I'm not a Texas fan or a Texas Tech fan and I don't like Oklahoma.
I don't like Oklahoma because they appear to get overrated in the polls each year and because I seem to remember Bob Stoops once saying, "The Big East and the Atlantic Coastal Conference should play an elimination game for a BCS automatic bid."
I'm hoping Oklahoma loses to Missouri this weekend and ends up playing Boise State in a bowl game.
However, I really do believe that the Sooners rightfully deserve the chance to play in the Big 12 Championship game over Texas or Texas Tech.
I know that Texas beat Oklahoma 45-35 on a neutral field and I know that Texas Tech beat Texas and Oklahoma beat Texas Tech.
You can go around in circles forever about which one deserves the higher BCS ranking on the basis of these three games. That's up to you.
Oklahoma is still the right choice!
The Sooners aren't more deserving because they totally annihilated Texas Tech as some people suggest, but rather because they went out and beat some tough non-conference teams while Texas and Texas Tech did not.
Oklahoma beat Cincinnati, the Big East champion, and TCU, currently ranked 11th in the BCS.
Texas played and beat Arkansas, Rice, UTEP, and Florida Atlantic. Meanwhile, Texas Tech had the easiest schedule of any Divison 1A team in the country—the Red Raiders beat Umass, Eastern Washington, Nevada, and SMU.
There is a lesson here—if you want to be highly-regarded, go out and schedule some tough non-conference teams!
Alabama, No. 1 in the BCS, didn't make an effort to play a tough non-conference schedule. I don't consider Clemson, Tulane, Western Kentucky, and Arkansas State a real test. They're No. 1 because no one else from a BCS conference is undefeated.
Florida did play some tough games out of conference. They beat Miami (FL) and Florida State. This didn't get them ranked higher than Alabama because they have a loss, but it did help the odds makers to decide they should be a 10-point favorite over Alabama in the SEC Championship Game this weekend.
USC is another team that made an effort to play a good non-conference schedule—Virginia, Notre Dame, and Ohio State. Nobody knew how bad Notre Dame was going to be, but I believe it's the way they beat Ohio State and the great defense they play that makes USC the best team in the country.
Back to the topic: Oklahoma should be rewarded for aggressive scheduling and Texas and Texas Tech should be penalized for poor scheduling.
This makes more sense than arguing about which one of the three had better wins against each other.
9 comments Last one added 6 months ago — Leave a Comment
Dave D 7 months ago
It is irrelevant. The problem isn't with the BCS per se, except the moral hazard of letting coaches determine where their teams and their friends' teams go...well and the pure idiocy of the Harris poll. The problem is with the Big 12. The BCS wasn't designed to crown conference or division champions. Strength of ooc games shouldn't have any impact on a conference champion...never has in the past. The reality is that under the tiebreaker rules of every other conference that is split into divisions, UT would represent the South. The BCS may have gotten it right, the Big 12 screwed the Horns.
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jeff kalafa 7 months ago
you make a good point.......what are the rules in the Big 12 that would have chosen Tex?
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Kody Brannon 7 months ago
But texas didn't play an FCS opponent like Oklahoma did when they played Tenn-Chatanooga! Saying that they played a tougher non-confrence schedule is pure hog wash when you schedule an FCS. The BCS is wrong and that is the whole premise in the debate. It should be Texas in the game, not Chokelahoma.
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Major 7 months ago
To try and say that any one of these 3 teams is more deserving is ludicrous. The BCS is the real issue here. Voters in the polls should not be the ones deciding what team goes. There is way too much favoritism and people vote based on past history.
I don't really know why the Texas people are even griping to be honest. They will still get a BCS bowl even if its not the NC game. The real loser here is Texas Tech, to have an 11-1 season and not even get to a BCS bowl is just wrong. As a Tech grad, I'm not greedy. I don't need to be in the NC game to appreciate what a good season we have had, but its demoralizing to realize that Texas Tech is the only BCS conference team that would have had to go 12-0 just to make a BCS bowl. There is something wrong with that.
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James Colt 7 months ago
Try and schedule a tougher non-conference schedule? I'm sure that when OU was making their schedule 6 years ago or however far in advance teams do these things that they thought Cincinnati and TCU would both end their seasons in the top 15. I'm sure that when teams were setting games up with each other that those two teams would have been thought to have been tougher than Arkansas. Fact is that schedules are ridiculously made so far in advance that there is no logical way of knowing what kind of team you will play. Also, I know Rice isn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but don't completely discount them. They do have one of the most potent offenses in the country with a stellar receiver and qb.
Also, if you discount the Texas-OU game (I'm forgetting Tech because that's what every other conference tie breaker does) then why even play it? What happened to all that talk before about it being a BCS championship deciding game? If that's not what it did why do teams even play the games? The entirety of Division I college football is a complete sham aimed only at making money and then cheating the people that make you the money out of the things that they rightly deserve.
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Michael McCarthy 7 months ago
If you're going to use OU's wins over TCU and Cinncinati as the closing argument, you have to include Texas' win over Big XII north champ Missouri. I was at that game, and it was over at halftime. I say that not as a UT alum or student (I went to University of Houston), but as an observer who has spent a lot of time watching college football. My take is that OU gets all these style points for running up the score, whereas Texas doesn't get the same love even though they have an explosive offense and something OU doesn't, a solid defense. TCU and Cincy are good teams, but Missouri is better. Texas also beat Rice, which quietly went 9-3. Rice's only losses were to Texas, Tulsa (finished 2nd nationally behind Oklahoma in scoring offense), and Vanderbilt (remember, they were ranked early in the season when Rice played them). I know I'm leaving Tech out of this whole discussion, but everyone else does too and this has become a Texas-OU debate. Taken under that criteria, I don't see any reason OU is more deserving than Texas.
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Michael McCarthy 7 months ago
That's ludicrous to dismiss Texas' win over the North champ because they were locked in to playing them. If we're trying to figure out which team has the best resume and is most deserving of being ranked higher, than we have to look at which team has beaten the better teams and who has played the tougher schedule. To say that beating Missouri (a pre-season national title favorite) doesn't count because Texas didn't voluntarily play them, but beating two pretty good mid-majors does because they were scheduled voluntarily is just about the weakest argument I've heard out of all the weak arguments for OU. By that logic, the 2006 national championship should have been a Michigan-Ohio State rematch, because if conference games don't count, then Florida would never have gotten credit for their brutal conference schedule, and therefore would never have jumped Michigan in the rankings. Give me a break
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Brad Hicks 6 months ago
Idc what any of yall say, yes Texas did beat OU on a neutral field. Who cares??? Texas Tech beat the longhorns the WHOLE game. Texas only led the ball-game for 1:27 seconds. and if Tech would have scored the two times they were inside the 10 yard line it would have been a blow out. Idk wat game yall were watching but Tech beat their ass the whole game. The sooners deserve to be in the national championship.
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jeff kalafa 6 months ago
Brad,
Thanks for your feedback.
It looks like we are never going to know who the national championship is because there is no playoff.
I think this is the year when most everyone will agree that the BCS is a fraud.
I know you like the Sooners but USC sure looked great in the Rose Bowl, Utah has the right to claim they are no. 1 and if Oklahoma beats Florida--how can you tell Texas they are not no.1 when they will have the same record and beat Oklahoma??
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