BCS Recap 2011

The college football season has been over for several days now and if you’re anything like me, you’re going through some serious FBS withdrawals. So in order to help you (and me) cope, I’m going to go through the winners and losers from this year’s BCS season (while flitting briefly back into the rest of the bowl season).

I was very surprised when I was making these lists how many teams and conferences ended up on both sides. This year I’m going to lump them together into the “Bittersweet” category. Without any further delay, let’s jump right in with the losers of this year’s BCS season.

LOSERS

E. GORDON GEE

The president of The Ohio State University put his foot in his mouth a while ago by saying that, all else being equal, non-AQ schools don’t deserve BCS berths and most of his reasoning was based on relative strength of schedule. As he infamously quipped, “we do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor.”

Ohio State finished the season 12-1 after a Sugar Bowl win against Arkansas. That one loss came to Wisconsin by a score of 31-18. TCU, who clearly made it to the BCS on the backs of weakling opponents, was blown out by Wiscon-…

Wait, they won? They held the Badgers juggernaut offense to 19 points when Ohio State couldn’t hold them under 30?

The same trend that has made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament so much fun is starting to creep into college football as well. The fact of the matter is that there are too many good coaches and too many good players at the FBS level and because of that, it’s no longer inconceivable that the best team in the country comes from the Mountain West or the WAC. Do they play weaker opponents? Yes. Does that necessarily mean that they are not better teams?

Just check the final BCS and AP polls of the season. Nevada was ranked 11th, Boise State 9th, and only one team ended up ranked higher than TCU.

To all of you traditional power people spewing garbage about how the little guys don’t belong on the same field as you, I offer this challenge. Get on the field and prove it. If you want to make them go away, go into their house and dominate. Until then, just shut up.

THE BIG TEN CONFERENCE

Not only did Wisconsin lose in the Rose Bowl to TCU, but Ohio State followed up their brilliant first half with a shoddy at best second half in the Sugar Bowl to eke out a win. The Buckeyes desperately needed an interception after allowing the Razorbacks to block a punt and recover the ball deep in OSU territory with a minute left.

Before the BCS kicked off, Iowa beat Missouri, Illinois beat Baylor, and Kansas State lost a close one to Syracuse on a controversial penalty.

Then Penn State lost to Florida 37-24. That’s not too bad, it was Urban Meyer’s last game so they were obviously jacked up for the game. But then Michigan and BCS contender Michigan State combined to lose by a score of 101-21.

All in all, the Big Ten finished 3-5 in their bowl games but just 1-3 against the mighty SEC and it very well could have been 0-4 were it not for the Buckeyes stout defense. They have a long way to go before being considered one of the best conferences in the country.


WINNERS

PAC-10

Despite losing the BCS National Championship Game, the Pac-10 turned a lot of heads this postseason. People were harping on the conference when they only had 4 teams that were bowl eligible at the end of the season (although USC being ineligible isn’t exactly the conference’s fault; the Trojans did finish 8-5) and it didn’t start well when Oklahoma State put a hurting on Arizona 36-10.

At that point there was a sentiment that the Pac-10 might go 0-4 in those bowls. After all, Oregon was matched up against Auburn of the mighty SEC for the title, Stanford was going up against a tough Virginia Tech team that had won 11 in a row and Washington was playing the same Nebraska team that went up to Seattle and crushed the Huskies 56-21 just a few short weeks ago.

Washington 19, #18 Nebraska 7
#4 Stanford 40, #13 Virginia Tech 12

At this point, I thought that the Pac-10 had done enough to be considered a “winner” in the bowl season. Then Oregon went out and allowed Auburn the second fewest points of their championship season and they never trailed by more than 8 points. Considering that the margins of victory in the SEC’s previous four BCS title games were 27, 14, 10, and 16 (and truth be told, only Florida’s 24-14 win over Oklahoma was as close as the final score would indicate) staying within a touchdown of the best the SEC had to offer was a good accomplishment for the Ducks.

SEC

Five consecutive BCS titles that have gone to four different schools. I may be a big fan of the Pac-10 and not a huge fan of the SEC but I am not deluded enough to say that any conference is anywhere close to as good as the SEC right now. Despite the fact that the conference went 5-5 in their bowl games and couldn’t even sweep their two BCS appearances, they did nothing to dispel the sentiment that they are the best conference.

To everyone else out there, if you want SEC fans, players, coaches, university personnel, and analysts to stop talking about the SEC’s dominance, beat them. Until then, live with it.


BITTERSWEET

I decided to create this category this season because it seemed that there were a large group of people that had ups this bowl season that weren’t without the downs and for our first entrant, we look no farther than our newly anointed national champions.

AUBURN

Enjoy it while it lasts Tiger fans.

Cam Newton has declared for the NFL draft and perhaps more importantly, game-changing defensive tackle Nick Fairley has also decided to go pro. On the strength of those two players and what they did this season, I am almost willing to say right now that next year is looking like an 8 or 9 win season for Auburn. Congratulations on a national championship but I’ll put good money on them not repeating.

NON-AQ

TCU got to the Rose Bowl, played a big time AQ opponent and beat them without resorting to “trick” plays. They played a very straightforward game and they beat the Badgers straight up. With this signature win being exactly what the non-AQ teams have wanted forever, what could possibly land them in this category?

The non-AQ conferences ended the season with 6 teams ranked in the BCS Top 25. They were:

#3 TCU
#10 Boise State
#15 Nevada
#19 Utah
#24 Hawaii
#25 UCF

Unfortunately, Boise State was never considered for an at-large selection to a BCS bowl. Of course, say the detractors, they lost to a conference opponent in the WAC! They lost by a field goal on the road at a ranked team. How many other teams in the country would have dropped from 4th to 11th in one week when losing to a ranked team on the road?

The search for respect continues…

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

They ended their famous drought where they had never beaten an SEC team in a bowl game and played one of the best halves of football in any BCS game (topped, if at all, only by Stanford’s second half against Virginia Tech). In the second half, they almost looked disinterested on offense, scoring just 3 points and allowing the Razorbacks to chip away at their lead slowly but surely.

On top of that, the only reason that the players who sold memorabilia were allowed to play is if they committed to Coach Jim Tressel that they would come back to school next year and serve their suspensions. I personally don’t think they should have been allowed to play in this game but they were nonetheless and as a further ramification, the Buckeyes will need some extraordinary play from the guys replacing these players to compete for another BCS berth next year.


The last thing I want to mention about the 2010-2011 bowl season is the controversy that threatened to derail the magical season of Auburn this year and if Cam Newton knew anything about it, that magical season deserved to be derailed. I’m not going to say that I wish he had been declared ineligible (and more importantly, not reinstated) or that the Oregon Ducks got cheated out of a national championship.

As I have said before in this space specifically in reference to the Reggie Bush situation with USC, history happened, we can’t change it. Did Cam Newton deserve the Heisman this year? Absolutely. Did Auburn deserve to win the national title? Without a doubt; while I still think that Oregon was the slightly better team and would win maybe 53 out of 100 games, on this day, Auburn was hands down the better team… just by a little bit.

All that I don’t want to see is evidence that Cam Newton knew about the “pay-for-play” scheme during his time at Auburn. It cheapens everything Auburn did this year and if that is the case, then yes, Oregon got screwed a bit just like Oklahoma (and one could argue, Auburn) a few years ago by Reggie Bush.

I hope nothing comes out and I hope that he is telling the truth even though I was pulling for the Ducks. I like to see my teams win but above that, I like to see good clean football and this year’s national championship game was exactly that… assuming Newton was eligible.


I hope you enjoyed the FBS season this year as much as I did and I can’t wait to write more about it next year. However, it is that time once again to shift my focus to the NFL, then the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and eventually Major League Baseball.




Until next time…