Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Big XII blew this one

I guess it is time to weigh in on this issue.

After an absurd season in the Big XII south the unthinkable happened. The most convoluted absurd scenario played out right before our very own eyes. Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma all had the same record and they all happened to beat each other (Texas Tech beat Texas but lost to OU, Texas beat OU but OU beat Texas Tech who beat Texas.... exactly) So how to decide this?

Of course! The BCS! Those computer nerds can solve this problem as they have streamlined all of college football for the fans! The Big XII conference rules stated that the team with the highest BCS ranking would advance to the title game, very black and white. But when the computers churned out OU as the winner of the Big XII south, proving losing early is the way to do it, all hell broke out and for good reason. But in this situation the blame lies with the Big XII and not the BCS.

The reason for the rule is to ensure that the team that has the best chance of representing the Big XII in the national championship gets the shot (which makes sense) but a blind following of the computers is not the way to go. The SEC has this one right. The BCS rankings are used unless the teams are within five spots of one another, then it looks at heads up play. Using that scenario Texas would be the one in the title game. Now whether or not you believe it should be OU or Texas you can most certainly admit that system is more fair. There are so many flaws with the computer calculations that you just can't follow them blindly. Head-to-head play should reign supreme when breaking a tie not a computer formula. What would be really ironic is if OU loses to Missouri and Texas sneaks into the national championship... what would people do then...

I hate the BCS as much as the next guy but for once the majority of blame lies with the conference on this one. Alas BCS you have narrowly escaped this one.

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