2001 BCS NATIONAL CHAMPION
Miami
1) Another train wreck, another dent in the BCS can.
Because of the mess from 2000, the BCS immediately decided to tinker under the hood. All they had to do was defend the system. But no, they did away with the margin of victory element prior to 2001.
Despite a few murmurs, all was going well in the world until....
The day after Thanksgiving, Nebraska met Colorado in their annual grudge match in Boulder. The Buffaloes had two early season losses but had now risen as high as 14 in the AP poll. Colorado unloaded on the top-ranked Huskers, blowing out to a 35-3 lead en route to a 62-36 bombing of the Big Red that wasn't even as close as the final score suggested. The very next day, 3-7 Oklahoma State shocked the defending champion Oklahoma Sooners at Bedlam in Stillwater while Miami was blasting two-loss Washington, 65-7, and rising to the top of the BCS standings. Entering the December games, the BCS rankings were:
1) Miami
2) Florida
3) Texas
4) Nebraska
5) Oregon
The general consensus was that Florida would beat Tennessee in the make-up game from September 15, beat the winner of the Auburn-LSU game to win the SEC, and the nation would be treated to an all-Florida championship in the Rose Bowl. If only it could have been that easy.
Miami survived a scare with Virginia Tech. Indeed, had the Hokies not had five turnovers, it is likely their 26-24 loss would have thrown another monkey wrench into the BCS. The evening then saw the first stunning development when Tennessee shocked Florida, 34-32. The Florida loss meant Texas was now playing for the Rose Bowl. Naturally, they lost to Colorado, 39-37, in a rematch of a game they'd won in a rout earlier. The Vols win and Longhorns loss suddenly put Tennessee in the catbird seat at number two. Beat LSU, whom they'd already beaten 26-18, and go for your second BCS championship in four years. When the Vols went up 17-7 in the second quarter and LSU's starting quarterback, Rohan Davey, left with an injury, the Vols were halfway to Atlanta. But led by backup QB Matt Mauck, LSU climbed off the mat (pardon the pun) and manhandled the Vols the rest of the way, winning, 31-20.
And now came the eruptions and objections from coast to coast. Nebraska, who had not played a game since November 23 - where they were beaten soundly - cycled through the rankings and back to the number two spot. There were two other teams objecting to this occurence, two-loss Colorado and one-loss Oregon. Oregon, in fact, was number two in both the AP and coaches polls and had the national sentiment, but they were fourth in the BCS polls, not only behind Miami and Nebraska but also behind two-loss Colorado.
So why did Nebraska make the game despite not even winning their division? Well, you can thank the changes the BCS made trying to 'fix' the alleged snub in 2000 for the debacle of 2001. By removing the margin of victory component, the computers now treated Nebraska's 27-point drilling by Colorado as equal to Oklahoma's three-point loss to Okie State or Oregon's seven-point loss to ranked Stanford. This not only put Nebraska at number two, but combined with Oregon's weak strength of schedule put the Buffaloes in third.
2) The controversy that.....really wasn't.
What made the late autumn of 2001 so fun was that it seemed an upset happened almost every week coming down the stretch. (Even Miami's "great" team nearly lost to Va Tech). It was exciting and fun - every Saturday offered something great, and in all honesty it helped with trying to return to normalcy. But there was again the predictable discussions regarding "why someone other than the team that's playing in the game should be playing in the game."
Nobody ever seemed to want to say, "Hey, look, the only reason we're even having this discussion is because THOSE TEAMS LOST GAMES!" No, the discussion - when you get down to it - was really "which team's loss hurts them the least." And for perfectly understandable reasons, people focused on "my God, Nebraska got absolutely killed in that last game." But let's let me don a hat here and show how I would have presented the case AGAINST each team and then tell me this was really a controversy.
a) the case against Nebraska
"The entire case against Nebraska is simple: didn't win their conference, didn't even win their division, and lost by 28 points to arch rival in a game that wasn't even that close.
b) the case against Colorado
"Look, the entirety of the Buffaloes' case is "we killed Nebraska," but implicit in that argument is the assumption that a win over Nebraska is a win over a good team...while simultaneously sayin Nebraska isn't any good. But if a 28-point loss disqualifies Nebraska then why doesn't a 34-point loss (to Texas) disqualify Colorado? Of course, the Buffs partisans pivot and say, "Well, but we undid that by winning the rematch." Only a college football fan can persuade himself that a 2-point win makes up for a 34-point loss as if equal weight should be given to both. Then throw in that the Buffs have ANOTHER loss, this one to Fresno State. It's the WHOLE RECORD that causes the problem for the Buffs. They look much more worthy if you focus on two late-season games than if you focus on the entire year. But it seems specious to me to say Nebraska's 28-point loss is unforgivable but a 34-point loss is okay if you win a rematch. It seems to me we could solve this by letting Oregon play Miami and Nebraska and Colorado have a rematch in the Orange Bowl.
c) the case against Oregon
What's funny is that Oregon gets left out of the argument for no other reason than they had no involvement in the Colorado-Nebraska game. Of course, Oregon has the BEST LOSS of the three teams here, a 7-point loss to 9-3 Stanford at home. But their biggest problem is a schedule - and yes, they tried, how could they know Wisconsin would implode? - but their schedule is by far the easiest of the three. They got to skip Washington this year in Pac 10 play, their OOC was awful, and the Pac 12 was Oregon, Stanford, and Wazzu (some say Washington, but they gave up 65 to Miami and 49 to Oregon State). Oregon's fate is sealed by a schedule nowhere near as tough as CU or Nebraska
3) All we needed was a spokesperson competent enough to make this argument.
Chris Fowl-up: "I'm sure, though, you can understand the reactions of fans who say, 'How can the BCS say every game matters when a team that gets drilled so badly as Nebraska did in their last game gets a playoff berth?'"
Me: "Well, Chris, for starters, it isn't FANS saying that, they have no say in this discussion, it's you guys on television saying this in an effort to draw ratings to your other games, like Colorado vs Oregon. However, since you're saying that a 28-point loss for Nebraska is somehow a disqualifying factor, why isn't a 34-point loss for Colorado - in addition to have twice as many losses as the Huskers do - disqualifying? It seems to me that those of you writing this aren't exactly being consistent with the data, but if you'll allow me to explain, here's what happened: Nebraska made the title game because the Colorado vs Washington State game was never played. Now that's nobody's fault, but that IS why the system produced Nebraska. Our system DOES value EVERY game that is played and - yes - that includes Colorado's win over Nebraska, but it also includes Colorado's LOSSES to both Texas and Fresno State, and it even favors Colorado beating Texas later in the season. But the key for Colorado is those two late-season wins don't offset the two losses. As far as Oregon, I will remind everyone that if that CU/Wazzu game was played and Wazzu won then Oregon would be the one-loss team in the title game. The BCS considers the totality of the data, but they can't take into account games that aren't played, and neither can any other system.
Fowl-up: "Well, I'm sure the Colorado folks would say, but we beat Texas so that offsets one loss."
Me: "Yeah, and I'll say to those folks that the only reason they're even making that argument is that unlike Miami, Colorado lost two games. If Colorado wanted there to be no doubt they belonged, they should have won those two games they lost. The BCS will only run into some serious problems - and this is inevitable - when you have 3 or 4 unbeaten teams for only two spots. Debating the "deserving" among a group of one-loss teams should always be met with the observation that if they'd won the game they lost, there'd be no discussion in the first place."
4) Did the right team win the national championship?
Of course. Nobody was going to beat Miami in 2001.