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.
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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.
Also by this author:
When bowl games used to mean something
SEC teams, put the creampuffs down
A realignment plan for the SEC without Texas A&M
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