BCS National Championship

Pre-season AP rankings.

There are five teams from the SEC there. Auburn isn’t in the top 25. Florida is tenth and finished with 8 losses including one to an FCS team. Georgia has 4 losses. The SEC is good sure but they’re benefiting from a “pass” that other conferences just don’t get.

For frell’s sake. Bama got a shot at the NCG two years ago without even winning their conference. Without even making the conf. championship game to play a team that had already beaten them in an ugly bad football game. Just look back to the talk before the Big Ten conf. championship game this season. They were talking about a one loss Auburn jumping Ohio State. Granted Ohio State lost to the number 1 defense in the country but no one suggested that one loss MSU get to play FSU. Because the Big Ten is “bad” and the SEC is “good.”

And where was the biggest fount of that – ESPN or rather ESECPN.

The SEC benefits from a bias in perception and they’ve got their share of bad teams like any conference and A&M and Missouri are new arrivals to the SEC but seems to be holding their own quite well.

To be the best, so goes to the old sports adage, you’ve got to beat the best. But since only SEC teams are consistently declared the best, only SEC teams get the chance to prove themselves against “the best.”
It’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Does the SEC get favorable rankings because it’s so good? Or is the SEC so good because it gets favorable rankings? I argue for the latter.

@frimmel:

Pre-season AP rankings.

There are five teams from the SEC there. Auburn isn’t in the top 25. Florida is tenth and finished with 8 losses including one to an FCS team. Georgia has 4 losses. The SEC is good sure but they’re benefiting from a “pass” that other conferences just don’t get.

These are projections for a new season, which are more or less just a carryover from the previous season.  They aren’t going to be correct by the end, for the most part.  I wouldn’t use that in an argument.  However, I see 4 Big 12 teams, and 5 Big 10 teams.  Not sure I can pick out anymore off the top of my head, but there’s no bias there.  The defending champ is #1 (as they should be, especially after it was a repeat), SC is about where they should be, TAMU was ranked highly after a Heisman winner, Florida ended up having a rare off year, and LSU isn’t far off from where they ended.  And looking now, there are 7 SEC teams at the end of the season, so the estimate was conservative.

For frell’s sake. Bama got a shot at the NCG two years ago without even winning their conference. Without even making the conf. championship game to play a team that had already beaten them in an ugly bad football game. Just look back to the talk before the Big Ten conf. championship game this season. They were talking about a one loss Auburn jumping Ohio State. Granted Ohio State lost to the number 1 defense in the country but no one suggested that one loss MSU get to play FSU. Because the Big Ten is “bad” and the SEC is “good.”

Yes, but in 2011 they were unanimously ranked #1, and faced the SEC champs.  Who did you want in there instead?  Ok. State?  And they didn’t play in the SEC championship, because LSU beat them in head to head.  They can’t represent the other half of the conference in the championship game, that’s not how the SEC operates.  No one thinks the Big 10 is bad, but Auburn has beat higher quality opponents and has a better strength of schedule.  Sure, that may seem tautological, but after a season of play, the rankings are far more clear than the preseason projections.

And where was the biggest fount of that – ESPN or rather ESECPN.

The SEC benefits from a bias in perception and they’ve got their share of bad teams like any conference and A&M and Missouri are new arrivals to the SEC but seems to be holding their own quite well.

ESPN obviously goes where the money is, there’s no doubt about that.  But it’s not like they don’t talk about the other conferences.
SEC certainly has bad football programs (UK is a basketball school, Florida had a down year, etc.) but they are through and through a football conference.  Guess which conference had the best out of conference record this year?  That’s right - the SEC.

To be the best, so goes to the old sports adage, you’ve got to beat the best. But since only SEC teams are consistently declared the best, only SEC teams get the chance to prove themselves against “the best.”
It’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Does the SEC get favorable rankings because it’s so good? Or is the SEC so good because it gets favorable rankings? I argue for the latter.

I think there is more reason to see the rankings as they are based on teams and interconference gameplay, rather than bias or conspiracy.  I haven’t seen an argument for Alabama to be playing Auburn for the BCS, which would give weight to your argument.

Well, it wasn’t the National Title game, but Oklahoma is relevant again!  Suck it Saban!

War Eagle y’all

Wife’s family all went to AU so I don’t get to chose. Closest I’ve ever been to Alabama was actually closer to Tallahasee, the airport in Atlanta :-P

I’ve got bigger football issues right now like how are my Philadelphia Eagles going to control Drew Brees?

@hkytown1:

War Eagle y’allÂ

Wife’s family all went to AU so I don’t get to chose. Closest I’ve ever been to Alabama was actually closer to Tallahasee, the airport in Atlanta :-P

I’ve got bigger football issues right now like how are my Philadelphia Eagles going to control Drew Brees?

Pretend they are the Raiders…

I’m surprised the point spread has grown since my last post, Auburn getting ten points is pretty good value, for those who have the means to bet an IPC or two.

I don’t think Alabama’s loss against Oklahoma did anything to help Auburn.  I love Stoops because he’s from around where I grew up, but Oklahoma really hadn’t been relevant since the Statue of Liberty play…and that was the down fall…maybe AP on the sideline helped out a little.  While I would love to see the SEC suck it this year, I have to think that Auburn is the team of destiny.  Alabama may have been overrated this year much like my Buckeyes, but I at least knew that…most people were believing in the SEC machine to do work.

I have to side on the fact that the ACC is an inferior football conference.  Their 1st half performance against Duke should warrant a lot of caution for FSU fans. Ok, you can point to Duke’s bowl performance as a good thing, but that’s a bad team getting a great jump…give Auburn to get the same jump Duke had on both games, and they will not give that lead up.  If this game lives up to it, this may have been the best set of BCS bowls ever.  Curious to see how the playoff changes things up.

There’s the quick start as mentioned. 14-3….and the only way FSU has been able to move the ball is on a roughing the kicker penalty?!?!? Time to go back to an all girl’s school! (it’s already a girly school as it is).

Shi%£y football weekend all around.

At least I’m not a Chiefs fan.

I was very upset with the “run the ball up the middle” playcalling….was eating humble pie till the wife came home from the thrift shop with a good condition Stratego for $2.50!

I do owe a can of pop now for this game…thank goodness for hockey and conference play for college basketball!

Not how they drew it up, but the Noles did overcome plenty of adversity. For all the big plays and drives in the 4th quarter, the fake punt called by Jimbo Fisher before the end of the half was huge. Would have been hard to rally the locker room down 21-3 as opposed to 21-10.

Still an amazing run from Auburn after starting the season in complete anonymity.

They said on Good Morning America that next years National Champion will be decided by a 4 team playoff. Is this news to anyone else?

@Yavid:

They said on Good Morning America that next years National Champion will be decided by a 4 team playoff. Is this news to anyone else?

It isn’t to me.

But it will probably be Bama if SEC Champ, SEC Champ and Bama (if not SEC champ,) and 2 or 3 (depending on Bama) of PAC-12 Champ, B1G Champ, ACC Champ, BIG12 Champ or undefeated Notre Dame. Probably two SEC teams no matter what since to some people it seems to make sense to give a shot at the title to teams that don’t win their own conference. Hopefully it will be four conference champions and not two or three SEC teams but I won’t hold my breath.

Yea, a four team playoff is what people have wanted for a long time.  BCS honks have always believed that the current system in place works. This year it did but in past years there have been many questions as to who belongs in the championship game.  A four team playoff eliminates any question as to who should be in the title game.

last year was the worst Alabama just rolled over Notre Dame the game was over after the first quarter. I personally think it should be an 8 team playoff but given that there are playoffs at all I guess is a win.

@hkytown1:

Yea, a four team playoff is what people have wanted for a long time.  BCS honks have always believed that the current system in place works. This year it did but in past years there have been many questions as to who belongs in the championship game.  A four team playoff eliminates any question as to who should be in the title game.

Not really. It just makes more questions because more teams are going to be good enough to be number 4. The guys in charge of the thing said so. And it seems this is also at the behest of the SEC.

So why did it take us so long to get to this?

SEC commissioner Mike Slive started thinking about a four-team playoff in 2004 when Auburn went undefeated, won the SEC championship but got shut out of the BCS title game in favor of Oklahoma and Southern California.

“I just felt that there should be a place in the postseason structure for an undefeated or one-loss champion from our conference,” Slive said. “So over the long haul, it became clear to me that expanding the structure was going to serve us better.”

Everyone calls the BCS a “mythical” national championship but forget that it had always been mythical before. The BCS simply created a structure where number one could play number two. With the new playoff format unless they take four conference champs it will be more political and more mythical than ever.

@frimmel:

@hkytown1:

Yea, a four team playoff is what people have wanted for a long time.  BCS honks have always believed that the current system in place works. This year it did but in past years there have been many questions as to who belongs in the championship game.  A four team playoff eliminates any question as to who should be in the title game.

Not really. It just makes more questions because more teams are going to be good enough to be number 4. The guys in charge of the thing said so.

Yeah look at how many wild card teams win the superbowl. it’s why I say 8 team.

It will be eight teams soon enough. Some one loss conference champ gets rolled after a one loss not conference champ Bama or LSU or whichever SEC team can’t get it done but has been touted at the best all season got passed over for that slot and the hew and cry for eight teams will be deafening.