For its latest trick, the BCS renders the SEC title game moot
"Is this the year you have to win your conference or the year you don't?" (AP photo)
Q: When is a conference championship really just a exhibition game?
A: When the BCS “system,” whatever that happens to be in a given year, gets its maladroit hands on it.
LSU faces Georgia for the SEC title Saturday at the Georgia Dome. If LSU wins, it will play for the BCS title. If LSU loses, it figures to play for the BCS title anyway.
This is college football, where we’re told Every Game Counts. This year another big fat asterisk gets attached: Every game counts except the SEC championship, which lately has counted the most. And that’s not the worst part.
On Sunday I was speaking with Falcons center Todd McClure, who has a figurative dog in this fight. (He played at LSU.) When I mentioned that I’d rather be Alabama, which is guaranteed not to lose another game before the final BCS standings are announced, than the Tigers, he said: “Do you think that’s fair?”
No, I don’t think it’s fair. The BCS is never fair. Occasionally there comes a year in which the outcry is minimal, and invariably some talking head will say, “The BCS worked this time.” Reality check: The BCS never works. The best the BCS ever can hope is to get lucky.
Case study in inconsistency: In 2007 Georgia was ranked No. 4 in the next-to-last BCS standings. The teams ranked first and second — Missouri and West Virginia — lost on the regular season’s final weekend. Georgia didn’t play. It finished atop the SEC East but was shaded by Tennessee on a tiebreaker. LSU, which had lost its final regular-season game to Arkansas, beat the Vols for the SEC title, and the Tigers got to play for the BCS title.
LSU moved from No. 7 to No. 2. Georgia didn’t play a game and slid to No. 5. Why? Because LSU coach Les Miles kept making the point that his team had “won its conference” and because the many talking heads on ESPN took up the cry. (As we know, what’s said on ESPN has an outsize effect on college football, the only sport in which opinions matter.)
Some of the same voices who’d lobbied for an Ohio State-Michigan rematch in the 2006 BCS title game dismissed Georgia a year later because It Hadn’t Won Its Conference. Never mind that winning your conference isn’t a criterion for BCS title inclusion. Never mind that Michigan hadn’t won the Big Ten the year before. This just seemed like the thing to say at that moment in time, and by golly those ESPN chatterers kept saying it until it became reality.
Georgia wasn’t passed just by LSU but also by Oklahoma and Virginia Tech; see, the Sooners and Hokies had won their conferences. After that season, the BCS considered making a conference title a prerequisite for a berth in the BCS title game but decided against it, which is a good thing if you’re Alabama but another pie in the face if you’re a fan of consistent thought.
If you’re a BCS hater — and who isn’t? — you have to root for Georgia to beat LSU and render this ongoing farce even more farcical. Picture the incongruity: The Bulldogs hoist the SEC championship trophy on Saturday night and trot off to the Sugar Bowl to play this year’s version of Hawaii, and 24 hours later not one but two SEC non-champions get invited to the game that’s supposed to reveal the nation’s best team.
And now you’re asking: Don’t LSU and Alabama look like the nation’s top two teams? LSU has been the absolute best team from start to finish, but the Tigers still have a game to play. The Tide lost its biggest game on its home field and has beaten two teams ranked in the BCS Top 25. If Oklahoma State, which is ranked No. 3 to Alabama’s No. 2, beats Oklahoma on Saturday, the Cowboys will have beaten five Top 25 teams and will be the Big 12 champ. Should Alabama get that nod just because it plays in the almighty SEC and is, you know, Alabama?
The problem with the BCS is that it can tweak its “system” until the cows come home and never be prepared for the vagaries of a given season. And with conferences expanding to elephantine size and schedules growing more imbalanced, this will only get worse. Four years ago Georgia was penalized for not playing in the SEC title game; this time Alabama could be handed a de facto semifinal bye.
Do I think the BCS is fair? Yes indeed. A fairly Big Crock of Sludge.
By Mark Bradley
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810 comments Add your comment
BehindEnemyLines
November 28th, 2011
5:30 pm
Well Bradley, there goes your credibility with regard to college football. Even Stevie Wonder can see who the two best teams in college football are this year. The gap is astonishing.
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:32 pm
WDE
November 28th, 2011
3:39 pm
Hey phil and freddy you nerds need to get a room….fire your selves..
**************
WDE – You know where you can go….
Larvell Blanks
November 28th, 2011
5:33 pm
This is college football, where we’re told Every Game Counts. This year another big fat asterisk gets attached: Every game counts except the SEC championship.
Wow, I know it’s cute and all, but that kind of logic would be embarrassing for my sixth grader. Every game does count this year, including the SEC Championship. It’s just that, even including a possible loss in the SEC Championship, LSU would still be by far the best one-loss team in the country, and thus deserving of a spot in the BCS title game. It would have beaten three different teams ranked in the top 3 at the time of the game, and its only loss would have been to the champion of by far the toughest league. Nobody — not even Bradley, for all his b****ing — could say with a straight face that LSU didn’t have one of the top two resumes in the country.
So the SEC Championship does count — but so do all of the other games during the season, which LSU won and everybody else didn’t. As Bradley says, “This is college football, where we’re told Every Game Counts” — and this season does nothing to contradict that. It’s not LSU’s fault that they built up a commanding lead heading into the last game.
P.S. — If the World Series goes four games next year, I expect to read a Bradley column complaining that, “We’re told that Every Game Counts, and they didn’t even play the last three! What a joke this system is!”
Kelly
November 28th, 2011
5:34 pm
And…nothing makes my point better than the legitimacy given to preseason rankings before a team ever takes the field, rankings which, by the way, eventually affect the overall rankings later in the season. Those rankings are based on human perception alone. That’s also crud.
puff
November 28th, 2011
5:35 pm
who is the BCS? How calls the shots?
Hunkerdown
November 28th, 2011
5:36 pm
You nailed that one MB. Playoff system would get my nood.
Kelly
November 28th, 2011
5:37 pm
Wow, I know it’s cute and all, but that kind of logic would be embarrassing for my sixth grader.
Context is almost everything. In context of past arguments put forth by those who influence college football…
Kelly
November 28th, 2011
5:38 pm
I’m kind of astonished (and surprised that I am) how such a simple argument with clear examples could fly over so many heads, pointed or not.
Bob
November 28th, 2011
5:38 pm
Sugar Bear…you are the man! The Braves could still use your slick fielding and acute base running. If LSU wins, they deserve the BCS game; if not, the Sugar Bowl.
Larvell Blanks
November 28th, 2011
5:41 pm
The BCS may be a flawed system, but it’s not flawed because the SEC Championship isn’t an elimination game.
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:42 pm
As I’ve already said several times….
THE POWERS THAT BE WILL NEVER SIT IDLY BY THIS SATURDAY AND LET US WIN.
It’s not going to happen if the refs have to cheat on most every down to make sure of it.
LSU wins in a landslide regardless of what we do.
red hill
November 28th, 2011
5:44 pm
Perhaps your best column ever, Bradley. All extremely valid points. ESPN and the BCS has just about ruined college football.
Larvell Blanks
November 28th, 2011
5:44 pm
And my sneaky power, don’t forget that. Chicks dig the long ball, four or five times a season at least.
concern
November 28th, 2011
5:44 pm
Mark,
You make excellent points why we don’t need BCS in college football.
ESPN and others decided long time ago the LSU and UAT would play for all the marbles and now they are explicitly telling us.
By the way who has Alabama really beaten?
Would like to do away with this make believe National Championship Game.
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:45 pm
You can’t make coherent arguments to boneheads….
Boneheads are defined as fans of:
Fraudburn
Florida
Clemson
Tech
Tennessee
All schools in Mississippi
Alabama
Arkansas
LSU
South Carolina
Oklahoma
Miami
Ohio State
Penn State
Michigan
VA Tech
There are others, but you get the picture…
Alan
November 28th, 2011
5:46 pm
Not sure anyone has figured this part out, but if Georgia wins I don’t think they can play in the Sugar Bowl if LSU and Alabama are in the Championship game, since SEC can only send two schools to BCS bowls.
over1861
November 28th, 2011
5:48 pm
How long do we have to take this baloney? The powers that be in college football remind me of Congress. They give you explanations why what they do is correct while everybody with a grammar school education know that is is not.
I fear I am just loosing interest!
Orange11
November 28th, 2011
5:48 pm
It really doesn’t matter who they put in if it is a team from another conference. The SEC team will win decisively. I think the whole uproar is because the oppossing conference teams (not SEC) are just whinning because they don’t have a team good enough to beat #1and realistically considered #2. The only team good enough to beat LSU is Alabama. I also think any LSU fan who doesn’t think it is fair to have to play Alabama again is just plain scared of losing. I believe Alabama wins this one and should have won the first one if the kicking game had not gone South. I am not a big fan of either team as I am a Southern Illinois University grad in other words I have no dog in the hunt.
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:49 pm
Alan
November 28th, 2011
5:46 pm
Not sure anyone has figured this part out, but if Georgia wins I don’t think they can play in the Sugar Bowl if LSU and Alabama are in the Championship game, since SEC can only send two schools to BCS bowls.
****************
Read some of the earlier posts….I think a few have.
Tech Engineer
November 28th, 2011
5:49 pm
They should award LSU the National Championship and not play the BCS Championship game..
FLA DAWG
November 28th, 2011
5:50 pm
Mark,
You make a slew of good points. I agree with them all.
I would only put a bit of lotion on the burn by mentioning that The Dawgs have 2 losses and that’s the big difference. If we’d not lost to SC The SECC Game would indeed be The BCS Game (no offense to Bama fans!).
Also, this opportunity which The Dawgs earned (much to my surprise and a weak schedule) gives us the chance to knockoff the team that may win the whole crown. I hope The Dawgs are the 1 in the LSU loss column for their record this season. It’s going to be exciting for Dawg Nation……..unless we get blown out then forget everything above!
Until some university finall sues The BCS or NCAA nothing will change.
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:50 pm
Add Southern Illinois to my earlier bonehead list….
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:50 pm
” Poor AU…they were crying louder than anyone a few years back.”
That’s because they went undefeated and won the SEC, moron. UGA fans cried louder last year over Cam and Nick.
Larvell Blanks
November 28th, 2011
5:51 pm
Not true, Alan — there’s an exception if the championship game is between two at-large selections. (Although I hope that Alabama gets bounced by Oklahoma State).
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:51 pm
phil
What does that make you?
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:51 pm
Fire Urban Meyer!
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:52 pm
Kelly
AU folks were upset because AU went undefeated, won the SEC and had the best defense in the country.
Now go iron my shirt.
Dawg Fan
November 28th, 2011
5:52 pm
I would laugh SO hard if Alabama played LSU for the BCS title. The first one was as exciting as watching grass grow… part deux: same excitement.
Also, I don’t even bother watching ESPN and its irrevelent game coverage anymore. No matter what the dawgs do they rarely show the highlights. Now, if its SMU from the BFE division they’re all over it…
Screw it and them.
=)
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:52 pm
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:51 pm
phil
What does that make you?
*******************
A heckuva sight more bright than you.
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:53 pm
“Boneheads are defined as fans of”
phil = retard.
Andy
November 28th, 2011
5:53 pm
If Oklahoma beats Oklahoma State, (and they will), and then if Clemson beats Virgina Tech, (they might), who do all of you people think should play LSU in the title game then, if not Alabama? Your answer is probablly anyone but Bama, which proves the point that it is personal with all of you who are against the rematch. The bottom line is the best two teams need to play each other for the championship, and all the experts/ voters/computers believe that to be the case.
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:53 pm
“A heckuva sight more bright than you.”
Then again, you didn’t even graduate nor attend UGA.
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:54 pm
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:52 pm
Kelly
AU folks were upset because AU went undefeated, won the SEC and had the best defense in the country.
Now go iron my shirt.
******************
I rest my case on that bright part….what a dunderhead.
bama2011
November 28th, 2011
5:54 pm
The UGA 2007 argument is a joke. The Dawgs got absolutely and thoroughly embarrassed by a pretty bad Tennessee team that year
Bigdsel
November 28th, 2011
5:55 pm
I hope Larry Munson screams from the heavens for the dawgs to hunker down against LSU this weekend and in their bowl game. Gooo dawgs
Alan
November 28th, 2011
5:55 pm
Larvell, thanks! Then it is actually in LSU’s best interest to lose to Georgia close, still make the Championship Game, and increase the bowl payout to each SEC team (including, of course, LSU).
BenB
November 28th, 2011
5:55 pm
Talk to your buddy Jeff Schulz. He seems to think the Dawgs stand a chance. They have “NO CHANCE”! This will will be a scrimmage.
bucket
November 28th, 2011
5:55 pm
It has so been so much fun reading the comments from Alabama and LSU fans trying to argue against what their current coaches actually said about whether or not you should have to win your conference to play for a national championship!!! Can you say hypocrites? I am unashamedly a Dawg fan, but in 2007 I said we should not play for a national championship because we didn’t win our conference. Saban and Miles USED to agree with me!!! lol
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:56 pm
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:53 pm
“A heckuva sight more bright than you.”
Then again, you didn’t even graduate nor attend UGA.
********************
1990 my boneheaded friend….
I’m confident that you DID attend Fraudburn, given the entrance requirement of having only two legs…
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:56 pm
“The UGA 2007 argument is a joke. The Dawgs got absolutely and thoroughly embarrassed by a pretty bad Tennessee team that year”
Indeed.
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:58 pm
“1990 my boneheaded friend…”
You should look into taking a Remedial English class at UGA.
“I’m confident that you DID attend Fraudburn, given the entrance requirement of having only two legs…”
For someone who claims to have graduated from UGA, you sure do a horrible job representing UGA.
Lie much, tard?
phil
November 28th, 2011
5:58 pm
I’ll agree we didn’t belong in 2007….not at all….
Similar to Fraudburn last year, which should’ve been banned for lying, cheating, stealing and stinking!
North ave. faithful
November 28th, 2011
5:58 pm
I just dont have a whole lot of respect for the ranking system. should only have maybe a top 10. For heavens sake at week 7 they had my jackets ranked 12, i told my wife how is that even possibe? does anybody even watch these teams play?
Hey Mark- here is the real question!
November 28th, 2011
5:59 pm
Great article, Mark. That was exactly my point to you on the blog from Sat night.
Thanks for elaborating on the issue.
Your Friend on FB
November 28th, 2011
5:59 pm
The BCS is trying to pick the best teams – who is playing the best AT THE END OF THE SEASON. UGA was the best team in 2007. Period. No debate about it.
phil
November 28th, 2011
6:00 pm
2010 BCS CHAMPS
November 28th, 2011
5:58 pm
“1990 my boneheaded friend…”
You should look into taking a Remedial English class at UGA.
“I’m confident that you DID attend Fraudburn, given the entrance requirement of having only two legs…”
For someone who claims to have graduated from UGA, you sure do a horrible job representing UGA.
Lie much, tard?
***************
Well….when you learn not to capitalize remedial in that context, we can discuss English classes….
What year did you “graduate” from Fraudburn?
DunwoodyDawg
November 28th, 2011
6:01 pm
I think we are going to be stuck with the BCS until until congress, shudder, steps in and mucks things up. There is just no way the university presidents will go for a playoff or any kind. Look at the system now. The Big East is and AQ. What a joke. Seriously, I don’t see this thing changing unless the politicians get their collective briefs in a bunch. Then we will have the mother of all ____ storms.
JDW
November 28th, 2011
6:02 pm
@bama2011…”The UGA 2007 argument is a joke. The Dawgs got absolutely and thoroughly embarrassed by a pretty bad Tennessee team that year”
I am guessing you guys don’t get much news over in Alybamer…that Tennessee finished 10-4 and rated in the top 15. Fact is that if winning one’s conference was a prerequisite in 2007, as the pundits declared, it is now. What should happen is at the end of Sundays action the top two conference champions should square off in the BCS Championship game.
DelServDawg
November 28th, 2011
6:02 pm
(I posted the message below on the Junkyard Blawg (Bill Krug) earlier today, but I think it a more appropriate comment for this column–DSDawg)
I have been a Bulldog supporter since the late 1960s. I am a UGA alumnus twice (’75, ‘94) and a season ticket holder since 1981. Even in the early years of my support, I was in favor of a play-off championship series and hoped to see one developed over time. Now as I approach my 60th birth date, I fear I will never see a Division I (FBS) play-off in my lifetime. All of this bull about the BCS, which I think is a total failure, would not only be unnecessary with a play-off system, but completely irrelevant. I have always, and still, believe that the national championship should be decided by the young men and coaches on the field and not through the opinions of sports journalists (with apologies to you Bill, I know that you and your colleagues are working with what you’ve been handed). After all, if they were right all of the time there would be no need to even play the games. They could just vote based on their team observations at the beginning of the season and award the national championship. There are a lot of smart folks out there and you can’t make me believe that a play-off system isn’t possible. After all, practically every other organized sport out there has one. No, it doesn’t happen because of big money, just as with anything else. It’s absurd that Division I (FBS) doesn’t have a play-off. It’s just not fair to all those fine young men and coaches who play the game, or to those of us who love to watch them.
Hey Mark- here is the real question!
November 28th, 2011
6:03 pm
@2010 BCS Champs….LSU lost its last regular season game. Get a clue. UGA/Tn was early in the season. Makes a difference like it or not.