BCS got it right, this time

By James Alverson
Jan 3, 2012

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As unpopular as it may be, the BCS got it right. This time they did anyway.

It may not be the sexy TV match up that Oklahoma State and LSU sounds like it would be. It may very well be another "dreaded" defensive game (which I actually think would be refreshing given this bowl season thus far), but the best two teams in the country will be playing each other in the National Championship Game.

That is said not to take anything away from Oklahoma State, who had a phenomenal year, or Oregon, a team that also had a great season, but the BCS gave us # 1 and # 2 on the field at the end of the season.

Yeah, I know, they played each other in November. Yes I realize that LSU won the game that had it been played on a muddy, cold and nasty field in the Big Ten 20 years ago might be lauded as one of the greatest games ever.

You can make the argument that Alabama missed its opportunity to win the national championship when it lost to the Bayou Bengals at home in overtime, but I think you'd be missing the larger point.

They played each other. Alabama lost by three points in a game that realistically they should have won. A questionable call on an interception on the goal line and several missed field goals were the difference between Alabama and LSU swapping places in this argument that people have carried on well into the bowl season.

People look at it and say they don't want to see a rematch because the thought of Oklahoma State and LSU scoring touchdowns left and right sounds more exciting than a 9-6 slugfest where teams actually play defense. If you were to look back on the first match up this year between Alabama and LSU, you'd see a game in which offenses moved the football fairly well.

The two offenses could not finish their drives though because the quality of defense being played in that game was tremendously high. Guys made plays, big plays. They may not have been the eye-popping touchdown catches or runs that people have become accustomed to seeing on SportsCenter highlights, but there was a tremendously high level of football played in that game.

Those two defenses were good. They were good all night, on every single play in that game. Could you go back and nit-pick little spots where a guy may have been slightly out of position on a given play? Sure, but they didn’t give up touchdowns, not because the offenses weren’t capable of scoring them ever, but because the team on the other side of the ball stopped them, which is their job!

You may not want to see a game where very few, if any, mistakes get made that cost a team points, but it IS good football. It is football that is worthy of a national champion, and a national championship game.

Think about this for a second. No one is questioning whether or not LSU should be in this game given their undefeated record and spectacular season. All the questions swirl around the #2 team in the equation, Alabama. The Tide are a missed field goal away from switching places with LSU, and when you really go back and look at the tape, were probably the better team on the day than LSU, just not on the scoreboard.

I firmly believe that if you listen to some of the things that this LSU team has said over the past few weeks leading up to this game about Alabama not deserving their place in this game, you are listening to a team that in no way, shape or form, wants to play that Alabama team again. They wouldn’t want to play them again in a playoff system either. Why you may ask? Because I believe Alabama is the BEST team in the country, and I think that many LSU players who faced that Crimson Tide team in Tuscaloosa may have that thought lingering deep in their minds as well. In fact LSU would welcome a date with Oklahoma State or a rematch with Oregon, because it would mean they wouldn’t have to see THAT Alabama team again.

So if that kind of thinking is prevailing or even merely existent on the undisputed # 1 ranked team in the country right now, don’t you believe that fact is pretty telling as far as whom the real # 2 team in the nation is? I do, and I welcome a rematch, defensive or not.

Football is a game with three distinct aspects of the game; offense, defense and special teams. Each has the opportunity to make a difference in the outcome of a given game. Not a single one of those aspects should be discounted as less important to create a match up of teams that would be “more fun to watch”. That’s not what the BCS was designed to do.

Hate the system all you want, and it is far from perfect, but the BCS is designed to place the two best teams, for the balance of the year, on the same field at the end of the year. That is what it did. Alabama and LSU each earned their spot to play for a title. They impressed the voters. They impressed the computers, and they collectively won all but one game between the two of them combined, and it took one of those two teams losing to the other to make that loss happen.

If you want to change the system, fine, I’m all for having that conversation and figuring out what we can do to crown a champion in a better way. (A playoff wouldn’t be perfect either, but that’s another story) But Alabama and LSU earned their spots for a shot a national championship this season under the current system that was agreed upon, and just because they played what some people consider to be an “ugly” game against each other earlier in the season, does not mean they aren’t the two best teams in the country.

They are the best, and the BCS got it right.

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RE: BCS got it right, this time

@Cutclifferules - Not justifying the BCS. I'm all for changing the system. But if you don't recognize that a playoff system, particularly a one-and-done playoff doesn't always give you the most complete team after 3-4 rounds of playoffs, then you are equally out of your mind as anyone who would stand up and defend the BCS. I too could go on another 10 paragraphs why Ok. State deserved it more than Alabama, but I don't for one second believe they are a better team. It's a shame we won't get to see on the field, but the better team doesn't always win a game. All I am doing is facing the reality that this is the system we are going to have to deal with for quite some time, whether you agree with it or not. This time the system put the two best teams in the country together. It has not worked before, and sometimes it has, it's imperfect, I don't like the idea of hand-picking two championship game participants either, but it's the world we live in. So deal with it. Ask the New England Patriots about who the better team was when the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl after a perfect regular season. I think you have to admit that perfection over the long haul 13-16 weeks in football is much more difficult to attain than a single upset is to win. The playoffs system doesn't always work to give you the best team as a champion, just the simple fact of life, people don't play their best every single time out, and sometimes that bites a superior team when another is on its game. I will be very clear, I don't like the BCS (as I said many times in the article however) like it or not it is what we have, and it "worked" by doing what it was designed to do. Want to have a conversation about how to design a system to do something else? All for it, but guarantee there will be problems with that one too. It's not about the BCS being a "right" system, it's about Alabama and LSU being the best two teams in the country, regardless of how many points they score on each other
- Posted by jalverson2

You say that sometimes in the past this system has "worked" and sometimes it hasn't. When has it not "worked"? Are those the times when you did not agree which two teams should have been picked? That's a pretty subjective assessment of the system.

I would argue that we should not, then, have a "championship" game at all, just like in the old days. If LSU is so universally agreed to be better than Alabama, as the polls showed this year, why should they have to play anybody to be proclaimed champion?

RE: BCS got it right, this time

The BCS did not "get it right" this time. These two teams have already played and no team should have to beat the same team twice to claim a championship. As good as LSU and Alabama are touted to be, neither really played any other top 5 five team through out the season so for both to claim a spot in the championship game is suspect. Let there be a playoff - there are easily 3-4 weeks available now to fit in the playoff games. And there's even room for another lower tier playoff bracket to reward the mid-major/Conf USA/WAC schools too. Can't see how it's in anyone's interest to watch more than half of the current bowl games with half-empty or less stadiums. Fill these bowl stadiums up with meaningful playoff games. The top tier bowls will still get their money from hosting late round playoff/championship games and revenue will still be shared among conferences with qualifying teams - as it is today. The current BCS is till a crooked monopoly controlled by the SEC, Big Ten, Pac 12 - until that cabal is revealed and broken up - nothing will change.

RE: BCS got it right, this time

There is no "getting it right" with the BCS. Now, it may work as designed, pairing the current #1 against the current #2. I'm not arguing that. But it is most certainly not "right." Any system that hand-picks two teams to play for the national championship, regardless of the criteria they use, is not right.
- Posted by TruthBKnown Left The Building

Exactly. "Getting it right" depends on your definition of "right". In the case of the BCS, all it means is that somebody's arithmetic is correct when calculating some arcane (and highly subjective) formula to come up with a score.

Nobody knows which are the two "best" teams. Nobody. For that matter, we don't know which are the best four, the best eight or the best sixteen. Personally, I don't care if Alabama is better than Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State is a champion and Alabama isn't. I could live with a small playoff that only included the four highest ranked conference champions (or independents). All the potential at-large teams had their chance to win their conference championship and they failed. To me, that's enough reason to exclude them from an attempt to determine - not who is best - but who is champion.

RE: BCS got it right, this time

Again, the outcome of a playoff is irrelevant to the discussion. The point is that a playoff is the best way to determine a champion. They are set up to help the #1 and #2 team have the easiest path to the championship (seeding). But there should be no guarantee that they will make it to the championship. That's what we have now. But we're forgetting that it is also important to give other deserving teams a CHANCE to win the playoff, as well. And that we do NOT have now.

RE: BCS got it right, this time

@Cutclifferules - Not justifying the BCS. I'm all for changing the system. But if you don't recognize that a playoff system, particularly a one-and-done playoff doesn't always give you the most complete team after 3-4 rounds of playoffs, then you are equally out of your mind as anyone who would stand up and defend the BCS. I too could go on another 10 paragraphs why Ok. State deserved it more than Alabama, but I don't for one second believe they are a better team. It's a shame we won't get to see on the field, but the better team doesn't always win a game. All I am doing is facing the reality that this is the system we are going to have to deal with for quite some time, whether you agree with it or not. This time the system put the two best teams in the country together. It has not worked before, and sometimes it has, it's imperfect, I don't like the idea of hand-picking two championship game participants either, but it's the world we live in. So deal with it. Ask the New England Patriots about who the better team was when the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl after a perfect regular season. I think you have to admit that perfection over the long haul 13-16 weeks in football is much more difficult to attain than a single upset is to win. The playoffs system doesn't always work to give you the best team as a champion, just the simple fact of life, people don't play their best every single time out, and sometimes that bites a superior team when another is on its game. I will be very clear, I don't like the BCS (as I said many times in the article however) like it or not it is what we have, and it "worked" by doing what it was designed to do. Want to have a conversation about how to design a system to do something else? All for it, but guarantee there will be problems with that one too. It's not about the BCS being a "right" system, it's about Alabama and LSU being the best two teams in the country, regardless of how many points they score on each other
- Posted by jalverson2

Ask the Patriots? I've never understood why so many people call that a huge upset. That was the easiest 14 pt spread in the history of betting. In case you (and it seems like everyone else) forgot, the NYG played a 100% Pats team down to the wire in the last game of the season and nearly beat them then. I was shocked when that spread came out after seeing them expose and obvious Pats weakness (OLine) a few weeks prior.

The BCS didn't get it right, it should've been Okla St. the reason is b/c if Alabama wins here, then the best anyone can say is "oh well they split"...so there should be a 3rd game??

C'mon...Ok State played more ranked teams than Bama, their opponents win % was higher, and their only loss was on the road (not at home) in OT to a bowl team and the week of a campus-wide tragedy. can't help but to think that didn't play into things just a small bit.

Bama is playing in this game b/c of their reputation over Okla State, period.

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James Alverson