Don't know if this was posted. UTES National Champion

[motely36]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3815656

Pretty much says it all.

[cobalt1999]

1. I agree more with this article...

www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/2009/01/07/20090107spt-p2mainyoung-CP.html

Thursday night, the debate ends.

Either Florida or Oklahoma will be college football's national champion, and all the Mack Brown whining and Pete Carroll campaigning and Utah Attorney General threatening of antitrust suits isn't going to change it.

The BCS system may be flawed, but it's the system that's in place and it isn't like this is the first time there has been doubt about whether it has identified the best team in college football.


For the sake of argument, let's say there was a four-team playoff as many have proposed. It still would leave one of the teams that is making an argument for a national title out of the running.

Would Brown whine if that fifth team was Texas? Boy, howdy.

Would Carroll campaign for the Trojans?

You'd better believe it.

Would the Utah politician threaten to sue because the playoff included Florida, Oklahoma, Southern California and Texas but not the Utes?

Depends on whether he needs the Brigham Young vote.

We have always liked the idea of implementing a playoff system in college football, but not because it will definitively identify the best team.

There is no guarantee that will happen.

We want a playoff because we think it would be a blast to watch it unfold in high definition.

We're selfish that way.

<snip>

But we don't really blame the coaches who were left out of the BCS National Championship Game for lobbying. Fans, alumni and players expect it. And it's in their coaching DNA, if not their contracts.

But can one really make a case for them?


• Texas? Finish first in your division, then pop off.


• USC? If you're national championship hopes hadn't been quashed by a loss to Oregon State just two years ago, maybe we could forgive and forget.

But to overlook the battlin' Beavers for the second time in three years?

Don't come to us with hat in hand.


• Utah? Now, there's a team that at least has an argument for being the best team.

The Utes are the only undefeated team at 13-0. And in the Sugar Bowl they rolled the Crimson Tide of Alabama, a team that took the No. 1 BCS ranking into the SEC championship game.

Unfortunately, they're not within the 66-school BCS "conspiracy," as Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff termed it.

As good as the Mountain West Conference might have been this year, you have to wonder whether Utah would have stayed unbeaten in the Big 12, the Southeastern, the Pac-10, the Atlantic Coast, the Big East or the Big Ten conferences.

OK, maybe we'll give you the Big Ten after that 1-6 performance in bowl games.

Point is, we can debate whether tonight's winner is the best team in college football.

No doubt some rogue Associated Press voters will ignore the outcome, and that's OK.

It doesn't matter. There will be one national champion and it will be the winner in Miami.

[nickgutierrez]

2. You could make the same argument against the team that lost at home to Ole Miss.

If anything, Oregon State is a better loss than Mississippi was.

[cobalt1999]

3. There will always be an argument though.

There will be the same argument about the selection of 2 teams for the championship game as there is for the 64 team NCAA basketball tournament. Each year we hear how some team should have been in vs. another that got in...and that's for 64 TEAMS!

[nickgutierrez]

4. That's true, but...

...nobody in their right mind makes the case that the teams snubbed from the basketball tournament are really contenders to win the whole thing. The basketball tournament is a different thing entirely. In my mind, you really only need the four highest-ranked conference winners - sorry Alabama and Texas.