BCS: Justice for None

Alabama deserves to be ranked the second best team in college football. They squandered chance after chance and still did not succumb until overtime when they played mighty LSU in November. They would probably be favored by two touchdowns if they played Oklahoma State. After all, OSU lost to Iowa State (the Cyclones! Are you kidding me?) and was a competent field goal kicker away from losing to Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl (apologies to whatever corporation sponsored this non-profit, amateur gala; I just can’t lower myself to look up your name) But it simply does not follow that they have earned a rematch.

History serves as our best precedent.

On Thanksgiving Day 1971, Nebraska beat Oklahoma 35-31 in what is generally considered college football’s Game of the Century. Like the Crimson Tide, the Sooners enjoyed home field advantage and, frankly, they played a hell of a lot better than Nick Saban’s bunch did two months ago. Most importantly, after the game pretty much everyone agreed that OU was the second best team in the country. The 1971 Alabama team was undefeated, but few doubted who would win if they played.

Yet there was no talk of a rematch. Nebraska accepted a bid to the Orange Bowl and the OB committee members, the guys wearing those loud jackets, chose to pair them against Alabama rather than Oklahoma. The Huskers dismantled the Tide, 38-6. OU would surely have been worthier opponents, but the point is that the Sooners had already had their chance. Another team deserved theirs.

Oklahoma State probably would suffer a lopsided loss to LSU, but they deserve the chance more than Bama, for the simple reason that the Tide have already had one.

Sometimes rematches in title games are merited, but only when the loser has earned their way by progressing through a tourney bracket, like Michigan did in men’s college basketball in 1976. The Wolverines had already lost to undefeated Indiana twice during the regular season, but no one questioned their right to play in the final because they had to win four games to get there.

Alabama, by contrast, ‘earned’ their way to this rematch by beating Mississippi State, Georgia Southern, and a middling Auburn team. And they didn’t even have to play in a conference title game because of the LSU loss.

Where is the justice and where is the sense?

Unlike everyone else outside the SEC, I am looking forward to this rematch because it should be one hell of a football game, but we would all feel a lot better about this—and a lot more people would tune in—if Alabama had made their way through a playoff.

Please! We, and by we I mean virtually every fan, just want an eight-team playoff, with the five conference winners (Sorry, Big East) and three at large selections.

For years, defenders of the status quo have been telling us that a playoff would ruin the regular season—that the regular season is effectively a playoff; one loss and your out—but it turned out that the LSU-Alabama game, the most hyped regular season game since 1996, meant virtually nada.

An eight-team playoff would actually greatly increase the tension in the regular season because teams in five conferences would be competing for automatic births and there would usually be a dog fight for the three at large bids. What’s more, there would be more major intersectionals like this season’s season opening Oregon-LSU match-up because coaches would want tough games to prepare their teams for the all-important conference schedule.

I know, the system is not likely to change anytime soon. The bowls and their high paid execs have a powerful lobby; most coaches don’t want the pressure of being judged by whether their team makes a playoff; and they and the ADs surely don’t want to give up the bonuses they get for guiding their teams to a 7-5 record and a bid to a usually unprofitable, corporate-sponsored Podunk Bowl. Did anyone notice that the first bowl game played that sold out was the 13th one contested, between Notre Dame and Florida State?

And I know, I am cynical. The ADs and coaches are really just protecting the student-athletes from the wear of playing too many games and being academically handicapped. Sure. That’s why teams now play as many as 13 regular season games, compared to 10 through the late 60s, and many bowl games are played after New Years Day, when winter term has already started.

OK, I am cynical. Alabama doesn’t deserve a second chance, but I don’t blame them: it’s the whole system that is out of order.