JAG’s Sports Blog

USC and Texas are going to finally play for the title on 4 January, so this goes to show that the BCS bowl system actually does work right. I guess you can say the system works based on what you expect in your college football season and bowl game season also. For myself, the system will never work until there’s a playoff system and I don’t care if it’s just 8 teams. At a minimum, I want to see the top 8 teams in the top four BCS bowl games.

For those fans that have been living under a rock for the last two days, the four BCS bowl games to be played will pit Georgia vs West Virginia in the Sugar Bowl, Notre Dame vs Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, Florida State vs Penn State in the Orange Bowl, and the game for all the marbles (1st place), the USC Trojans vs the Texas Longhorns in the Rose Bowl. All of these games seem fair enough on the surface, but each match-up except the USC-Texas game actually carries some baggage with it.

Georgia had a solid season, but lost 2 games. They would have never made it into one of the BCS games without upsetting LSU in the title game of the Southeastern Conference. West Virginia only lost 1 game, but they play in the obviously weakened Big East Conference. There’s debate going on as to whether they should lose their automatic BCS slot for their champion in the near future when a vote can be taken. If the Big East gets an automatic slot, why not other conferences. Last season, an obviously inferior Pittsburgh team played in the Fiesta Bowl with 4 losses and got blown out by a strong Utah team. This conference’s automatic slot has to be seriously looked at.

You have to go with Georgia in this game by 14

The Fiesta Bowl has 2 two-loss teams in Notre Dame and Ohio State. Nothing else needs to be said because everyone knows that Notre Dame are the darlings of college football. The Fighting Irish purposely won’t join a conference in football because of this exact reason. All that’s required of Notre Dame to get a BCS bid is to have a good, not great season and they will be considered. They are one of the marquee teams in college football and they travel well with their fans all over the country. Ohio State is another marquee team in college football and this is considered a great match-up of mid-western schools that rarely play each other (4 times in the past). I will admit it’s an interesting match-up, but do they both deserve the spot?

Take Ohio State in a close game by 3 points

The Florida State vs Penn State game only has one thing going for it and that has nothing to do with the players. Bobby Bowden is the all-time winning coach in NCAA football history with 359 wins, while Penn State’s Joe Paterno has 353. Penn State has clearly earned their spot with only a loss to Michigan on the last play of the game. Florida State benefitted from the conference championship game in which they upset Virginia Tech to get the automatic bid. Florida State lost 4 games this season and in no way should a 4 loss team be playing in a BCS Bowl game.

I say take Penn State in this game by at least 14 points.

USC and Texas is expected to be a dynamite game and there’s plenty of firepower and star power to go with it. Texas challenges USC with Heisman Trophy candidate Vince Young the clear leader of his team. Young has developed as a passer and is always dangerous with his feet. Texas has proven to be deadly if you make a mistake on offense. They’ve had a couple of slip-ups, but won the games nonetheless. USC has last season’s Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart and this year’s favorite Reggie Bush leading the way. Bush demonstrated how deadly he is the last two games against Fresno State and UCLA. Against Fresno State, Bush had 513 all-purpose yards and ran for over 200 yards in the first half against UCLA.

USC’s defense has been shaky at times and if they falter early, Texas may have a shot at knocking off the champs. The same can be said about USC too though. Once they sense blood, they’re a hard team to stop. If Reggie Bush runs early against Texas, there will be no stopping them. The game against UCLA may have exposed USC’s only weakness and that was they stopped Reggie Bush rather than UCLA stopping him. Bush ran all over UCLA, but they chose to have Leinart keep throwing the ball even while up by 30+ points. With a team like Texas, USC had better keep using what’s working until it stops.

I’m a believer in picking the champions until they are beaten so I’ll go with USC by 7 points.

The team that I see as the clear loser in the BCS Bowl scheme is Oregon. I heard Reggie Miller on the Dan Patrick Show saying”Who wants to watch Oregon?” I wasn’t aware of the BCS Bowl system being about who wants to watch a team, but rewarding the best teams for their season. Oregon went 10-1 and only lost to 2-time champion USC this season. Notre Dame lost to USC also and throw in a loss to Michigan State, who wound up with a losing record after starting out like a house of fire early in the season.

If the bowl system is just a popularity contest, I’m sure the teams would like to be told this ahead of time, so they will stop assuming everyone has a chance to win the title or get a shot at one of the “big Four” bowl games and get their share of the money tree. This is the second year in a row that a PAC 10 school was left out on the popularity contest. Last year, some voters dropped votes for 1-loss Cal at the end of the season so Texas could play in the Rose Bowl. Cal wound up losing badly to a lower ranked team, but that doesn’t change where they should have played and is irrelevant whatever the results when Oregon plays Oklahoma in the Holiday Bowl 29 Dec. In San Diego. I understand the object is to make money for a bowl game, but, it’s still the responsibility to reward teams for the results on the field and not just which team will bring in the most money.

Yes, the BCS kind of got it right, but if the college presidents want to say they got it right and don’t need a playoff system, they have to at least make sure every team gets a fair shot at being in the system. Giving automatic bids to teams that win a conference tournament game has only proven to turn the system upside down when an inferior team gets lucky and pulls off an upset. This gives the powers and bowl sponsors the option to start picking anyone they want instead of the best teams to play in well-deserved bowl games. Again, I know it’s their right to earn money for their bowl game, but let’s bring integrity to the process also and decide who the best teams are from top to bottom. The discussion about a playoff will be saved for another time. For now, let’s just enjoy the game that definitely will decide the national champion, USC and Texas!!