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.

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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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."

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

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

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