Despite the 38-24 final, the Rose Bowl between USC and Penn State wasn’t really that close. The Trojans never trailed and led 31-7 at halftime in winning a record third straight Rose Bowl game over the Big Ten. USC (12-1) has as much claim as any to being crowned the nation’s best team.
Of course, because the “experts” determined the Pac-10 was weaker than other top conferences, USC’s six-point road loss to Oregon State in October was deemed a bigger sin than Florida losing at home or Oklahoma losing by 10 to Texas; therefore, the Sooners and Gators were picked over USC to play for the BCS title game. Wonder if these same experts noticed that the “weak” Pac-10 went 5-0 in bowl games.
on Jan 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 am
You can make an argument that the BCS results should be different, although Mack Brown chooses not to do this because he’s so much better at whining.
First, you can blame the polls for USC’s exclusion, and when the polls were a smaller portion of the BCS formula, the sportswriters threw an extraordinary hissy-fit until that was changed. But even if USC was #3 and in contention with Florida and Oklahoma, it’s likely USC would have been left out. When multiple teams with single losses wind up bunched together, the BCS computers break poll ties in general by punishing the team that lost to the worst team. Mack Brown’s argument, which he couldn’t express coherently, is that it should instead reward the team that defeated the best team during the season.
That’s coherent, but it’s unlikely because it’s comparing apples to oranges. When the BCS included that formula, as a “quality of win” component, it kicked USC out of the 2003 national championship favoring LSU and Oklahoma, and there was such a massive whine that the BCS got rid of it, because the BCS administrators are essentially spineless cowards who crave nothing more than sportswriter approval. They never defend their algorithm against criticism; they always changed it to match what the sportswriters retroactively demanded that the matchup be.
When teams have one loss each, the computers don’t try to compare Texas’s victory over Oklahoma with Florida’s victory over Alabama. Instead, they wind up comparing the losses and tossing out the teams who lost to the worst teams. This is why Texas lost the Big 12 tie-breaker: their loss was to Texas Tech, the lowest-ranked of the three tied teams. Oklahoma’s loss was to #3 Texas, and Texas Tech’s loss was to #1 Oklahoma. (All conferences used to use one of the polls as a last-ditch tie-breaker, and they all switched to using the BCS rankings when they were started. Mack Brown wanted, of note, to use the SEC tie-breaker, which is special only because if all tied teams are within five places of each other in the ranking, they just throw out the ranking and give the title to the team that won the head-to-head match-up between the two highest-ranked teams. Not to the highest-ranked team, but the team that won the head-to-head of the two highest-ranked teams. Without that extra special little quirk, Texas couldn’t have won that tie-breaker, either. It would have lost the tie-breaker in every other conference except the SEC, I think.)
But back to whether USC was better than Florida. USC and Florida’s losses were extremely similar: USC lost at Oregon State on September 25, with a final score of 27-21. Florida lost at Ole Miss on September 27, with a final score of 31-30. Oregon State ended the regular season at #27 in the BCS rankings (extended by using the formula by Jerry Palm), and Mississippi ended up at #25.
Generally, the sportswriters punish late losses more than earlier losses (I’m not sure I agree with that) under the theory that by the end of the season, you should have your act together, but both teams lost during the same weekend. But USC lost by a touchdown, while Florida missed a tie by a blocked extra point. That puts Florida in slight favor, and the slightly higher ranking of Mississippi at the end of the season (both Ole Miss and Oregon State ended the regular season with 8-4 records) would probably have put Florida ahead of USC.
But if it was taken out of the sportswriters hands, it would likely be OU vs. Texas for the national championship—Oklahoma’s only loss was to #3 Texas, and Texas’s only loss was to #7 Texas Tech. Alabama’s only loss was to #2 Florida, but the computers also punish late losses more than early ones. If you take the BCS computer averages and rank them, you’d get #1 Oklahoma, #2 Texas, #3 Florida, #4 Texas Tech, #5 Utah, #6 Alabama, #7 USC, #8 Boise State, #9 Penn State, and #10 TCU.
It’s obvious the sportswriters have a true love for Florida, and that has much to do with it, but even taking them out of it wouldn’t have put USC in the top two. The computers put Oregon State (#27) ahead of Mississippi (#29), but that’s not enough to overcome Florida’s advantage of beating previously undefeated Alabama in the last game of the season.
USC’s schedule doomed the team, too. Florida only played two teams with losing records (and Kentucky, who finished at 6-6). USC played five teams with losing records (including 0-12 Washington) and Notre Dame, who also finished 6-6. With that kind of schedule, the computers are going to put USC after Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and even Alabama every time.
USC only gets three non-conference games per year. Ohio State helped; Virginia and Notre Dame did not. Florida gets four, and three of those are BCS teams who had winning records (Hawaii, Miami, Florida State). The fourth was The Citadel, which is always risky in the computers because wins over FBS teams don’t count but losses to FBS teams do count. (Had Florida lost its one game to The Citadel, it would be OU vs. Texas for the BCS Championship.)
I feel your pain, but the Pac-10 is two teams shy of having divisions that would allow for a championship game and for more non-conference opponents, and if too many teams don’t do that well, it’s going to drag down the better teams’ rankings. The five Pac-10 teams that went to bowls and won were the only five Pac-10 teams eligible to go to bowl games. The other five teams, each playing a twelve game season for a total of 50 games (did I add that right? Stanford-Washington is only one game even though it involves two of the bottom five teams), won a total of 16 games in the entire season—and at least 10 of those wins were guaranteed because someone had to win the 10 games where these teams played each other. Those five teams went 6-34 in the games that weren’t against each other. (If I’m counting right.)
The bottom half of the Pac-10 was just really, really bad this year, and it hurt the top half. The Big 12 South ended the regular season with three 11-1 teams, one 9-3 team, and two 4-8 teams. For better or worse, that matters when picking two out of 112 teams to play for the title.
on Jan 4th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Minor Correction. Florida didn’t lose AT Ole Miss. Ole Miss beat the Gators in the Swamp.
Incidently they’ve also won six straight including spanking #7 Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. They’re for real under Houston Nutt and will be a team to reckon with next year.