on a neutral field and pretty much thumped them. And Oklahoma is does not get to play for the national title.

USC and Georgia are the hottest teams in the country right now. Each of them have early unforgivable losses that are keeping them out of the BCS championship (Stanford and South Carolina, respectively). Georgia didn’t even win their division. But the general media consensus is that these are two teams that you would not want to face in a playoff. Why? Because they are playing the best football right now! The polls are supposed to vote for the best team in the country. In the old system, we played out the year and then sat around and voted for the winner. In the old system, which is even more of a joke than the BCS, USC and Georgia would have reasonable chances at being picked champs. But this year they must accept that they weren’t the best teams in September and they need to play a more complete schedule next year.

The BCS has not worked more often than the “system working.” In the history of the BCS there have only been two years without controversy (Ohio State over Miami and Texas over USC). Other years, undefeated teams were left out (Auburn, Utah, Boise State), conference champions were bypassed for those not finishing first in the Big-12 (Oregon, USC). And the many times the “system” had to pick a 1-loss team to play the only undefeated team. Now it has to pick from among the two loss teams! We really need a playoff.

If we actually had a real playoff this year and you were on the selection committee (because this kind of thing is too important to leave to an artificial points formula and an amalgam of computers), which 8 teams would you pick? (8 teams was the top choice by the fans vote on ESPN.com. It beat out systems with less and more team). I think I have made reasonable arguments for LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, USC, Hawaii, and Georgia. I suppose I would add Virginia Tech and then let the committee squabble over West Virginia or Missouri (not Kansas) for the last spot.

Thank you all for letting me vent my cold fury. I have to go outside now- time to scrape ice off the front porch.

Fight On,

Hans

PS: Illinois? The Rose Bowl gets the first choice of the at-large teams and they pick the number 13 team that barely qualified for the BCS? The folks in Champaign will be happy, but the country as a whole is not going to care or tune into that one. Lawrence Jackson, Sedrick Ellis, and the rest of the USC defense will be happy to show Juice Williams the same hospitality enjoyed by Rudy Carpenter and Patrick Cowan in the last 2 weeks.