47-20. 613-327. 391-140.
Those were the pertinent numbers that came from Oregon’s utter destruction of Southern Cal and its stranglehold on the Pac-10 conference. By any measurable statistic, the Ducks were, far and away, the better team.
Following this weekend’s action, with Oregon losing to Stanford and the Trojans’ unimpressive dispatching of Oregon Arizona State 14-9, both the Ducks and Trojans stood at 7-2. Oregon’s losses are to unbeaten Boise State and the 63 Cardinal, while USC’s came against 3-6 Washington and, obviously, the Ducks.
One would think that, given all of the above information, Oregon would be ranked ahead of Southern Cal in the polls, right? Wrong. Totally and completely wrong.
Somehow, someway, the Harris and coaches’ poll found a way to out-dumb themselves by ranking Oregon behind USC just one week after destroying them. In the USA Today coaches’ poll, USC is ranked No. 10, Oregon No. 16. The Harris poll has USC No. 10, Oregon No. 14.
Again, Oregon beat Southern Cal by 27 points just a week earlier.
Needless to say, this has some of the coaches involved confused and dismayed as to what is going on with the pollsters.
“That will tell you why there’s no reason to talk about things, right?” Oregon coach Chip Kelly said.
“I don’t like it at all,” Beavers head coach Mike Riley said.
The strongest reaction, though, came from the man on the receiving end of the Ducks’ beat down. Trojans head coach Pete Carroll blasted the polls in much the way his team was taken care of by the Ducks, saying that the positioning of the two teams is “crazy”.
“You’re kidding,” Carroll said. “That’s a crazy stat. I don’t understand that. That doesn’t make sense to me at all. Somebody should be questioning that. … I felt they weren’t getting enough credit going into our game, too.”
Indeed, Coach Carroll, somebody should be questioning that. Namely, the voters themselves.
And if they — either the Harris or coach pollsters — can’t take their duties seriously enough to prevent something as asinine as this from happening again, then they need to get out of the polling business. And get out for the good of the game, because this is simply a sham, nearly as much of a sham as the BcS itself.
Nearly.
Maybe I am reading this wrong, but it looks like USC is also ahead of Oregon in the BCS poll, the AP poll, and USA Today. You can’t win for losing.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/polls
OH wait, yes you can win for losing…the BCS sucks.
If USC were to beat Oregon State, then it would be impressive, even if the score were just 14-9. They beat Arizona State on Saturday, though, by said score.
The thing I’m gathering here is that we do in fact need a playoff… but not for the main reason everyone thinks we do.
On any given Saturday, one team can beat another (i.e. Washington over USC, Stanford over Oregon, BYU over Oklahoma, etc). A playoff wouldn’t necessarily find the “best” team. You could argue that USC is better than Washington now, and the same would go for Oregon and Oklahoma over the teams they lost to.
A playoff would put a pressing importance on preparation, strategy/game plan and momentum. You deserve to be champion if you don’t screw up or fall… and if we had a playoff, then one and ONLY one team would be crowned champion: the team that did not falter.
)Stated sarcastically), a playoff would not guarantee that one of the Big 6 Conference Members would be in the championship game let alone win it.
Let’s face it, why would the Big 6 conferences want a playoff? They are guaranteed the money. They fear that kids would go to other schools if they knew every school had a legitimate chance to get into a playoff and possibly win.
The best case scenario this year is for TCU and Boise State to be the only unbeatens at the end of the year and ranked 1 – 2 in the final BCS poll. The second best would be to have five unbeatens at the end of the regular season.
The solution:
A 16 team playoff:
Require all conferences to have a championship game with the winner receiving the automatic bid. There are 11 conferences. The 5 at large bids would come from a pool of eligible teams. To be eligible, you would have to play in your conference championship game and lose. This assures that an at large team at least won their division in conference play. One independent would be considered for an at large bid. A new polling system would replace the BCS and would be used to determine at large bids and playoff seedings.
Last year a playoff would have looked like this: Final BCS ranking is in (), when not available Sagarin was used. These look like (NR-#)
Automatic Bids
ACC – Virginia Tech (#19)
Big12 – Oklahoma (#1)
BigEast – Cincinnati (#12)
Big10 – Penn State (#8)
CUSA – East Carolina (NR – 54)
MAC – Buffalo (NR – 76)
MWC – Utah (#6)
Pac10 – USC (#5)
SEC – Florida (#2)
SunBelt – Troy (NR – 70)
WAC – Boise State (#9)
At Large Eligible
ACC – Boston College (#24)
Big12 – Missouri (#21)
BigEast – Pittsburgh (#20) ****
Big10 – Ohio State (#10) ****
CUSA – Tulsa (NR)
MAC – Ball State (#22)
MWC – TCU (#11) ****
Pac10 – Oregon (#17) ****
SEC – Alabama (#4) ****
SunBelt – Louisiana-Lafayette (NR)
WAC – Nevada (NR)
Independents – Navy (NR)
Brackets
Buffalo (16) @ Oklahoma (1)
TCU (9) @ Ohio State (8)
Pittsburgh (13) @ USC (4)
Virginia Tech (12) @ Utah (5)
East Carolina (14) @ Alabama (3)
Oregon (11) @Penn State (6)
Cincinnati (10) @ Boise State (7)
Troy (15) @ Florida (2)
Can we all agree that not having a playoff system in college football is stupid.
At some point people should stop attending all the BCS non championship games.
An empty Orange/Sugar/Fiesta/Rose Bowl would make the ultimate statement.
People from the Big 6 conferences won’t boycut. They are nearly guaranteed all the money and pub.
Kudos to Pete Carroll for admitting the reality that it makes no sense for his team to be rated above Oregon. Classy!