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 ou
know computers have gone too far in running the world when they
can't even pick the right teams to play in the college-football
national championship game.
I am referring,
of course, to the miscarriage of justice that occurred over the
weekend when the NCAA's computer programmers somehow selected Nebraska
for the right to play undefeated Miami in the Rose Bowl. Even my
diehard Husker friends from Nebraska are a bit embarrassed by this
result. Did the brainy computer programmers who are responsible
for this outrage even bother to watch the Cornhuskers get their
clocks cleaned by Colorado a mere two weeks ago? This was a game
that was competitive for roughly six minutes. After 14 minutes mighty
Nebraska, who the computers say is the second best team in the nation,
was behind 35-3 before eventually losing by 26 points.
I have to confess that as one who loathes the BCS system (see my
earlier column "
The Bloom Is Off the Rose") and wants a 16-team playoff
system modeled after the highly successful Division III format,
I was praying for LSU to beat Tennessee. I knew that if the Vols
lost and the Cornhuskers were chosen for the Rose Bowl this would
incite a near riot on the West Coast. And it has, as it should have.
The Oregon athletic department has called the BCS "a cancer"
on college football. It is. ESPN last night said that the BCS is
now in a meltdown. It should have melted down long ago.
BCS sympathizers
moan that this was an especially tough year to pick the top two
teams. Hogwash. Picking the top two teams should have been a piece
of cake. Miami was undefeated and unquestionably #1. Oregon was
10-1 and won the PAC 10, which was arguably the toughest conference
this year. Every other team that had a claim on the championship
game lost their last game: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, and
Tennessee. This leaves Oregon as the last team standing. (By the
way, I've never even been to Oregon, so I don't have an ax to grind.
But I did go to Illinois and even the Illini have a much stronger
case than does Nebraska for the Rose Bowl, but not nearly as strong
a case as Oregon.)
How can Nebraska
possibly make a claim to being the best team in the nation when
they're not even the best team in their conference? An even bigger
joke is that Colorado is ranked ahead of Oregon and Illinois in
the BCS. Excuse me, Colorado lost twice! But then the BCS computer
guys say: "Well, yes, Colorado lost twice, but they're hot
now." That's true, but if being "hot" is a criterion,
how in the world is Nebraska even in the top five?
I'm not done
yet with my tirade. To add insult to injury, the BCS system failed
to pit the Pac 10 winner (Oregon) against the Big 10 winner Illinois,
which would have been a marvelous substitute Rose Bowl. So the grand
tradition is dead. Look at the bowl match-ups. They're as appetizing
as day old oatmeal.
I've always
believed that there's an anti-Big Ten and anti-Pac Ten biases in
the rankings. I first suspected this back in the early 1990s when
Penn State went undefeated, won the Rose Bowl, and ended ranked
second in the polls, even though that was perhaps the best college-football
team in 20 years. Then a few years later Michigan went undefeated
and won the Rose Bowl and had to share a national championship because
several writers ranked Michigan third in the polls.
The bottom
line is this. The BCS is a travesty. The Pac 10 has been threatening
for years to leave the BCS because its teams are always getting
the shaft. Now there is no doubt. The Pac 10 and Big 10 should go
back to playing its champions in the Rose Bowl every year in college
football's greatest event and the BCS can use its garbage-in-garbage-out
computer model to crown a make-believe national champion.
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