Selma, you gave me a headache. That is a difficult choice if I throw my SEC bias out the window. Honestly, I can't feel right in picking only four. I can't rule out Oklahoma and Notre Dame for not having a CG and then let Ohio State, Oregon and Clemson in when both lost their CG, can I? Or can I? If Okla and ND had played a CG they might have lost just like OSU and Clemson. This is very confusing if I really try to get it correct.
During the real season I would have stats to look at, like scoring and defending ranking and such. I suppose that is where I would make my decision.
That's sort of my point.
I've been clear on my position: the BCS was a POSITIVE STEP FORWARD, although it took me a long time to see it that way. I recall anger and frustration when teams ranked 1-2 couldn't meet and sometimes #3 had the same record and had beaten one of them and yet they had no shot (see 1985 Penn State-OU-Miami for a great example) SOLELY because of opinion rankings. After several split titles in the 90s (1990-91-97) along with two other controversial champions (1993-94), the BCS was a great step forward in that it matched up 1 vs 2. Presumably, we no longer had the problem of Team A and Team B playing across the country at different times.
But I was one of those who cheered when chaos demonstrated the flaws in the BCS system, too. What's funny to me is that this whole 'conference champion' argument came out of the 2011 dispute and yet TWICE prior to that - 2001 Nebraska and 2003 Oklahoma - the BCS had the SAME PROBLEM and NOT ONE DAMNED WORD was said about changing the system.
One of my favorites btw was 2001. That's the year November and December carnage left us with a disgraceful Miami-Nebraska Rose Bowl that wasn't even entertaining beyond seeing Jeremy Shockey's tattoo. Team after team got eliminated. And btw - I did not know this at the time (I was in med school so my attention to details was lacking) but what actually caused the Nebraska in the title game debacle was 9/11. Not because of the rescheduled games but because of one game that was NOT rescheduled. Washington State was supposed to host Colorado on 9/15 that year. When the games were postponed, there was simply no available date to make up the game. (It seems to me the Big 12 could have delayed their title game like the SEC did and played it on December 8, but I'm ASSUMING they probably didn't figure it would matter since Colorado wasn't supposed to be a contender anyway).
If CU had beaten Wazzu, the Buffs (with two losses) would have played, er, got killed by Miami; and if CU had LOST to Wazzu then it would have strengthened Oregon's SoS enough to put them in the game against the Canes. You have to remember that Wazzu was a 10-2 team that year and highly ranked themselves.
I first used the conference champion argument when OU managed to undeservedly sneak into the game in 2003 and resulted in a split championship. The insanity is that it was the second time in three years it happened - and just conveniently managed to help the same conference both times. A team that gets blown out 62-36 (and it wasn't even THAT close) in their final game has no business playing for a national title; and neither does a team that gets blown out in their conference title game, 35-7, after months of us hearing they were 'the greatest team ever.' (Btw - let me salute Bob Stoops for ADVOCATING during the 2004 Sugar Bowl that the conference championship is a good argument, but he likewise noted that you can't suddenly come up with that rule after the season is over, either).
What turned me against the conference champion argument was watching the SEC from 2006-2011, most notably 2008, 2009, and 2011, where an argument could be made that the two best teams in the country were in the same conference. It was indisputably true in 2011, and I honestly think so in 2009 as well (I think Florida would have rolled Texas probably by more points than we did because their offense was better - but they couldn't beat us).
The conference champion argument is a GREAT argument to say 'this team is the number one seed' - that's one thing, but to deny another team a shot when you can do the eyeball test and it is CLEAR that that team is one of the top four is incomprehensible to me. That's why I presented the case listed above. I remember way too many times a pundit would say "the only problem we'll have with the BCS is if X happens" - and sure enough, X almost always happened. A lot of people forget that the BCS damn near blew up in 1998 (the first year); they forget this because it turned out okay and compared to some other later debacles, the dodging of the ramifications is often forgotten. (For those who don't recall, there were four unbeaten entering November and three entering December.......and then two lost on Championship Saturday and the third, the Vols, needed to gut check it late to win). The bigger problem was that K-State was #1 in the USA Today poll (after Ohio State lost) but#3 in the BCS poll where only 1 and 2 made the game; it would have been hilarious if all three unbeaten had gotten there and exposed the poll fraud for what it was then.
As far as SoS, that's a BIG deal to me. And we never know that until the end. BYU's 1984 title won against an awful schedule didn't look like quite as easy a schedule in the summer - Pitt turned out to be no good that year.