Split-screen picture-in-picture was never more fun than last night. Watching West Virginia struggle in Pitt”s death grip on one side, Oklahoma rolling Missouri on the other was truly fun. And the mess made by the two latest pretenders falling on the last night of the season is stunning in its complexity. First off, I”ll be OK with it if LSU doesn”t make the BCS Championship Game. There”s a strong case to make for the Tigers, but there are good cases to make for a couple of other teams as well. LSU had it right there in front of them a week ago Friday and blew it. If we get back up, great. But LSU isn”t owed anything.
The safe assumption is that Ohio State is in. And that”s the biggest travesty of this whole mess. The Buckeyes have no case to be there except for “one loss”. Their sole win over a top-25 team came against current No. 18 Wisconsin, and their opponents” combined record is 60-55. And they”ve played only 12 games. But they”ll get in because the “won” a “major conference” championship and they”ve just lost once. That”s a shame, because there are three conference champions out there who have matched or bested Ohio State in every single category except for “losses”.
Before I get to that, let”s wipe Kansas and Georgia off the board. Georgia is only ranked No. 4 right now because of the timing of their losses. Their current social-promotion ranking is the only argument the Bulldogs have over the other two-loss teams. It”s just not going to happen for Georgia when LSU is conference champion and right there in the mix. And Kansas? Also benefiting from social promotion. The one loss is their shining star, but they”ve played a really weak schedule and also couldn”t win their division, much less their conference.
So we have Va. Tech, LSU, Oklahoma, USC, Missouri and West Virginia to consider as two-loss teams. I”ll discount the social-demotion effect that Missouri and West Virginia will face for losing on the last weekend.
- West Virginia: Beat Cincinnati and UConn. Seriously, those are their marquee wins. But they lost to 5-7 Pitt and won only 10 games.
- Missouri: Beat Kansas, and that”s about it. They did win 11 games, though and lost twice to Oklahoma. So they stay ahead of West Virginia in consideration, for what that”s worth.
- USC: Oh, everybody loves USC now. Boy, they”re great. Two wins (yes, two) over teams with winning records, lost to Stanford and only won 10 games. Bye.
- Oklahoma: They”ve got a strong case if you believe Missouri is any good. They beat Mizzou twice and absolutely destroyed them in the Big 12 title game. Conference champions and in the 11-win club. Maybe not as deserving as they will appear to be to human voters, but I would not be surprised if they vault up to No. 2 based on the impressive win over “No. 1″ yesterday. And I”d be OK with that.
- Va. Tech: If not for the fact that LSU spanked them 48-7, the Hokies would be the slam-dunk choice among the 11-2 teams. It would come across as a huge slap against LSU for the Hokies to make the title game, but Va. Tech”s two losses were to 11-2 and 10-3 teams. I think the humans will drop Va. Tech behind LSU because of the head-to-head match, and that may be the right thing to do. But there”s more to consider than just the blowout loss to LSU. I”d be less OK with Va. Tech making the game than Oklahoma, but there would be a case to make for them.
- LSU: Leslie should lay off the “undefeated in regulation” stuff a bit, but LSU does have a strong case to make that both of its losses came in the unpredictable world of overtime, and both were the hard-fought, triple-overtime variety. And unlike USC, LSU doesn”t seem to get credit for having played with a lot of injuries and all that. Basically losing Glenn Dorsey after the Auburn game and winning the SEC Championship Game with your backup QB playing with a bloody stump on his throwing hand should not be overlooked. The Tigers aren”t pretty all the time, but they”ve won with a lot of adversity in the nation”s best conference and lost only hard-fought SEC battles against two teams with winning records. The Tigers would deserve it if they make the leap to No. 2, but they will also deserve it if they don”t.
My prediction? The chatter among ESPN analysts and BCS experts is that LSU deserves to get in and probably will. I think that “conventional wisdom” will roll over to the actions of the human voters and LSU will squeak in past Oklahoma.
In any case, LSU is SEC Champion again, and that”s what matters more than anything. A hard-fought season through the adversity of injuries and questionable coaching ending with a trip to New Orleans. I”ll take that.
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