There would have been no crisis, the undefeated team would be in and the top one loss team would have been in. Did I miss a crisis in 2012 (Oregon finished the year with one loss)? This Alabama team though, has the best resume of any BCS era one loss Alabama team, they were so clearly ahead that the polls even put them #1, but in the BCS era they would have likely been the clear #2 with no real debate. There have been controversial years, but this wouldn't have been one of them.That crisis is averted. Everything else is belly aching by people who won't be happy if we had 32 teams
The funny thing is that after reading that first sentence, I was going to use Boise State as an example. Of course, someone would have complained, like the ESPN guy in 2009 bringing up Boise State, but perhaps we just have different views of what a controversy is. Controversy is moving a team down 2 places on a win, controversy was what happened in 2011, that's how I see it.You SERIOUSLY think there wouldn't be folks making the argument that "Oregon's loss doesn't count because they beat Arizona in a rematch?" And there wouldn't be heming and hawing? Don't forget, we have media mouths that complained Boise State wasn't being given their due.
I probably should use a disclaimer on all SoS discussions, because to me it's kind of a ballpark figure type of stat. Okie State had an amazing (SEC West style) SoS of 3, and Alabama had an SoS of 15. That's a noticeable gap, but not so huge that you can't look at the fact that Okie State lost to a bad team and Alabama lost to the #1 team, and other factors. An interesting side note though is that if they had a conference championship game that year, that might have been enough to push them ahead of Alabama. Anyway, the argument I was making for FSU, is that the SoS is close enough even though FSU is lower that you shouldn't overlook one team being undefeated.Again, it's not that I disagree with the SoS argument you make (however - if you're consistent then we shouldn't have been there in 2011 since Okie St's SoS was higher). And we draw..
To get a feel for this year, here's the SoS stats:
Alabama 4
Oregon 33
FSU 37 (undefeated)
Ohio State 52
TCU 42 (they played one less game)
For the record, the BCS formula would have Alabama #1 and FSU #2, but I think the committee impacted the polls and that would likely have been FSU #1 with Alabama #2 by a significant margin. The main point though is that the SoS gap is so massive that it destroys most arguments in my mind, but I'm still not sure Alabama should have been ranked ahead of an undefeated FSU with a top 40 SoS.
I think the political nature of the committee invites controversy (honestly simply being controversial is not my main concern though), and what they did do to FSU (who I despise), goes against everything we've ever known about college football. The basketball committee gets away with a lot because no one actually sees their true seeding (they are there, but for reasons I haven't figured out yet they tend to be well hidden), and when it's all said and done people don't get that upset about being the difference between a 1 or a 2 seed. Here though, it all matters a lot.
Last edited: