The big college football games are over for now. Florida was pretty impressive in handling ‘Bama, especially without the services of Percy Harvin. How good is Tim Tebow? If he’s not your repeat Heisman winner, then he’s probably CFB’s “Most Valuable Player”. He threw for 3 TDs without an INT and ran for 57 more yards, leading the Gators in rushing. What a crunch time later 4th quarter drive TT engineered to clinch the game! As it turns out, Vegas was right with the point spread. Give ‘Bama credit for playing a gritty game.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma predictably administered a thorough beatdown of Mizzou and again scored over 60 
points … a CFB record for consecutive games over 60. Wow! Apparently, defense does not win chan’ships in the Big 12 … and this is certainly not your father’s Big 12. Still, I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth when I think about how mediocre the Big 12 North was this year, and that Texas is left there at the altar having beaten Oklahoma and could only watch on the sidelines as OU played a pedestrian Mizzou squad for “the Big 12 Championship, I guess”. Too bad we couldn’t witness an OU vs Texas rematch for the REAL Big 12 title game. Again, this is the type of questionable result a real playoff would solve.
So … it’ll be Oklahoma vs Florida for the BCS Championship. At first glance, I like Florida to prevail. For one, I think they play something resembling real defense and they have the team speed all over the field to counter OU’s speedy offense. Second, I’m suspicious of OU’s defense, particularly when facing the type of dilemma Tebow presents to any defense. How do you defend this guy? Colt McCoy is somewhat similar and the Sooners couldn’t handle him. Lastly, I doubt OU’s ability to play a great game when ALL the marbles are on the line. Their track record in Nat’l Chan’ship games isn’t exactly stellar in recent history. That’s why the call him Big Game Boob.
Playing in the various consolation exhibition games dressed up as the other BCS Bowls will be two teams that can certainly compete with, if not beat, either Florida or OU … these are USC and Texas. Frankly, can anyone out there say with a straight face that any one of these teams is really better than than the other 3? Personally, I cannot. They all have great strengths and some weaknesses. USC’s defense is absolutely awesome. I think they gave up well less than 100 points this season … I know the Pac 10 and ND are weak this year, but c’mon … what a defense! OU’s offense is just as spectacular as the Trojan D. And probably the best balanced teams are Florida and Texas. Oh well … as we’ve lamented on this site over the past week or so … too bad there isn’t a real playoff to see how this would actually play out ON THE FIELD!!!!
I like Florida to prevail overall … I just think TT is a special once-in-a-generation player that is so hard to defend and that the Gators have been more severely battle-tested week in and week out in the SEC. I see them beating OU 35-31 for the National Title.
For the Heisman, I think Sam Bradford will win it, given his gaudy passing numbers. TT already has a Heisman and I think that will work against him. It’s really between those two from where I sit.
What are the thoughts of our readers on all this?
Dadgum! Does anybody run the wishbone any more? Where’s the power eye? Defense wins chan’ships! Defense wins chan’ships! Defense wins chan’ships! 🙂
Firts of all, I’m with you. I don’t see why there can’t be an 8-team playoff to see really who’s the best team in college football. At this point in the season there should NOT be numerous questions regarding who should play who and what team has proven themselves to play directly in the National Championship. Yes, you need to take into consideration a teams body of work and what they’ve accomplished this year, but that’s for some type of playoff berth, not something as serious as the National title game! All teams need is a chance, and this current system does not give a lot of the good teams a chance at the National title. Think about it, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament takes 3+ weeks to complete and we love it! That tournament runs most of our lives when it’s in progress. An eight-team playoff would include three sets of games and take only two + weeks. You could have the best 8 teams in the nation (picked a lot like the basketball committee picks) and rank them and throw them onto the field and LET THE KIDS DECIDE WHO WINS!
As for the Heisman, I believe that Bradford should win it due to his impressive numbers and his ability to lead his team to score the most points in a single-season in NCAA history (703). Tebow is more of a leader and succeeds at motivating his team to come out and play well. His play on the field last year were nothing short of remarkable, but I think that this year belongs to Sam Bradford. Another thing to consider is the regional voting for the Heisman. Bradford will have some votes taken away from him as there are 2-3 other candidates in his region (McCoy, Harrell, and possibly Crabtree) while Tebow literally has nobody out on the East coast he has to worry about. This could bode well for Mr. Tebow.
Call this radical, or even illogical, but I think they ought go back to naming the national champion at the end of the regular season and let the bowl games be what they were originally designed to be; gravy at the end of a good season. If you can have this much controversy with the current BCS system, then why not just go with the controversy generated by a voted champion. And were the bowls any less financially successful back in those days? I don’t think so. Teams made a lot of money from bowls. If they want to split it with their conference, so be it. I don’t usually live in the past, but I do long for the good old days of college football. Scrap the BCS, forget a playoff, just make the bowls gravy – a gravy bowl(s) so to speak! Let’s not let the media shape all of sports in this country. They can have the pros. I have already stated several times what I think of pro sports. Pros and the media deserve each other. Let college football be true sport, not business.
Well stated Pete.
Doug – great input. I would go a step further. If there is going to be a playoff, include all 11 conferences in D1A football. Either include them or get rid of them.
I know there will never be an end to the BCS, despite my fondest dreams, but I still need to take issue with the sytem, both as it exists and if a playoff was to be introduced. My issue is the computer rankings. The computers ranked TX #2, behind OK, but ahead of FL. No sense to that, but I could go on forever. Let me just finish the rant by noting that these are the same “unbiased” computers that created the real-life scenario I am about to share (please know that some of the facts may be inaccurate due to memory loss, but the critical point is absolutely accurate). Several years ago, in the fledgling stages of BCS, Washington was among the top 5 teams in the country. There were, as I recall, 5 computer polls at the time. 4 of the rankings had Washington 5, 6 or 7, but one poll had them #2. That ranking was the one developed by the computer at the Seattle Times. Of course, a computer only reacts to what you give it, but someone has to decide what to give it and how it should use it. The people in Seattle thought that the relevant information for their computer just happened to be factors that were strengths to their home team, Washington. Now, because these computers are “unbiased”, human voters often get influenced by them. Hence, this year some pollsters make OK #1, despite a mediocre defensive effort against a mediocre offensive team, while putting FL to #2 despite beating the #1 team in the country, all because the computers say OK is good. This all may sound convoluted, but for me the bottom line is that the BCS has increased the controversy, particularly because of its reliance on computer rankings. I liked the old controversy better, when the pollsters decided who was best, and the teams just went to a bowl in search of a good match-up and some extra money for the coffers. Actually, we seldom had a controversy back then. Oh, well.
Pete —
Don’t you think pollsters (the humans) are overly influenced by offensive points scored and score differential? I think the clear evidence is exactly what you mentioned … FLA beats the consensus #1 team by 11 points without their second best player (Harvin), while Oklahoma didn’t prove anything to me while pounding on a mediocre Mizzou team that lost to Kansas the week before. Not that it matters, but clearly FLA should be ranked ahead of OU. Clearly I think Stoops was running up the score for style points … he wanted to score 60+ again and that is really poor sportsmanship. I guess offense is sexy and it sells. Maybe that’s why USC and their dominant defense is still 5th after all these weeks.
As much as I hate to say it – I would not want to play USC at this point in the season.
Hey Wally – do you like the graphic I added to the front page? Keep ’em coming.
Wally, in 2 of 3 polls, FL is ahead of OK. I think the humans get it right more often than the computers.
My last response was really inadequate. Regardless of who the pollsters have where, the fact is that we all knew human polls were a flawed system. The BCS, by using computers, attempts to be a less flawed system, but as I implied earlier, the human factor in computers, upon which the BCS relies so heavily makes it a MORE flawed system. If we are going to have a flawed system, let it be one we can unanimously agree is flawed. Take out the computers and their human (biased) programmers and decide #1 based on regular season pollsters’ humanly flawed opinions. Money will never let that happen… too bad.