I haven’t had reason to post anything about the BCS/playoff debate in a while, but I can always count on Joe at Coaches Hot Seat Blog for stuff to mine in a pinch.
Today, he’s worried that Georgia could go 13-0 and not play in the title game. Which, while a highly unlikely scenario, is OK as far as it goes.
Except you won’t believe what he was sounding the alarm bells about yesterday.
If 24 were about college football, this is what Jack Bauer would be going through each week.
Get The Picture 
I won’t argue that his logic makes sense in much of the article as its clearly more about bashing those in power in college football.
However, he does make one cogent and very important point:
It is unacceptable that any team should beat every opponent put before them and not have an opportunity to win that sports’ championship.
Sure the BCS is the best we can do for now…and I’m not a huge playoff guy, but that just doesn’t seem right.
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By the way, should those 3 teams be USC, UGA, and Oklahoma (which I don’t think will happen) and Oklahoma gets left out, I would feel the same way.
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Is that the same OU school that in their last 4 BCS appearances got beat by LSU, punked by USC, lost to WAC power Boise State and upset by Big East team West Virginia???
You think the voters will all forget recent history? Even given the benefit of the Big 12 Championship Game spotlight, an undefeated SEC team will get the first slot and OU would be fighting with USC for that second slot (edge to the Trojans).
The SEC has built up a lot of good rep from recent years while OU has gotten the rep of not being able to win a bowl game over that same period. If it weren’t for OSU THEY would be the laughing stock for their end of year performances.
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Perhaps you’re right. The SEC team would likely get the nod…but that wouldn’t make it right for an undefeated Oklahoma squad (which as I said, I don’t think will happen) to not have an opportunity to play for the college football championship due to the stigma of the past few years in BCS games. Maybe they would implode, maybe they wouldn’t. But they should have earned the right to prove it.
Regardless, I’d be thrilled for Georgia to be there no matter how egregious the circumstances.
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“this very pervasive way” — I don’t think that word means what you think it means, Joe…
“It is unacceptable that any team should beat every opponent put before them and not have an opportunity to win that sports’ championship.” — Is it? Should Hawaii have played for it all last year? Or Tulane awhile back when they went undefeated? Pure W-L record is important but not decisive, and shouldn’t be.
It’s different in the NFL, when the teams are close enough in ability that the easiest schedule and the hardest schedule aren’t *that* different. And in the NFL, a 16-0 team could lose to an 8-8 team in the playoffs and be eliminated at 16-1 or 17-1 while the champion is 11-8. Is that better than a 11-2 SEC team playing an 11-2 Big XII team (for instance) for the title with a 12-0 WAC team playing in a lesser game?
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Georgia should be dropped in the polls because their schedule is too difficult, and they might not win those games! And if they do, they should accept their position because, um, their schedule was too tough! They didn’t win enough games against bad competition!
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Obviously Hawaii didn’t have the stuff to hang with the big boys, but until Georgia clobbered them we didn’t know it for sure.
As much as I think it was ridiculous for them to be there, yeah…as an undefeated team they should have a chance to prove if they have what it takes. Hawaii didn’t prove it.
But if they had beaten Georgia or beaten their foe as Boise State had the previous year they should get a chance to prove whether or not they are the best.
I know that only leads to a playoff, but we’ll never know if Boise State was the best team that year. If they beat Oklahoma, there’s no reason to believe they couldn’t have beaten Florida (and I know they could have beaten Ohio State).
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