Bowl Projections: Why All-SEC BCS Title Game Is Bad for College Football

As much as some folks would like to claim that turning the BCS National Championship Game into an SEC rematch would be good for college football, it's tough to see exactly how pitting two out of the three—between LSU, Alabama and Arkansas—would actually be a benefit to the sport as a whole.

I get that the SEC West houses the three "best" teams in the country and that if the point of the BCS is to pit the top two teams in the country in a battle for the crystal football, then they should come from that aforementioned trio.

But as far as putting together a game that is representative of and interesting to the nation as a whole, a game that does justice to the entire sport, keeping the game SEC-centric would only be a detriment to collegiate pigskin.

For one, an all-SEC BCS title game would likely land LSU and Alabama back together in a "Game of the Century"—Part II, of course.

Something that only Tuscaloosans and sadomasochistic football fans would want to see. Folks in Baton Rouge probably wouldn't care to see their beloved Tigers having to fend off the Crimson Tide a second time to capture the BCS title; they already survived that song and dance several weeks ago and, as such, have no need to settle that score again.

And—my preemptive apologies to those of you who love watching teams set back offensive football a decade or so—another kickoff between Drew Alleman of LSU and Cade Foster and Jeremy Shelley of Alabama just doesn't sound like the genesis of an entertaining evening of football. The crunching of pads and crashing of helmets is all well and good, but only in moderation, when mixed properly with, you know, the occasional free run or completed pass.

I know, I know, defense wins championships, physical football is the best kind of football...blah blah blah, can someone put the ball in the end zone, please?!

Now, it's one thing for a title game to appeal to but a single stylistic demographic by happenstance, but I can't help but find it a bit preposterous that two teams from the same region of the country, even the very same conference, would duke it out for all the marbles.

Particularly when people who have nothing to do with playing the game can (and probably should) tinker with who gets to play.

Would anyone outside of the South actually care to watch this game again? Wouldn't a rerun fly in the face of the "received wisdom" of having schools join together in regional leagues?

Isn't that why these teams play in the same conference? Isn't that why there's a regular season in college football? To sort some of this stuff out?

I get that an overtime game in which 15 total points are scored, all by kickers, can hardly be considered a definitive decision in favor of one team or another, especially when the losing team (Alabama) missed four of its six field goal attempts.

But do we really have to settle it on the biggest stage that college football has to offer? Can't Nick Saban and Les Miles just get together for a bit of head-to-head arm wrestling or rock-paper-scissors? I'm sure that would make for more interesting halftime fodder than whatever the organizers at the Louisiana Superdome have to offer.

If you haven't figured it out already, I'm just hoping the pieces fall in such a way over the next two weeks that only one SEC team, at most, gets to play in the BCS Championship Game.

Then again, matching LSU and 'Bama again might just be enough to bring down the anachronism that the BCS has become...hmmm...

Allow me to reconsider my entire argument—or not.