NEW YORK -- A week before the final standings are released and the Bowl Championship Series is already ticking people off. Oklahoma -- not Texas -- is headed to the Big 12 championship game with an inside track to the national title game by moving ahead of the Longhorns in the BCS standings Sunday. Texas' victory against the Sooners in October wasn't enough to give the Longhorns the advantage in a three-way tie between the Red River rivals and Texas Tech atop the Big 12 South. And that's sure to leave many in Austin dismayed -- at the least.
OK, so we're talking about college football here...not the economy, not the war on terror, and certainly not the war on Christmas. Still, what do you think is on the minds of people in Austin right about now? Hmm...lessee...your Longhorns beat Oklahoma on a neutral field, both teams are 11-1...and yet OKLAHOMA is going to the Big 12 Championship Game on Saturday because the voters thought that Oklahoma was the sexier choice? The significance of that, of course, is that Oklahoma will play a significantly inferior team in Missouri (9-3) that lost to Kansas over the weekend. If Oklahoma wins, and they're heavily favored, they will likely go to the BCS Championship game to play the winner of the SEC Championship game between Alabama and Florida.
Sure, both Texas and Oklahoma could make solid, convincing cases for why they deserve to be playing in Kansas City come Saturday evening. To me, however, there's only one salient fact: Texas beat Oklahoma 45-35 on a neutral field.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY, IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS, THIS ISN'T EXACTLY WHY THE BCS NEEDS A PLAYOFF SYSTEM?? Instead of the question being resolved on the field, where it should be, we have voters, and polls, and computers...things that have NOTHING to do with football...deciding who gets to play for the privilege of competing in the BCS Championship Game. It's stupid, it's silly, and it's just plain wrong. Then again, it's all about the money, which means that, as long as entrenched interests (like the Big Ten and Pac-10) have their heels dug in, we'll be left with this sort of clusterf--k each and every year. Nice, eh? Millions of dollars at stake...which means that it's money and not the spirit of athletic competition that rules the roost. How thoroughly, utterly, and completely American. And yet there are people who argue with a straight face and no apparent hint of irony that the BCS is the fairest system because every game counts. Uh, if you're not going to settle things on the field, then why do you play the games in the first place?
Texas 45, Oklahoma 35. Really, y'all...what other argument is necessary??
