BCS Blows it Again with LSU - Alabama Rematch: Fan Opinion

I'm starting to think that the BCS does this on purpose, setting up controversial title games just for the sake of stirring up conversation about the widely-loathed system. Now with the all-SEC game for the national championship set between LSU and Alabama, the BCS has blown it again by snubbing Oklahoma State.

Head coach Nick Saban and Alabama get another crack at LSU and could be our national champions without even winning their own division or their own conference. Thanks, BCS.
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Both teams are 11-1, with Alabama losing at home to LSU in overtime, 9-6, and Oklahoma State losing on the road to Iowa State in double overtime, 37-31. Alabama has one of the best defenses in the country, while Oklahoma State has one of the best offenses. Oklahoma State played the more difficult schedule of the two schools, including obliterating an Oklahoma team that was No. 1 to begin the season and that spent almost the entire season in the Top 10.

Both the Cowboys and the Crimson Tide are certainly worthy opponents for LSU, but I cannot fathom how Alabama is allowed a chance to claim the national championship when it didn't win—or compete for—its own conference championship. 'Bama didn't even win its own division within its own conference. LSU is the champion of the SEC. Oklahoma State is the champion of the Big 12. But Alabama could be the national champion? How does that make sense?

We've already seen LSU and Alabama, and while I thought it was a fantastic game, the general consensus seems to be that it was a snooze-fest. But the BCS wants to set these two teams up again? I'd say that chances are pretty good that we're looking at another low-scoring defensive battle in the national championship game, so get those pillows out, football fans.

I think it would have been far more entertaining to see an offensive juggernaut in Oklahoma State take on a top-tier defensive unit in LSU. It certainly would have made sense to include two conference champions in the battle for national supremacy. I can't imagine that viewership for the title game is going to be much of an issue, but at least with OSU and LSU, you'd be attracting both SEC and Big 12 fans.

SEC fans could have continued bragging that their conference is better than the Big 12 and every other conference if the Tigers had beaten the Cowboys and could actually take some pride in earning their sixth consecutive BCS championship, rather than having it handed to them with this match-up. Big 12 fans could have held up a big middle finger to Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M, and Missouri for bailing on them by bringing home a crystal trophy and snapping the SEC domination of the BCS.

But that won't happen.

Instead, Alabama can somehow be called the best team in the nation, despite failing to win its own division and conference, by splitting a season series with LSU. That just doesn't seem right.

If I thought it would make a difference in how college football's post-season is run, I'd root for Oklahoma State to obliterate Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl and for Alabama to squeak past LSU, 9-6, in overtime. Maybe the outrage that would ensue might spark a change in this completely asinine way we have of determining a national champion.

But it wouldn't make a difference. Any thought of a playoff system is just crazy talk, so I'm simply left feeling short-changed and disappointed that we'll never know how Oklahoma State would have stacked up against LSU or Alabama.

The author is a graduate of Texas A&M—the pariah of both the SEC and the Big 12. The author is also a Featured Contributor in Sports for Yahoo! Contributor Network. You can follow him on Twitter at @RedZoneWriting and on Facebook.

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BCS Bowls 2011: Baylor, Kansas State Wrongly Left In The Dust

by JP Starkey • Dec 4, 2011 8:14 PM CST

There's no other way to put it: the Big 12 was screwed over by the BCS selection committees in 2011. Oklahoma State will be the only team to represent the Big 12 conference in a BCS bowl in 2011. Kansas State, ranked eighth in the BCS standings, and Baylor, ranked twelfth, were not invited to any of the at-large BCS bids.

With the SEC sending its champion to the title game, the Sugar Bowl had an opportunity to pick two at-large teams. Instead of taking Baylor, who boasts one of the Heisman frontrunners in Robert Griffin III, or Kansas State, who finished eighth in the final BCS standings, the selection committee took Michigan and Virginia Tech. The same Virginia Tech who was smoked by Clemson in the ACC title game, and finished No. 11 in the BCS standings, and the same Michigan who finished No. 13 in the BCS standings. 

For what reason? Money, of course.

The only actual explanation for Michigan and Virginia Tech being invited to the Sugar Bowl is money. The committee must have figured that, since both are big football schools, that their fanbases would travel much better than either Baylor's or Kansas State's. 

Michigan's record against top 25 teams this were was 1-1 -- certainly, they held their ground, but certainly not BCS worthy. Michigan's best win this season? Against Nebraska, who finished with three losses. Michigan's other wins? Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, San Diego State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois and Ohio State. Michigan's second loss? Against an Iowa team that finished 7-5. 

Yes, Baylor had an extra loss. One of those losses, though, came to Oklahoma State, who nearly went to play for the BCS title game. Baylor's wins include an upset over TCU, Oklahoma and Texas -- all teams that finished in the top 25 of the final BCS standings. 

And what about Kansas State? Two losses on the season: an eight point loss to Oklahoma State and a blowout loss to Oklahoma -- two teams that finished in the top 15 of the final BCS standings. K-State also boasts better wins than Michigan. In addition to playing in a stronger conference, K-State beat Baylor and Texas, both of who finished in the top 25 of the BCS. 

Virginia Tech's inclusion is less egregious than Michigan's, but still incredibly uninspiring. The Hokies lost twice this year -- both times to the Clemson Tigers. Virginia Tech's best win? That would be a 37-26 win over Georgia Tech, a team that lost four games this season. In three wins over East Carolina, Duke and North Carolina, the Hokies won by a combined 14 points. Those three teams combined for 15 wins this season. 

That the Big 12 was so royally screwed by the selection committees isn't surprising. It simply illustrates the fact that the BCS remains the biggest joke in sports today. Instead of rewarding teams who had an excellent body of work, the selection committees opted to invite teams that would travel well and, presumably, infuse the greatest amount of money into the NCAA and the BCS system. 

But hey, we'll all enjoy the Michigan/Virginia Tech Sugar Bowl as well as the West Virginia/Clemson Orange Bowl, right?

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No BCS for TCU; Horned Frogs to Poinsettia Bowl

SAN DIEGO (AP)—TCU had been hoping for a berth in the Sugar Bowl, which would have been the Horned Frogs’ third straight trip to a BCS game.

Instead, they’ll have to settle for the consolation prize of another trip to San Diego.

“We’re obviously disappointed after we had the opportunity to be in BCS games the last couple of years,” coach Gary Patterson said after the No. 16 Horned Frogs accepted an invitation to play Louisiana Tech in the Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 21.

The Mountain West Conference champion Horned Frogs (10-2) needed to move into the top 16 in the final BCS standings on Sunday to earn an automatic bid.

TCU remained No. 18 in the BCS standings.

“In the three polls we’re 15, 15 and 17, but in the BCS we were 18. Figure that out,” Patterson said. “But I’ve got a lot more important things to do than to worry about that with the polls. All I know is this: They gave us an opportunity the last two years; we earned our part. We went to the Fiesta Bowl and Rose Bowl and we were 1-1, and there’s a whole bunch of schools that have never been to any of those.

“Are we disappointed we didn’t get where we wanted to? Well, it’s our own fault. There’s nobody to blame but TCU because we had two losses. If we had one loss, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation,” he said.

TCU beat Wisconsin 21-19 in the Rose Bowl last season. The season before that, TCU lost 17-10 to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.

“We’ve been to two, but you’ve got a No. 6 Arkansas team that’s not going to a BCS bowl game either,” Patterson said. “Only `X’ amount of teams get a chance to go. We were fortunate a year ago. Boise got beat. The key to it is you’ve got to be a little lucky. I believe the football gods always make sure things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. If we were supposed to be there, there’s a good chance we would have been there.

“It’s really quite a compliment to the program and where we’ve been just in three years for us to even be considered or to be an outside shot with two losses,” he added. “It used to be common knowledge that if you didn’t go undefeated and you weren’t an automatic qualifier, you weren’t going to get a chance to be a part of it. For us, I’m excited we were a part of the conversation. It means we’ve come a long way as far as the voters were concerned. Now we need to go win a ballgame against Louisiana Tech. They’re a good football team and they will be fired up since it’s been a while since they’ve been to a bowl game.”

TCU has won seven straight games since an overtime loss at home against SMU on Oct. 1, including a victory at Boise State that ended the Broncos’ 35-game winning streak. The other TCU loss was 50-48 to Robert Griffin and Baylor in the season opener.

This is TCU’s third trip to the Poinsettia Bowl. It beat Boise State 17-16 in 2008 and beat Northern Illinois 37-7 in 2006.

Louisiana Tech (8-4) clinched a berth in the game when it won its first Western Athletic Conference championship since 2001 with a 44-0 victory against New Mexico State on Nov. 26.

The bowl bid is the fifth in school history and Louisiana Tech’s first since an Independence Bowl victory against Northern Illinois in 2008.

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BCS Decision Day: Alabama or Oklahoma State

Play it again, LSU and Alabama.

The Crimson Tide edged out Oklahoma State in the final round of voting Sunday and will play the top-ranked Tigers in the BCS national championship game on Jan. 9 in New Orleans.

Undefeated LSU is the only team to beat Alabama this season, and the head BCS official sees a do-over as a perfectly good title game.

"Absolutely, if they're 1 and 2, and they are in all the polls released today," executive director Bill Hancock said.

Still, it's not exactly a game the public was clamoring for — at least outside of Southeastern Conference territory. And it will do nothing to quiet the critics of the Bowl Championship Series or the calls for a college football playoff.

But like it or not, the system has ensured that the SEC — home to both schools — will run its streak of BCS championships to six in a row.

The Cowboys made a late surge by beating Oklahoma 44-10 on Saturday night, and closed the gap between themselves and Alabama in the polls. But it was not enough to avoid the first title game rematch in the 14-year history of the BCS.

The Tigers (13-0) beat the Tide 9-6 in overtime on Nov. 5 in Tuscaloosa.

"This could be a totally different type of game," Alabama coach Nick Saban said. "There's so many good players on both sides of the ball for both teams.

"There's so much opportunity for this game to play out completely different and have a completely different flavor than the first game."

Alabama (11-1) finished second in both the Harris and coaches' polls by a wide enough margin to make up for the fact that Oklahoma State was ahead in the computer ratings.

The Cowboys (11-1), champions of the Big 12, will play in the Fiesta Bowl against Stanford from the Pac-12.

"We can't control it," Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden said. "But I know we had a heck of a year and we beat really good football teams in this conference and we're conference champions, so we did everything that we could."

The other BCS matchups are:

— Michigan vs. Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl;

— Clemson vs. West Virginia in the Orange Bowl;

— Oregon vs. Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.

No BCS busters made it into the big-money games for the first time since the 2005 season, teams such as Boise State, TCU and Houston, which had a chance but lost in the Conference USA championship on Saturday to Southern Mississippi. The Cougars will now play Penn State, which dropped to the Ticket City Bowl in Dallas following the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal that has overshadowed the Nittany Lions' season.

As the power-brokers in college football begin to plot how top-tier bowls will be set up in the future, the 2011 season is once more exposing the flaws in the current system.

Oklahoma State and Alabama, two teams with perfectly good arguments to play for a national championship, wound up fighting over one spot, with subjective voters and mysterious computer ratings — the formulas of which are not even publicly known — doing the choosing.

Alabama, with the nation's No. 1 defense, won out and will play for its second BCS crown in three years.

Oklahoma State, with one of the most potent offenses in the country, gets its first BCS appearance as a consolation prize.

"We wanted the opportunity to settle the debate that has gone all year about the offense in the Big 12 and the defense in the SEC," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said on ESPN.

A rematch between LSU and Alabama in the title game seemed almost a foregone conclusion heading into conference championship weekend.

But with Alabama idle, Oklahoma State made one last, dramatic statement against the Sooners on Saturday night in Stillwater. And the Cowboys had an impressive resume, beating three teams ranked in the final BCS top 15. Alabama had only one such victory.

So instead of Sunday being a coronation there was drama, and another BCS controversy.

Working in Alabama's favor was its dominance throughout the season — all its victories have been by at least 16 points — and the fact that no other team has challenged LSU this season the way Heisman Trophy contender Trent Richardson and the Tide did.

The Tide and Tigers played a hard-hitting defensive slog billed as the Game of the Century. And it was exciting in the way Notre Dame and Army's scoreless tie was exciting in the 1946 version of the Game of the Century.

Immediately the talk of rematch started, pro and con.

Oklahoma State was in position to keep it from happening. The Cowboys were undefeated and second in the BCS standings heading into a Friday night game at Iowa State, a day after Oklahoma State women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and an assistant coach were killed in a plane crash.

But the Cowboys lost 37-31 in double OT to the so-so Cyclones (6-6), missing a potential game-winning field goal at the end of regulation by inches.

With no other undefeated teams left from the major conferences, Alabama returned to No. 2 and the debate grew ever-more heated.

On one side, Alabama supporters said it was simple: The system is supposed to match the best two teams, regardless of conference, and the Tide have been one of the two most dominant teams in the country.

On the other side, Oklahoma State supporters said the Cowboys accomplished more to get to 11-1 than the Tide, playing a tougher schedule and winning their conference.

Not enough voters were convinced — so it's Tigers-Tide II.

Alabama claims 13 national championships overall and is one of the most decorated programs in the land. It's won seven AP titles since the wire service started its poll in 1936.

LSU will be seeking its third BCS championship since 2003 at the Superdome — the site of its first two.

Saban won that title for LSU in '03. Current Tigers coach Les Miles matched his predecessor in 2007, winning a championship with a team that lost two games.

These talented Tigers, led by dynamic defensive back Tyrann Mathieu, have rarely even trailed against a schedule that included Oregon and West Virginia.

"This team loves the big stage," Miles said.

Now Saban and Miles, who have been tussling for supremacy in the SEC West on the field and the recruiting trail, will square off for the ultimate prize.

And don't dare suggest to either of them that it's for anything less.

"I think whoever wins the game should be viewed as the national champion," Saban said, echoing Miles' sentiment. "Rather than rehash the system we should do research on what would make the system better in the future."

____

AP Sports Writer Jeff Latzke in Stillwater, Okla., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

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BCS title game in hands of voters

Updated Dec 4, 2011 3:58 PM ET

Four of the BCS spots are locked down. We know for sure that Oregon will play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, Clemson will play in the Orange Bowl and LSU will be in the BCS championship game.

And that’s about it.

Does Oklahoma State really have a chance to push past Alabama for the No. 2 spot and a chance to play LSU for the national title?

It will be really, really close.

The biggest plus for the Cowboys was the No. 5 ranking in the Harris and coaches' polls last week. Both put LSU, Alabama, Stanford and Virginia Tech in the top four. There’s a ton of room to move up.

Considering Oklahoma State was already No. 3 in the overall BCS rankings last week, it’s not going to take a huge push to make the dream come true.

To make this as simple as possible, if Oklahoma State is No. 2 in either the coaches’ poll or Harris poll and is at least No. 3 in the other, the formula should make it work out. The computers are almost certainly going to make it LSU 1, Oklahoma State 2 and Alabama 3, and that could be just enough of a tiebreaker to give the Cowboys the nod if the humans do something historic to move Alabama out from No. 2.

Close doesn't count. OSU is No. 3 in the coaches' poll, and if it isn't No. 2 according to Harris and the computers, the title game will be LSU vs. Alabama.

The only time in the BCS era that a No. 2 team didn’t lose and was bumped out of its slot in the final ranking came in 2003. It was a different time and a different BCS formula, and even though USC moved up to No. 1 in both human polls, it dropped because of the heavier weight on the computers. In the BCS era, the humans have never moved a top-two team that didn’t lose out of a national title slot in the final ranking.

• At the very least, Oklahoma State is in the Fiesta Bowl, which might seem like a disappointment, but it’s a huge deal for a program going to its first BCS game. Along with LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Clemson, West Virginia is almost certainly in, taking the Big East’s slot if it finishes higher than Cincinnati in the final rankings. That leaves three spots open.

• If Alabama goes to the BCS championship game, Stanford — No. 4 in last week’s BCS rankings — will get an automatic invitation by finishing in the top four. However, if Oklahoma State plays for the BCS championship and Alabama is No. 3, the Tide will get the automatic top four slot and Stanford will have to hope for an at-large pick. The draw of Andrew Luck and the high ranking shouldn’t make that a problem.

• The biggest question mark, outside of the BCS championship game, is TCU. With Houston losing to Southern Miss, there isn’t an automatic pick among the non-BCS teams. TCU, ranked 18th last week, needs to finish in the top 16 and ahead of a BCS conference champion to get an automatic bid.

Being ahead of the Big East champion won’t be a problem, but it could be tough to move up two spots unless No. 6 Houston, No. 10 Oklahoma, No. 13 Michigan State, and No. 14 Georgia all drop below the Horned Frogs.

No. 17 Baylor will move into the top 16, and No. 20 Clemson could go flying up the charts after blowing out Virginia Tech in the title game. The humans likely will help the cause — with both almost certain to push TCU up from No. 17 in their polls — but the computers might not be on board.

The BCS bowls aren’t going to be doing backflips over having to take TCU and would much rather grab Kansas State and Michigan, but they might not have a choice. If they get in, the Horned Frogs are probably bound for the Sugar Bowl to play Michigan.

• Boise State could be in the mix if everything breaks right. It won’t get an automatic invitation, but it should be No. 5 in the final standings and could be an attractive pick for either the Fiesta or the Sugar if TCU doesn’t finish in the top 16. The politicking will be extremely fierce from the Big 12 to send Kansas State to one of the big games, while the Mountain West will be screaming that it deserves to get the Broncos in. Boise State and Houston join LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State, and Stanford as the only teams with one loss or fewer.

• If Alabama goes to the BCS championship, Oklahoma State will go to the Fiesta Bowl and the Sugar will take Michigan if it’s eligible. The No. 16 Wolverines have to finish in the top 14 to get in, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem with Oklahoma, Michigan State, and Georgia all likely to drop down just enough to make it happen.

• If Oklahoma State plays LSU for the BCS championship, the Sugar will take Alabama to play TCU or Michigan, and the Fiesta likely will be Kansas State vs. Stanford.

So what should fans be hoping for? Those who hate the idea of a rematch between Alabama and LSU will want Oklahoma State to be No. 2 in the coaches’ poll. Those who want to see the best BCS games, though, will probably want to see the Tide and Tigers go at it again.

• If Alabama is No. 2, the BCS bowls will most likely be:

BCS: Alabama vs. LSU
Rose: Oregon vs. Wisconsin
Fiesta: Oklahoma State vs. Stanford
Sugar: Kansas State or TCU vs. Michigan
Orange: Clemson vs. West Virginia.

• If Oklahoma State is No. 2, the BCS bowls will most likely be:

BCS: Oklahoma State vs. LSU
Rose: Oregon vs. Wisconsin
Fiesta: Kansas State or TCU vs. Stanford
Sugar: Alabama vs. Michigan
Orange: Clemson vs. West Virginia.

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