JC - If you can look me in the eye and tell me Nebraska deserves to be in that game more than it's conference champion who kicked it's ass all over Boulder, then you either WENT to Nebraska or have been rendered temporarily insane. Even the early-season UT loss by CU holds no import - the Buffs avenged that mistake.
I have no Pac10 allegiance, nor any to CU - my school doesn't even have football any more. But yes, Oregon also deserves it more than Nebraska.
In any case, it's an insult to all our intelligences that they can't just do an 8-team playoff. There is NO valid argument against such. But money talks, and sadly, the BCS contract runs for 5 more years.
Tom:
The wonderful thing about being a Minnesota graduate who doesn't really care much about football is that I'm unbiased and can laugh at all the idiots in the football-crazy south.
I have had VERY STRONG opinions on the validity of the Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, and Bowl Championship Series because I think logically and crave order. Kind of explains the deciles, don't it!
The system that is in place today is the result of numerous machinations to remedy an imperfect way to crown the national champion for Division 1-A football. While still imperfect, you cannot argue that THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A BETTER SYSTEM IN PLACE TO CROWN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL CHAMPION.
Your plea for an 8-team championship isn't necessarily more fair than the system in place today. If a star player for the top seeded team is injured in the first game and they subsequently lose - is that fair? It happened to the Indiana Hoosiers when they went 17-1 in the Big 10 and saw Alan Henderson get hurt. I have no doubt that they were the best college basketball team that year.
The funniest thing is that whenever I ask a playoff advocate how they'd select the 8 teams, the criteria they want are IDENTICAL to the criteria that shook out Miami (Big East Champion), LSU (SEC Champion), Colorado (Big 12 Champion), Oregon (Pac 10 Champion), Illinois (Big Ten Champion), Maryland (ACC Champion), Florida and Nebraska (At-Large selections) this year. Won-Lost, Strength of Schedule, whether or not you won the conference championship, and human judgement (the polls, which are much more whimsical than the computers, the other half of the BCS formula).
In your playoff this year, Florida is playing while Tennessee is watching at home. Is that fair? Absolutely not. Is it unfair? I didn't say that it is, but you can work this stuff into oblivion and it'll only make you dizzy.
EVERY ARGUMENT I'VE EVER HEARD about the BCS criteria brings in some factor that previously was not considered important enough to be included. Last year the Miami fans wanted "head-to-head" so they'd get the nod over Florida State, but only as long as you didn't carry it one step further and select Washington to play Oklahoma! Is there more shame in losing to #3 than to a lesser team (Oregon State)? More on that later.
This year it is now important to win your conference, if you listen to people who'd rather see Oregon or Colorado. Oregon has no more claim to the Rose Bowl bid than Maryland or Illinois if you want to compare them. "Conference champion of one of the Big 6 conferences with only one loss for the season." Colorado did avenge a loss to Texas, but how do you explain Fresno State?
Fresno lost to Hawaii and Boise State. Both of them play in the WAC, which was won by Louisiana Tech. Louisiana Tech lost non-conference tilts to Big 12 teams. So where does that put Colorado?
Last year the Seminoles lost a rivalry game on the road to the team that went into the bowls as the #3 team. This year the 'Huskers lost a rivalry game on the road to the team that went into the bowls as the #3 team. Those sound like the most forgivable losses out there either year.
Huskers play the Ducks tomorrow on a neutral field and they're favored by at least 13. Maybe more now that the Pac-10 teams can't even beat the Utahs and Georgia Techs of the world. (That's an unforgivable loss this year. Oregon lets Stanford come from way back in the 4th Q and it ends up costing them a Rose bid. That's just the way it works.)
People who aren't happy with the BCS are really directing their disenchantment with this year's lot of conference winners in the wrong direction. It isn't the BCS's fault that Texas, Tennessee, Florida, and Nebraska all lost games late in the year.
I go to bed every night thanking the powers that be for creating a system that would have presented ALL OF THE PREVIOUS TRAVESTIES of the last 41 years.
1960- Minnesota is crowned national champions prior to the bowl games and proceeds to lose in the Rose. This happened again a few years later.
early 1970s- On probation, the Oklahoma Sooners are voted national champions.
1991- Would've been nice to see the speed of Miami vs. the power of Washington. We don't. They both finish undefeated and share the crown.
1980- Clemson and 1984- BYU are national champions despite playing very weak schedules.
1996- Undefeated Arizona State loses to Ohio State in the Rose and undefeated Florida State loses to Florida. Voters are left to choose which 1 loss team to vote for. They choose Florida, even though they had earlier lost to the same Seminoles.
I could go on and on if I had my notes, but they are at home. Simply put, the BCS system is the best system we've ever had. To be fair in 2001, Miami should be exempted from the bowls and crowned national champs. They are clearly the most deserving team. Beating top 15 teams by 59 and 58 points on consecutive weeks and finishing undefeated kind of cement that. But it isn't about fairness, so they better play someone in a bowl. Nobody has an iron-clad claim on #2, but I am okay with a team that best fits the criteria EVERYONE DECIDED WERE IMPORTANT BEFORE ANY GAMES WERE PLAYED THIS SEASON. (Go deeper: The Dunkel and NYT systems were dropped for this year. Include them and Colorado - not Nebraska and certainly not Oregon - plays Miami in the Rose. Some voters in the polls actually rigged their votes to ding Nebraska down in an attempt to keep them out - that's definitely foul play.) However it was close, which is why some people want to talk about this.
Whenever you want to bash the BCS, knock it for the most absurd clause on earth... they pick Notre Dame any time they don't suck over more deserving teams like Michael Bishop's Kansas State for one of the two At-Large slots. That's a crock.