To be completely honest with you all, there was a point about halfway through tonight’s Bedlam game between No. 3 Oklahoma State and No. 13 Oklahoma where I felt I could point to my television and exclaim “You see! You see! This is why there shouldn’t be a rematch between LSU and Alabama!”
Oklahoma State played out of its mind tonight; like a team that should, at the very least, be seriously considered to take on No. 1 LSU in the BCS national championship. A 44-10 beatdown against Oklahoma -- the Cowboys’ biggest rivals? Are you kidding me?
But I’m not going to make a case for Oklahoma State. They did that themselves and anybody who watched that game, including those in Tuscaloosa, knows the Cowboys were fast and physical. Now, it’s a question of whether you -- but, more importantly, the voters -- will believe that case.
How short is our memory? Can we easily forget Oklahoma State falling to Iowa State two weeks ago?
CBS Sports’ Brett McMurphy nailed the dilemma in one perfect thought:
“Oklahoma State [is] now done playing Oklahoma. The Cowboys [are] now playing Alabama [the] rest of [the] night.”
Oklahoma State may have been taking out eight years of frustration on the Sooners, but at some point the Cowboys transitioned without hesitation from playing their rivals, to playing the BCS. Why? Because that’s the real game: convince voters, computers -- whomever and whatever -- that they had a more impressive résumé than currently No. 2 Alabama.
And, wouldn’t you know it? We have some specifics here for your convenience:
These are just facts. View them how you want. Hell, isn’t that what we’re all doing anyway? Qualifying what we believe with numbers that back it up?
The point is that most of you have made up your mind already. I know I have. As of a week ago, it felt like the voters had too.
There are some of you who believe LSU and Alabama are the two best teams in the country, and that’s how the BCS title selection should be made. That’s not unfounded.
“I would certainly understand if college football decides it should be two SEC teams playing for the national championship,” LSU coach Les Miles said today. “It’s a very special conference with very special teams.”
There are also those of you who think that if every game really mattered in the way the BCS claims it does, then we shouldn’t even be having this discussion. There are those who feel that picking the second-best team in the country out of a pool of about three teams is a complete waste of our time and energy.
We have divided opinions, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s awesome.
But is that really how we should be deciding this? Opinions and computers?
In less than 24 hours, one of these groups is going to be happy, and one is going to be disappointed and/or frustrated. Someone’s going to get what they want. Someone else isn’t.
Okay, that’s life. Fine. But why are we allowing it to happen over a system that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that it’s not only completely unfit to determine anything, ever -- and, no, that’s not hyperbole -- but at the expense of many programs so a few individuals can get filthy rich?
Seems to me someone’s going to get unjustly screwed no matter what happens, and there’s one common denominator when it does.
To put a spin on the BCS philosophy of our own John Taylor in terms only he can conjure, “We’re all trying to go No. 1 in a strong headwind.”