Pac-10 Gets the Shaft

I was contemplating, as I do so often, about how the Pac-10 football teams get the shaft since the beginning of the BCS. I have been doing some studying and researching the facts that help prove my opinion of "shaftness". So, since the inception of the BCS in 1998, there have been only three years where there was a clear #1 and #2 teams that were undefeated and earned their poll rankings; and after the national title game, there wasn't any doubt who the number one team in the nation was. Those were the years 1999, 2002, and 2005. In 2005, USC was one of those teams and USC played for the championship in one other year. Those are the only two years that a Pac-10 team was represented in the BCS national championship game. The other eight years of BCS have put more confusion and conflict into the order of finish of college football. There seems to be arguements derived from this flawed system. At the end of regular seasons of those three "good" years mentioned earlier, even I could have chose the two teams who should play for it all and get it right. Beyond that, it's just speculation, and I claim bias into the system (I will address the bias in other posts).

I have many statistics at my fingertips after the purchase of the wonderful "ESPN College Football Encyclopedia". In it, I have the AP Poll progression throughout each season for every year starting in 1936 all the way to 2004. In 1950, the United Press (UP) poll began and lasted until the end of 1992. In 1993, the UP became better known as the USA Today/CNN (coaches) poll until ESPN replaced the CNN title in 1995. ESPN began to include their own rankings at that time and have included all these polls in this wonderful library of college football information. I have gone through some of those progressions in the BCS years and was struck with horror all over again when I saw how some teams have gotten the shaft. Let's just kick it off with 1998 (why not?). The shaft could have gone to many teams that year because the 11-1 Florida State team was #2 in the polls at the end of the season but left out other 1-loss teams that had legitimate arguements to take FSU's place in playing the undefeated Tennessee team for the national title. Ohio State had lost by 4 to an unranked Michigan State team in week 10. Kansas State's only loss came by way of the Big XII championship game to lose by 3 against the #10 Texas A&M squad. Wisconsin never played Ohio State that year but lost to #15 Michigan in week 11. Tulane went undefeated and ended the year ranked #7. Air Force lost to unranked TCU in week 4. Then, UCLA lost it's last game against Miami, who kept them from going undefeated; however, UCLA was ranked #3 in week 6 when they gave Arizona their only loss. So, because UCLA won the Pac-10 and lost their final regular season game, Arizona wasn't ranked high enough to get the nod to play for the national title. At the time, this made some sense, but later on you'll see why this is lame and the BCS shafted Arizona (not that anybody would have beaten Tennessee, but it would be nice to have had Pac-10 representation in the championship game).

The 1999 season was pretty clear cut and straight forward lending Marshall the only argumental rights ending the year 13-0. Now the 2000 season proved to be a very good one for the Pac-10 regarding the top teams. Of course, Oklahoma's undefeated season left them at #1 - uncontested. The 2nd place finisher in the polls may have been accurate, but still had some serious questions to who it may have been in place of Miami. There were seven 1-loss teams to choose from: Toledo at #25 and TCU at #13 weren't even in consideration when the other 5 teams had much stronger strengths of schedule and in BCS conferences. Let's just say that the #3 Florida State was chosen over the other 4 teams and this is where it gets jumbled up. Why was the #3 team chosen over the team that was the only team to beat them and stood at #2? Miami not only beat FSU, but was #6 Virginia Tech's only loss as well. Miami had a legitimate arguement and I remember Coach Butch Davis making a huge fuss over it (I don't blame him); however, when Coach Davis was asked about the team with the same record as his who beat the Hurricanes, he replied something to the effect that it was an early game in the season, and that team doesn't matter because it plays in the Pac-10. Well, by season's end, the Pac-10 had three teams in the top eight in the AP poll. Sounds like a tough conference to me; although, when it comes to playing for the national title, a Florida State team that played in the two previous national championship games seemed to "fit" better. Plus, Miami wasn't in the ACC then, but was part of making the Big East look good (along with Virginia Tech). So, the Bowden, I mean Bowl Championship Series continued without looking at a Pac-10 team; even with Washington being the only team to beat both #2 Miami, and #5 Oregon State. The only team to beat Washington was the #8 Oregon team that ended the season 10-2 beating #12 Texas in their bowl game. So, I want to recognize Miami getting the shaft by being #2 and getting skipped over by the #3 team. With that said, if Miami was shafted, so was Washington by not getting ranked properly by being the only team to have beaten the #2 team with the same record - plus, having a better win over #5 Oregon State versus the #6 Virginia Tech that Miami beat. In reality, Washington should have been the #2 team in the polls and therefore getting the biggest shaft.

After the 2000 season, the BCS went back to the drawing board to revamp how the teams should be chosen. In my opinion, they did a horrible job. Now, I should say that a true championship team should meet certain criteria: 1) the team should be the champ of their conference, 2) the team should never have more than 1 loss, and 3) the team should never be chosen based on fan-base ideas or because they travel well. This leads me up to the 2001 season that urks me to this day, which becomes one of the Big XII fiascos that gives cause to the stretch of 6 title games that include a Big XII team 5 of the 6 times where I heard referenced as the Big XII Championship Series. The BCS transforms from Bowden to Big XII. So, the 2001 season would prove to be the first time that bias may come into play without much argument, unless you happen to be a Big XII fan. Here is how it laid out at the end of the season. Miami was the clear, undefeated #1 team, but who they were going to play was the question. The options were two possibly under-rated teams of Illinois who lost to Michigan (8-3) and Maryland who lost to Florida State (7-4). Well, to be honest, I'd have to say that if Michigan or Florida State happened to be 10-1 like Illinois and Maryland were, then those respective conferences would probably look much better, but Illinois was not Michigan and Maryland was not Florida State. Other options included the winner of the Pac-10, #2 Oregon (10-1); the winner of the SEC, #12 LSU (8-3); the winner of the BigXII, #3 Colorado (10-2) - arguably the hottest team in the nation after beating #2 Nebraska and #3 Texas to ends its season; and #4 Nebraska (11-1). So, just to rewind a bit to my criteria for a qualified national title contender, 1) the team should be the champ of its conference, which would leave Nebraska out, and 2) the team should not have more than 1 loss, which would leave out Colorado and LSU. That leaves the #2 team, Oregon to play Miami for the national title game, right? Wrong! Way wrong, in fact. The #4 Nebraska squad was chosen over the #2 and #3 teams to play for the national championship when they didn't even qualify to play for their conference championship. How the heck did that work? Of course, Miami won and Oregon ended up playing the hottest team in the nation and demoralized Colorado 38-16. The Oregon QB, Joey Harrington, played inspired ball that day and it left me and possibly thousands wondering how Miami's defense would have stopped Harrington that day. We will never know because the BCS messed it up and didn't play the #1 and #2 teams together on the same field. Oregon got the shaft like no other, thus far.

The 2002 season was beautiful and I could have chosen the top two teams without voters or computers. It was clear that the only two undefeated teams of Miami and Ohio State were going to play. The only question was who was #1 going into it - well, Miami started the season at #1 and never lost a game along the way, so, should remain so at the end. Now, the 2003 season began after some more tweaking of the BCS - like they do every off season. Did it help much? Nope. It made things worse, and who got the shaft at year's end? Yep, you guessed it, a Pac-10 team. 2001 was bad enough, but this season topped it. I didn't think it possible, but here is how it played out. Oklahoma was #1 from week 1 until they lost in the BigXII championship game, which allowed a 1-loss USC to sneak to the #1 spot. So, #1 USC (11-1) won its conference and #2 LSU (12-1) beat Georgia in the SEC championship game to win its conference. Then, #4 Michigan (10-2) and #8 Kansas State (11-3) each won their respective conferences, while FSU and Miami stood at (10-2) at #9 and #10 respectively. Going back to my criteria, USC and LSU were #1 and #2 and each had 1-loss and both won their conferences; however, #3 Oklahoma, who didn't even win its conference was considered for the national title game instead of #1 USC. So, not only did #2 LSU surpass the #1 Trojans, but the #3 Sooners that couldn't win its conference surpassed the astonished men of Troy to play for the national title. This was a horrible mockery of the Pac-10! How could you not play the #1 team against the #2 team based on my criteria that should be required to be worthy to step to the national title spotlight? The honor came when USC was still voted #1 by the AP poll, while the coaches were "obligated" by their contracts with the BCS to vote for the winner of the LSU/Oklahoma game. Clearly, Oklahoma was NOT the worthy opponent for LSU and I'm certain that LSU fans seemed robbed of the unanimous championship crown. USC got shafted!

Another off season for the BCS and more tweaks in the system to try to get it right. Well, 2004 was not the season to help the BCS seem like it was getting things right. College football went from all 1-loss teams in 2003 to undefeated teams in 2004. There were five undefeated teams, to be exact. The top two started as the top two and remained so because they never dropped a game along the way. After #1 USC and #2 Oklahoma, there was #3 Auburn, #5 Utah, and #10 Boise State. The latter two were out of contention due to playing in non BCS conferences. It was the top 3 that made all the SEC fans throw huge fits over what happened. Auburn happened to draw the short end of the stick when week 1 they were ranked a mere #17. They flew in under the radar. I don't think anyone was going to beat USC that year in January, so the BCS finally got that right. The argument lies with which team was USC going to beat. Oklahoma was ranked #2 all season and never lost, so it never made sense to dethrone them for Auburn - besides, USC had just shutout that same offensive group the year before so it was just a wash and I'll accept the 55-19 pounding of the Sooners. The huge BCS mistake came with the remaining BCS games. With 5 undefeated teams, it was necessary to get that number down to at least 3 by playing the undefeated teams against each other. USC and Oklahoma solved half of that puzzle, but when the BCS didn't match #3 Auburn up against #5 Utah, there was a huge loss there. Those two teams had a chance to really prove something (especially Utah). I think Utah had a legitimate chance at beating Auburn base on how they outclassed Pittsburgh that year. I know that SEC fans are screaming that Auburn got shafted that year, but based on the previous years, are they really sure? Shafted because they didn't get to play Utah, win, and then play a plus one, yes; but to expect to be ranked over the two teams that remained #1 and #2 all year long would be a huge mistake.

The 2005 season was amazing! Everyone wanted to see USC play the winner of the Texas/Ohio State game from before the season started. Texas beat Ohio State and the anticipation grew immensely from week to week until they were finally the only two standing as the undefeated giants ready to play in the Rose Bowl. What a great game! Yes, my beloved Trojans lost that day, but any true fan of college football recognized this game as an instant legend. The superstars that clashed together on the field in Pasadena marveled games of yesteryear.

I will do some more reading and research to cover the remaining years, but I'm certain there is more "shaft" going on that the BCS needs to recognize and correct as necessary.