BCS Ranking Review: Winners and Losers Of The Final BCS Rankings Of 2010
And just like that, the college football regular season is over.
The final BCS rankings were released last night, and there weren't a whole lot of surprises in terms of who moved up and who moved down.
However, the final rankings of the season ended up with a lot of winners and a lot of losers.
Here are the winners and losers from the last BCS Rankings list of the 2010 college football season.
Winner: Hawaii Warriors
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The (Rainbow) Warriors reentered the rankings after suffering what can best be described as a short-term train wreck after June Jones left to coach at Southern Methodist.
The short decline of Hawaii must have been tough. After going 12-1 in 2007 (with their only loss being against Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl), they ended 2008 at 7-7, and they ended 2009 at 6-7.
For them to bounce back like this and to break back into the BCS Rankings is the icing on the cake.
Nice cap on a comeback season.
Loser: Michigan State Spartans
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It baffles me how a team with only one loss can continue to slide down the rankings week after week after week.
Michigan State has had a great season. Had it not been for them laying a complete egg against Iowa in Week 9, Michigan State would likely have wrapped up an automatic BCS Bowl berth for themselves.
Regardless of that, Michigan State went on to win its last three games of the season in good fashion, and yet continued to fall under two loss teams like Arkansas and Oklahoma.
They even sit under Wisconsin in the greatest sense of irony, considering that the Spartans handed the Badgers their only defeat of the year.
Sorry, Michigan State.
Winner: South Carolina Gamecocks
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For how badly the Gamecocks were beat by Auburn in the SEC Championship game, they are lucky that they only dropped one spot in the rankings.
Underneath South Carolina are three three-loss teams, and one four loss team (Florida State) that could all easily have made arguments that they should be ranked above South Carolina.
Consider yourselves winners here, guys, because you snaked out with this one.
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Loser: Arizona Wildcats
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The Arizona Wildcats only have themselves to blame for this one, but nonetheless they deserve to be here.
The Wildcats completely blew their rivalry game against Arizona State this past weekend by giving up two blocked PATs which ended up being the difference maker, as they lost the game 30-29.
The Wildcats proved that the kicking game really is an important aspect of the game.
Winner: SEC West
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Boy did the SEC West show up this year.
The SEC West makes up five of the BCS Top 25 in the final week of the season, beating out full conferences like the PAC-10 and the Big Ten.
The sad part about it is...
Loser: SEC East
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...the SEC East only has one BCS ranked team, which was South Carolina at No. 20.
Poor showing, SEC East, poor showing.
Winner: Non Automatic Qualifying Conferences
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The non-AQ conferences really put on a show this year, tying the SEC for number of representatives in the BCS Top 25 at six, which included impressive showings from TCU (No. 3), Boise State (No. 11), and Nevada (No. 15).
This is a big step for the non-AQ's, and is really adding fuel to the fire of the anti-BCS crowd.
Loser: The Big East
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This isn't 'loser' as in "man, the rankings really screwed the Big East this week." It's more loser in the way you refer to that really strange kid that only continues to make things worse for himself all the time.
The Big East was won this year, as you all may know, by the University of Connecticut; a surprisingly good program for one that has only been active for ten years.
The problem, though, is this: the Big East only produced one ranked team at the end of this year (West Virginia, No. 22).
If this doesn't sound surprising to you, allow me to remind you that the Big East is an automatic qualifying conference. The WAC, a non-AQ conference, had more ranked teams.
Sad, sad, sad.
Winner: The Big 12
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Five representatives in the Top 25 is a pretty impressive showing for a tumultuous conference like the Big 12.
The fact that they were all ranked No. 18 or above is pretty impressive too, especially considering the fact that Nebraska , a.k.a No. 18, is ranked that low on account of losing to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Big 12 Championship game.
Loser: The BCS System
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So, in the end, the BCS prioritized a lot of teams ahead of team with better record.
They placed the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl with the University of Connecticut, officially creating the greatest mockery of a major BCS Bowl in the history of the BCS.
The BCS system has been coming under some major fire over the years, and the push for a new, playoff oriented system in college football is really starting to gain some heat as BCS Bowl match ups get more and more ridiculous as the years go on.
Sure, the BCS National Championship this year is going to be a great game between Oregon and Auburn, but let's look at the other major bowls:
Fiesta Bowl: No. 7 Oklahoma vs Unranked University of Connecticut
Orange Bowl: No. 4 Stanford vs No. No. 13 Virginia Tech
Rose Bowl: No. 3 TCU vs No. 5 Wisconsin
Sugar Bowl: No. 6 Ohio State vs No. 8 Arkansas
The Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl may shape up to be good games, but it is hard to justify Stanford vs Virginia Tech or Oklahoma vs UConn.
Questions? Comments? Concerns?
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