Tony Barnhart (despite being a nauseating SEC homer) is a primo college football writer, analyst and fan. Well, except in
this entry last week from his
Mr. College Football blog at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I expect more from ol' Tony than these tired half-assed explanations of BCS controversies of yore:
2000: Miami beats Florida State head to head during the regular season but finishes third behind the Seminoles in the final BCS Standings and gets shut out of the game. Florida State loses to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl
Every time I read one of these critiques about 2000, I feel like I'm living in bizarro-world. Why is Washington (and Oregon State and Virginia Tech to lesser extents) always left out of this discussion? Yes, Miami beat FSU...in a nailbiter. Two weeks earlier, Washington had beaten Miami, in a more dominating fashion (not necessarily by the score, but I watched both games). FSU, Miami, Washington, Oregon State and Virginia Tech each finished with one loss. Washington's one loss was on the road to an Oregon team that finished 10-2. Is it provincial bias? Sheer ignorance? How the hell do you distill 2000 to a debate over two teams when
five BCS-league squads finished with one defeat,
and each of the five teams played at least one of the other five? I actually
analyzed the 2000 situation two years ago and I haven't changed my opinion in the slightest.
2001: Nebraska played for the BCS championship but didn’t even win the Big 12. The Cornhuskers were embarrassed by Miami in the Rose Bowl.
I don't recall a lot of "didn't even win the SEC" arguments regarding Georgia last year when many pundits -
Barnhart chief among them - exclaimed (inexplicably) that the Dawgs might really deserve to be in the BCS title game. Personally, I don't have an issue if a team gets a BCS title shot without winning their league. It's not uncommon for the champion in NCAA hoops or baseball to not have a conference crown as well. But getting back to the Nebraska argument...I don't recall the main sticking point being that the Huskers didn't win the Big XII. The big problem with Nebraska getting to the Rose Bowl that season was that they got curb-stomped
62-36 by Colorado in the regular season finale.
2003: Southern Cal finishes No. 1 in both of the human polls but No. 3 in the BCS formula. LSU and Oklahoma play for the BCS championship and USC settles for the AP title. This game changed the BCS formula to weight it more heavily towards the human voters.
Tony leaves out half of the cause of the '03 debate...that Oklahoma got violated
35-7 in the Big XII championship to a three-loss Kansas State team, yet still got a BCS title shot. It's still bad that the #1 team in both human polls got left out, but when a team gets drilled by four touchdowns in early December and still gets a BCS championship game bid...
that's the real problem.
2004: Auburn wins the SEC championship at 12-0 and gets shut out of the BCS championship game.
Short of an actual playoff, there is
no system that would've solved this dilemma. This same situation would've happened under the old pre-BCS bowl system, except worse - USC would've played in the Rose Bowl, Oklahoma in the Orange (or Fiesta), and Auburn in the Sugar. At least the BCS got two of the three to play. And poor little Auburn's case would've been helped greatly if they hadn't nearly blown the Sugar Bowl to Virginia Tech in a 16-13 final, while USC was abusing Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.
