Why Winning Your Conference Shouldn't Matter

Why does everyone make a big deal out of the fact that Stanford and Alabama are undeserving of playing for a national title because they didn't win their divisions?

We don't have a playoff in major college football. OK.

We have a seriously flawed system to choose a national champion. OK.

Teams are punished for losing one game regardless of opponent, margin of victory and other circumstances—plus when you lose can kill your season. OK.

We all understand the rules now. So why should all of that make Alabama or Stanford undeserving?

Because Top 10 Oregon beat Stanford and just happens to be in the same division?

Because No. 1 LSU beat Alabama and happens to be in the same division?

To disqualify those teams is ridiculous. By this criteria, the Dallas Mavericks, Green Bay Packers, UConn Huskies and St. Louis Cardinals should never have played for their titles last year. Do you see a division winner? I don't.

We have a flawed system without a playoff. A playoff allows for a non-division winner to play for a title fairly. But because we don't have a playoff, we change the way we think about who is deserving.

That is not fair.

Teams should not be penalized by fans and voters because the system is flawed. There is no doubt that LSU is the best and most deserving team in the nation this year to play for that title; but by this argument, if they lost to Georgia, they would be undeserving because they didn't win the conference. How dumb is that?

College football should be about the best teams playing it out on the field. The NCAA won't give us that. So we have to settle and hope for the best two teams to play it out and settle it on the field. It should not matter if those two are in the same division or not. It should not matter if a team has one or two losses. All that should matter is that the best two should play.

OK St, Stanford and Alabama are all quality teams that deserve a chance to play on the field. You shouldn't disqualify one because of this and another because of that. Alabama lost in overtime, to the No. 1 team, who happens to play in the same division.

You can't fault them.

In 1996, Florida lost to FSU in the final game of the year—then beat them in the bowl game for their first national title. A rematch then bothered no one. Was it only because they weren't in the same conference?

I'm not saying which team should play LSU, because we should have an eight-team playoff. But don't discredit these teams based on the fact their one loss happened to be to another great team within their division. 

I do think LSU and Bama are the top two based on defense. A rematch does not bother me at all. I just wish there were a playoff, so we could see Oklahoma State's and Stanford's offenses against those two defenses.

They are all deserving.