Saturday, December 08, 2007

Thoughts While Waiting for the Heisman Trophy Show...

• Anyone who thinks Tim Tebow isn't winning in a landslide is kidding themselves. While there might be some doubt about whether Tebow is a clear-cut choice, everyone (save a few McFadden supporters) agree he should win. He's going to get a clear majority of the first place votes, and possibly even more than that.

• This year proves why the BCS is a joke. How does LSU jump Virginia Tech in the final Harris and Coaches polls despite winning less convincingly (against a weaker opponent than VT played) in their conference title game? Ignoring the fact that LSU should have been ahead of the Hokies in the first place on account of a head-to-head win, why aren't people asking voters to explain themselves. To me, this looks like the BCS voters trying to hand pick who plays in the title game.

• I don't think any school owes more to the BCS than LSU. In 2003, they were one of the three one loss teams to make the title game, where they beat an overrated Oklahoma team. The AP title went to one-loss USC team, who everyone that didn't vote in the Coaches poll agreed was the best team. Now, voters give them the nod over other two loss teams. Maybe they deserved it, playing in the tough SEC and having both of their losses come in overtime, but there's no way to say that objectively, which was the whole point of the BCS system.

• My pick for #2 in the country - Oklahoma. They played two bad halfs of football (the second half against Colorado and the first half against Texas Tech - and they were without their starting QB in that one), and aside from that defeated a tough Texas team and were the only team to beat Missouri all year.

• I'm at the point where I believe that if college football isn't going to go to a playoff, they should go back to the bowl system, since it at least didn't pretend to be objective. Since 2/3 of the BCS is human polls, it's effectively as subjective as the old system.

For fun, here's my guess at what the major bowls would look like if the tie-ins that existed 10 years ago were still in existence:

Rose Bowl (Pac-10 vs. Big 10): USC vs. Ohio State
Orange Bowl (Big 12 vs. At-Large): Oklahoma vs. Georgia
Sugar Bowl (SEC vs. At-Large): LSU vs. Virginia Tech
Fiesta Bowl (2 At-Larges): West Virginia vs. Kansas

This would set up an interesting dynamic. If OSU won the Rose Bowl, they'd win. If they lost, I could see three different outcomes:

1. USC gets the bump for beating them.

2. LSU gets the bump as they'd still likely bet #2 in the polls entering New Year's Day.

3. Virginia Tech gets the nod for beating LSU. If they did, they would have avenged their two losses (Boston College and LSU) in the ACC title game and Sugar Bowl respectively.

I can't see a scenario in which Oklahoma, Georgia, WVU or Kansas would win.

It would certainly make for a fun New Year's Day, and would be no less subjective than the BCS system we're left with is.

Other scenario - how fun would a 16 team playoff be (11 conference champs plus 5 at-larges settled on through the computer polls)? To make it even more fun, you could make those 5 play at the mid-major conference champs in round one to increase the chances of an upset.

Here's what the first round matchups would be:

(1) Ohio State vs. (16) Troy
(2) LSU vs. (15) Central Michigan
(3) Virginia Tech vs. (14) Central Florida
(4) Oklahoma vs. (13) Florida
(5) USC vs. (12) Arizona State
(6) West Virginia vs. (!1) Kansas
(7) Hawaii vs. (10) Missouri
(8) BYU vs. (9) Georgia

Those would be some fun matchups.

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