The BCS is Broken.
The BCS is broken. I think this season, more than any other in recent history (except for maybe 2004), just goes to show how poorly the BCS works. The major BCS Bowls were all horrible match ups. The Rose Bowl featured the Pac 10 champions, The USC Trojans vs. the Fighting Illini. For some reason, the Rose Bowl commission decided to preserve the Big 10 vs. Pac 10 match up instead of picking a more compelling showdown in USC vs. Georgia. I couldn’t really understand this decision before the game and after the 32 point blowout, I still am confounded by their choice. The Sugar Bowl was also pretty confusing. While Hawaii did manage to navigate the regular season and was the only team to do so, I’m not sure they really deserved to be in that game. I think after the shocking upset of Oklahoma by Bosie State people feel obligated to give some of the non-BCS conference teams a chance. After Hawaii’s 31 point loss to Georgia, I think it might be a while before another non-BCS team makes it to a BCS bowl game. West Virginia beat Oklahoma pretty handily in another uninteresting match up and the Orange Bowl featured two really good defenses and two mediocre offenses for yet another boring game.
The National Championship game, on the other hand, was slightly more interesting. The game was exciting and there were lot of big plays by both teams on both sides of the ball. When it came down to it though, LSU was a much better team. What the National Championship failed to do, in my mind anyway, was to crown a true national champion. Ohio State really hadn’t played anyone. Their only loss was to Illinois, a team that was utterly dismantled by USC in the Rose Bowl. As far as I’m concerned, the Big 10 isn’t a very strong conference and Ohio State’s number one ranking was fairly unwarranted. LSU certainly didn’t play the best team in the nation and therefore I think it’s hard to crown them as the national champions.
I’m not even asking for a playoff since I know it’ll be a long time before we get on. I’d just like to see better match ups in these bowl games. USC vs. Georgia would have been one hell of a game. And any of the two loss teams probably could have provided a much better fight than Ohio State did against LSU. I think with a few small tweaks to the ranking system of the BCS we could all see much better match ups which, until we have a playoff system, would keep me entertained enough to be happy.