Alabama-LSU tilt exposes flaws in BCS
The most important game of the 2011-12 college football season may not actually be the BCS championship game on January 9 or the conference championship games in the first week of December, but rather a regular season clash between two SEC West schools this Saturday.
LSU and Alabama are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in both the AP poll and the BCS standings, and both have perfect 8-0 records heading into this week. Whichever team comes out on top in Tuscaloosa will likely be solidly favored in their remaining games and the SEC championship game, and if they come out with wins in those, they should have a clear path to the national championship game. SEC teams are 7-0 in that contest, so history suggests that the winner of this game might well wind up as national champion. That’s remarkable, considering how there are still a couple months of football to be played.
What’s even more notable is that this game will likely eliminate one of the top-two teams in the country by ranking from the national championship picture. That demonstrates the flaws of the BCS system; there’s no real way to compare teams from different conferences that don’t play each other, so the usual approach to championship game selection is to take two undefeated teams from top conferences. This leaves undefeated teams from smaller conferences like Boise State and TCU standing on the sidelines, but it can also lock out undefeated teams from major conferences (as happened with Auburn in 2004-05). Moreover, it ensures that a single loss is usually fatal to a big team’s national championship hopes, giving schools reasons to schedule creampuffs for their out-of-conference games; a clash of the titans, like the LSU-Oregon season opener this year, is almost certain to knock one out of contention.
When top-ranked teams like Alabama and LSU face off in a conference game, there are good and bad sides to it. On the one hand, at least we get a chance to see which of these teams is better on the field rather than relying on BCS rankings, computers or voters. On the other hand, though, the current design of the BCS is generally blind to the (significant) possibility that the two best teams in the country might not only be from the same conference, but the same division. That could make for an anticlimactic rest of the season; if LSU and Alabama turn out to be each other’s toughest opponents, the national title may be decided Saturday.
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Of course, that problem isn’t found only in college football, and playoffs don’t automatically solve it. In MLB, the NFL, the NBA or the NHL, there are still chances that the two best teams might be in the same conference, making the championship game or series itself somewhat anticlimactic. A prime example from baseball is 2004, where the Boston Red Sox made an incredible comeback from three games down in the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees – and then went on to sweep St. Louis in a rather one-sided World Series. However, with any of those sports, at least those key contests happen in the postseason, and they happen mere days or weeks before the final itself.
Meanwhile, in college football, Oregon was generally eliminated from the national championship picture (barring a stunning wave of chaos) in the first week of the season after losing to LSU, and the loser of LSU-Alabama will likely follow suit this week, two full months before the championship game.
That’s not to say that the championship game should automatically be an LSU-Alabama rematch, as under the current setup, that’s incredibly unfair to other undefeated schools. If, say, Stanford finishes their Pac-12 schedule unbeaten, or Oklahoma State does the same in the Big 12, they should get a shot at the SEC champion; you can also make a good case for an undefeated Boise State if others fall. At least LSU and Alabama have a chance to contest their superiority on the field and don’t have to rely on rankings or polls.
If you had a playoff system, though, with the LSU-Alabama loser included as a wild card on the other side of the draw from the SEC champion, both teams would have a chance to prove that they’re better on the field than the rest of the country, and that could set up a titanic championship game rematch. Imagine the storylines, with Les Miles’ quirkiness going head to head with Nick Saban’s iron discipline, both incredible defenses vying for dominance and the loser of the first meeting out for revenge. Wouldn’t that be more exciting than having the NCAA title perhaps decided in early November?
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