Good gravy. In less than 24 hours, ASU and LSU were knocked out of the national title picture while Texas suffered the humiliation of losing to a bad A&M team. More will fall tomorrow. Kansas and Mizzou play each other. And West Virginia, Georgia, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Oregon all have tough games. All this should set up Ohio State nicely to back into a national championship game. And if West Virginia chokes and Oklahoma wins the Big 12, not only will Ohio State get into the championship game, they will face a 2-loss team.
The bobbleheads on TV were saying we don’t need a playoff since the season is a playoff (at least that’s what i think they said, it was difficult to tell since they were fellating the BCS as the same time).
Fine. But then quit pretending that this is a way of selecting a national champion.
West Virginia is now poised to play for the national championship — at least partially because they are in a weak conference that doesn’t have a championship game. If WVU stumbles or Oklahoma wins the Big 12, Ohio State will have moved into the national championship without playing a game — again benefiting from a down conference and the lack of a conference championship game.
If it’s West Virginia-Ohio State for the national title, I will not regard either as the best team in the nation. Not when the SEC and Pac 10 have spent the season slugging it out. Not when there are half a dozen 2-loss teams I think could beat them.
Tell me. Why will Ohio State be ranked over LSU on Sunday? Is it because people have done a sophisticated analysis? Is it because they’ve considered strength of schedule, home-road balance and other things? Or will it be because Ohio State has one loss and LSU has two?
How many people do you think realize that LSU, Kansas, Georgia, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Ohio State have played seven home games against five road games while West Virginia, USC, Oregon and Mizzou were six and six? Does this factor at all into their thinking?
It is a simple fact that college football schedules are neither far nor balanced enough to proclaim that a 1-loss team from Conference A is better than a 2-loss team from Conference B. The selection of the top teams in the country is entirely a matter of opinion, whether that opinion is forged in the mind of an SMT or a computer. Ranking are based entirely on number of losses first and pre-season hype second. It is patently ridiculous to claim that anyone or any system can sort through over 100 teams and over a thousand games and divine the two best teams in the country.
We can play it this way but we can’t pretend this process produces a legitimate national champ. Have a playoff between eight conference champs. Settle it on the field.