How college football got it wrong...again

On Sunday, the BCS announced which two teams would play for the national title. They chose LSU (only undefeated team, won the SEC) and Alabama (one loss, it was to LSU, didn't win their conference, didn't win their division) over Oklahoma State (one loss, it was to 6-6 Iowa State, won their conference).

This was another bad decision in a loooooong line of bad decisions.

The BCS is extremely unpopular with college football fans all over the country. Fans want to see a playoff. Proponents of the BCS argue that a playoff would devalue the regular season, and the BCS should stay because that way, "Every game counts."

Well, the decision to put Alabama in the title game flies in the face of the mantra, "every game counts". Instead, it should say, "every loss counts". Because if you look at every game (all 12 of them), Oklahoma State should be going. It's only if you look at one single game for each team (the loss) that Alabama deserves the berth.

Here are the Top-25 teams Alabama played this season: #1 (LSU-loss), #6 (Arkansas-win), #22 (Penn State-win), #25 (Auburn-win)
Here are the Top-25 teams Oklahoma State played this season: #8 (Kansas State-win), #12 (Baylor-win), #14 (Oklahoma-win) #24 (Texas-win)

The perception is, "Alabama played in the SEC, so they must have had the toughest road,so they must be the most deserving 1-loss team." Actually, the Big-12 was tougher. Alabama might have had an argument if they had played #9 South Carolina and #16 Georgia, but they didn't play either one.

So who bares the blame for this decision? The pollsters and the BCS itself.
The pollsters had their chance to issue an end-of-regular season correction, as they did in 2006. That was the year Ohio State and Michigan played int he second-to-last week of the season when they were ranked #1 and #2. Ohio State won a thriller, and Michigan stayed at #2 after the loss. However, the following week, Florida won the SEC Championship over then BCS #9 Arkansas, and the pollsters decided to jump Florida over Michigan, avoiding a rematch in the BCS Championship game. In that case, the voters had another deserving option, and (rightly) chose the top conference champion to take on the undisputed #1 team, rather than let a team who didn't win its conference AND had already lost to the other title game participant take the other spot. This year, the pollsters had the same chance to make the same correction, and Oklahoma State also made a last-week statement by thrashing then-#10 Oklahoma 44-10 while Alabama was idle. This time the pollsters declined to make the move.

And the BCS? They should have fixed things after 2001. Back then, Nebraska was the consensus #2 until their last game of the regular season, when they lost to Colorado 62-36. And despite having 2 worthy conference winners (Colorado and Oregon) available to play #1 Miami, Nebraska got the other title game berth. At that point, the BCS should have enacted a rule requiring teams to win their conferences to play for the title game. But they didn't, and the system failed in 2005 (Oklahoma over USC) and again this year.

Well done, BCS, congratulations on another illegitimate title game matchup.