Sometimes I don't think there is any limit to what the BCS gets blamed for.
AIDS crisis? BCS's fault.
World War II? Yep, BCS again.
Here's a couple of the latest loony stories cooked up by playoff fanatics.
First, the BCS is to blame for choosing Oklahoma in a tie-breaker in the Big 12 South Division.
Never mind that it was the Big 12's decision to use the BCS rankings as a tiebreaker and that the BCS rankings were the fifth tiebreaker, anyway.
In their desperate attempts to discredit the BCS, playoff advocates imply it was the BCS that decided to put Oklahoma into the Big 12 title game instead of Texas.
Funny, though, how we suddenly don't hear Bob Stoops complaining anymore. Those playoff guys get real quiet when their team is ranked first or second, don't they?
An even more ridiculous argument being made is that the BCS is the cause of bad sportsmanship in college football. Supposedly, coaches are running up scores in order to win "style points" from voters.
Of course, nobody bothers to give any examples of this.
It's true that teams with large leads will continue to try to score points even into the fourth quarter, but that's the way it's always been in college football. This isn't the NFL, where if a team gets a 14-point lead you can turn the TV off.
Ask Troy. They were ahead of LSU by 28 points with two minutes left in the third quarter. Troy ended up losing the game by nine points. There aren't many safe leads in college football.
The only time I see teams score meaningless points late in a game is when they put their scrimmage team in. It's natural for the scrimmage team to play as hard as they can and the opposing defense is usually so demoralized that sometimes the scrubs make a couple of scores. So what?
At any rate, if coaches were running up the score for the BCS, why did they take their starters out? They are obviously looking ahead to next year and trying to give their freshmen some valuable game experience, that's all.
I hear next they'll be blaming the BCS for 9/11.
22 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
James Colt 7 months ago
Well here's an example of running up the score. Oklahoma, knowing that a good showing against Texas Tech would really boost their "style points" (as some call them) left in their starters well into the fourth quarter, and even had Bradford the downfield for a touchdown up 55-14. How about Oklahoma, again knowing that it could really use an impressive performance, runs a play with a 13 point lead and 30 seconds left in the game. The majority of schools would have taken a knee, but instead OU made a game that had been close and back and forth all day seem like a blowout. I know that they only ran the ball up the middle, but did they really need to run a play with the first team offense in the game? Forget that OSU should have been able to stop a run up the middle, but it looked to me like OSU was fully expecting a kneel down and were completely surprised by the play and couldn't recover, or were just trying to let OU get their style points to help their instate brothers make it sense they wouldn't be able to, but that's a completely different story.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Thanks for the comment James. I looked back at the box score. Bradford passed for a TD during the first minute of the 4th quarter. Even with a 41 point lead, it's not time to quit playing football when you are facing one of the best offenses in the country - and frankly, if I had to pick one offense to score a lot quickly for me, it would be Texas Tech. Ask Texas how quick they can score.
After Oklahoma stopped the Raiders on their next drive, there was only 10 minutes left in the game, and they sent their subs in.
It's clear to me Stoops was trying to secure the victory, not run up the score.
As for the Oklahoma State game, if you are only up by 13, two scores beats you. You kick off, they return for a touchdown. They recover an onside kick, throw a pass in the end zone. You lose. Again, you are playing a very good offensive team that has scored 41 points on your defense already. If they were trying to run up the score, I think they would have kicked a field goal. It would have only been a 45 yarder.
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James Colt 7 months ago
Seriously in the fourth quarter up by that many points you want to throw a long pass downfield? I mean they have an excellent stable of running backs why not use them to kill the clock so Texas Tech can't have the opportunity to score quickly. Also, the OSU game I know 13 points isn't a big lead, but it is when there is 30 seconds left and you have a first down and the other team has only 1 timeout left. It's simple all you do is take a knee. There is no reason the other team should get the ball back so you don't have to worry about them scoring quickly and then kicking an onside kick. I'm not saying that what OU has done is wrong, but just simply that there are other ways to go about winning without having to score 60 points.
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Irish Mike 7 months ago
Sorry James, but this isn't little league where evryone gets to bat, no one keeps track of outs or the score, and every one goes home a winner. Last I checked this was college football.
Isn't it still the responibility of the other team to stop you? Especially if your playing the #2 ranked team in the country? It's not like they were playing an undermanned Lulu's School of Cometology or anything.
As Lou mentioned....the OU starters were pulled after Tech's 1st possession of the 4th quarter, certainly not "well into the 4th quarter" as you maintain. Why should they apologize for having the 1st team in against OSU up by only 13? Why should they apologize for actually running a play with time on the clock? And for heaven's sake why should they apologize for the fact that OSU was "completely surprised by the play and couldn't recover"(really??...a running play off tackle a complete surprise?)? And if you think for 1 second that OSU would let OU score "to help their instate brothers" than you have absolutely no clue of the rivalry between the 2 schools.
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Iceman 7 months ago
great article lou, I complety agree. i watch exacty one nfl game a year, the superbowl, mostly becuase almost all the games are won with scores of 21-7 or 14-3. its as boring as it is stupid. the best games i have seen this year were Oregon/oregon state and the Sonners/ texas game. they couldnt stop scoring, it was awsome. watching the punter of both teams kick every 4th play is boring as hell.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Thanks iceman. You might want to read my article, "Why I Hate The NFL (And Love College Football).
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/87066-five-reasons-i-hate-the-nfl-and-love-college-football
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Doug Caldwell 7 months ago
Good read. It is funny that Stoops keeps his mouth shut when he is on the brink of a national championship appearance. Florida has done the same thing as Oklahoma as far as running up points. But Florida's second team offense would probably be first string at most programs. I'm really surprised that Pete Carroll has been as quiet as he has. USC is playing great right now and would have to be one of the favorites in a playoff.
Long live the BCS.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Thanks, Doug
A couple of weeks ago in a press conference Pete Carroll said that the BCS "stinks".
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Justin Fiehrer 7 months ago
great article. I would like to comment on one thing that James said. Most teams do not run up the score. I did some research and Sam Bradford has been benched for a total of almost 100 minutes at the end of games. Seven of the twelve games this season Oklahoma has sat Bradford to put it their second string quarterback. Most of six of thpse seven were with at least 9 minutes left in the game so he almost sits for an enitre quarter in these games.
Oklahoma's first game of the season, Bradford was sat for 29 minutes of the 60. They still scored over 50 points, so i think what people have to realize is the scores could be much much worse.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Great stats, Justin! Appreciate the support! You're right, there are several teams this year that could have scored 80 or more, but chose not to.
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James Colt 7 months ago
Well thanks for doing the research Justin. I don't watch much of OU, but every time I see them on ESPN it seems like they show 1st team offensive highlights from the 4th quarter, which they must be early fourth quarter. I do know the only games in which Colt McCoy has played all 4 quarters have been OU, OSU, and Tech. I did see the Texas v. A&M game and saw McCoy went in for the first series of the fourth quarter, but all he did was hand off to the 4th string running back and that was it for him. No downfield passing. Another thing people don't realize is the jeopardy that coaches put themselves in when they let their stars play in a game that is no longer in question. If Bradford had gotten hurt against Tech making that last touchdown pass, Sooner nation would have risen up in arms against Bob Stoops wondering why Bradford was not only in the game, but making long passes. Coaches always live under a microscope, and there will always be people to question their call and motives. That is really what makes sports great is the ability of a casual fan to have discussions of this sort.
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Matt 7 months ago
The Sooners were "running up the score" against OSU? a 13 point lead is not that comfortable. Look at the Oregon/Oklahoma game a few years back. Total break down and missed plays by the Sooners which cost them the game. When you're playing a good team you have to finish the game.
You can't argue about OU running up scores any more than someone could argue about Texas running up scores.
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Justin Fiehrer 7 months ago
Your right James and thats why I think Texas deserves the Big 12 championshio game more. They beat Oklahoma for one, but they could just have scored 50 or 60 points in a game but McCoy has sat more than Bradford. And Oklahoma does still run quite a few passing plays in the closing minutes. Texas chooses to eat up the clock by running the ball with their second team offense.
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Justin Fiehrer 7 months ago
i just don't think it's fair how Oklahoma gets more praise for scoring more points even though Texas could have scored more if they chose to, but I haven't heard someone criticize them once about how many points they give up. The truth is Texas has a better defense.
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Matt 7 months ago
Texas having a better defense is only an opinion. I'm not saying OU has a better defense but they are both really good. You can't simply rely on the final score or yards per game etc. OU scores 50+ points a game and scores FAST which in turn gives the other team more chances with there offense. This is something that has to be taken into consideration when looking at both defenses. A team who gets the ball 20 times vs. 10 times (just an example) will of course have more points, yards, etc. When you score a lot of touchdowns the other team has more offensive opportunity.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Justin, I still don't think style points was the difference. It all comes down to timing. There's a lot of this stuff that's out of your control.
For example, it's not USC's fault that they didn't play enough highly ranked teams to recover from their loss to Oregon State. They did all the right things. They scheduled Ohio State OOC and they have Notre Dame on their schedule, which is supposed to be competitive team.
Same thing with Penn State. If Michigan was any good, they would have had a chance to beat them and be in Florida's position.
Oklahoma's ahead of Texas because they got hot at the right time (end of season) against the right team (TTech), it's that simple. Sure there's some luck involved, but isn't there some luck involved if you get all the way to a final in a playoff?
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Matt 7 months ago
Good point Lou!
If we know anything from years of college football, if your going to lose, you have to lose early in the season. You also have to finish strong by playing good football and doing it against good teams. Nobody knows who will be good from year to year. look at Mizzou, everyone thought they would be good this year. Texas didn't know they were going to play a sub-par big 12 team when they scheduled them. If Texas had played 1 or 2 more ranked teams then they would probably still be ahead of OU in the BCS.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Sure, this is why having a conf championship game is so important. This will be the third year in a row that the winner of the SEC championship game has gone to the NC game.
There so much parity now, it's too hard to go undefeated. If you're a one losser, you need the big win against a top 5 team the last few weeks of the season. Oklahoma just got lucky they got to play Texas Tech at home when Tech was ranked 2nd. Of course, they deserve credit for beating them....excuse me, "beat" hardly describes that game. They whipped them like a rented mule!!
Texas can't complain and no other one loss teams can complain. They all had their destiny in their own hands and came up small in a big spot.
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Matt 7 months ago
Little bit off topic but did anyone else see the banner that was flying over the Texas campus?
"Hey Mack, Stop Whining You Knew The Rules"........or something to that extent. I heard it was done by a Tech fan...Haha
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
I like it!
I'm a Gator fan. If they beat Alabama, and still get bumped out of the top two, I won't complain. It was settled on the field when we lost to Ole Miss. Kick the extra point, dummies!!
Most of the whining for a playoff is just bad sportsmanship.
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James Colt 7 months ago
I don't necessarily think that the "whining for a playoff" is bad sportsmanship. Maybe the level you take your complaints too can make it that way, but not just in general. However, I don't think that having a playoff is a cure all because it's still not going to be like professional sports where you actually get to play your way in and that's that. There will still have to be a ranking system used and deserving teams will be left out of it.
I can sympathize with the teams that do get left out because the vast majority of fans don't truly understand the plight of these teams. These kids work extremely hard all year long. Not just in the season, but all year even when no one is watching them. They don't do it because they are going to make it to the NFL because most of them know they won't get that shot. Only a slim few players will get to go to the NFL so the majority of them, regardless of what the AP and ESPN make us think truly are STUDENT-athletes. They sacrifice a lot of their time and put in tons of hard work to maybe get the opportunity to play for a championship. When they've done all of this, and are deserving, as are probably all of the teams in the top 10 this year, it's more than heartbreaking to have some idiot who's never played a sport or sacrificed like they have say that you don't truly deserve this championship even though they have proved it on the field just as much as every one else. People say well just don't lose then you don't have to worry, but OU did lose, Texas did lose, UF did lose and so on so not one of them is actually more deserving. That is what is heartbreaking for these kids. If they had lost two games then it wouldn't be as bad because they know they did all they could and came up short on the field, but to come up short in the hearts and minds of people who truly don't even know what they are doing is just sad.
I know all of that is true because I speak from experience, but not from football. I played baseball in college, a sport that actually has a playoff, but we still go to the playoffs based on whether people think we should or not. We had a year in which we went 40-24. That's a pretty good year. We had the opportunity to play ourselves into the regional in our conference tournament, but unfortunately that day was a bad day for us. However, we felt pretty confident that our body of work, plus coming from one of the toughest conferences in the country would get us in. It didn't. We were passed over by a team who finished 28-24, and played in a very weak conference. The reason wasn't because they were better, but it was more political. We were all devastated. We gave all we through 64 long grueling games, and had some jack asses take all our hard work from us. So, just so everyone knows a playoff doesn't remedy all the woes of the BCS, it just allows more teams to be included. Controversy will still exist.
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Lou Vozza 7 months ago
Interesting story about your baseball team, James. Sounds like that was a bitter pill to swallow.
The problem fundamentally is there are too many teams in the leagues. NCAA basketball Division 1 has 347 teams for crying out loud. That's a lot of guys busting their butts out there who are never going to win a national championship.
That's why they never had one in the old days. It was really unthinkable because of money and transportation issues. The first AP poll for college football was published in 1936 as a marketing gimmick by a newspaper.
The idea of having a 24 team playoff in football still seems like too much to most people. The 4 or 8 team seems right, but would be just as unfair really. Not much separates the 1-8 from the 9-16 teams, otherwise how come they move around so much in the rankings all season.
How can you have a 16 team playoff and not the the poor non-BCS conf champs in? And if you let them in, how can you leave Oklahoma State out while you're letting Troy in?
We will end up with 24 teams. All 11 conf champs and 13 wild cards.
Then the regular season will suck, just like the other leagues.
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