Read the debate intro and the argument from Loyal Homer about whether or not the BCS national championship game truly answered the question “what is the best team in college football?”
The 2010 BCS National Championship game definitively decided what the best team in all of college football was this season – Alabama. I am sure that many may take issue with the previous statement, but it is true. In fact, the whole purpose of the BCS is to identify the best team in the college football and this year, it did exactly that.
Most people think of the BCS as an evil or incompetent group that arbitrarily makes bowl matchups, but this can not be further from the truth. First of all, the BCS is not a who, it is a what. It is a unique event. A series of bowl games among the top ranked teams in the nation that ultimately crowns the best team in all of college football. While the bowl system does not necessarily follow a stratified hierarchy and certainly not a playoff system, it is the proven system America has used to select its national champ.
Criticism of the BCS is everywhere. Even the President Barrack Obama has gotten in on the action, calling for a playoff system. Sure a playoff system would be fun, but it just does not seem plausible or realistic. It reminds me a lot of trying to build a robot butler. It would be awesome if you could do it but it would cost a fortune, take entirely too long to do it right, and someone would probably end up getting hurt. As weird as my example is, it is accurate. A playoff system would rob schools of the money brought in by the current bowl system. It would make the college football season way too long. And the extra wear and tear on the collegiate athletes’ bodies would become even more apparent by adding a few more games to the season. While the BCS system is not perfect, it is working.
This year’s BCS Championship game pitted undefeated Alabama (#1) against undefeated Texas (#2). There were several other unbeaten top ranked schools – Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State – but the BCS got this one right. A person could get lost trying to figure out all the weird six degrees of separation kind of ways Alabama and Texas deserved to play each other (e.g. Alabama beat Florida(#5), who beat LSU (#12), who beat Georgia and so on an so forth), but in the end the national championship matchup just made the most sense. The BCS takes a lot into consideration when determining their rankings – including the USA Today Coaches Poll, the Harris Interactive College Football Poll and an average of six computer rankings. I am happy that ‘Bama was not pitted against the porous defense of the Brian Kelly-less Cincinnati Bearcats (#3), or that Texas was not matched up against fellow unbeaten TCU (#4). Neither of these matchups felt right, and the way their BCS bowls turned out, I do not think TCU or Cincinnati would have mustered a win if they were ranked higher. The Alabama-Texas matchup was meant to be.
So now that I have established the fact that the championship game matched the right teams, I think we should take a look at the actual game itself. The Crimson Tide won this game in their typical “unorthodox” but effective style. Alabama did not play perfect football but they made the plays they had to in order to win the game. Despite special teams mistakes early on, the team built an early lead and kept the Longhorns from rallying to win. As for determining who the best team ultimately was some Texas fans will cry foul since Colt McCoy had to watch from the sidelines. They will argue that it would have been different if he was in the game, and who knows they might be right. But injuries are a part of football. The unpredictable nature of the sport is one of the reasons we play the game. Things do not always turn out the way teams plan, but they do always turn out the way they are supposed to happen.
This year’s BCS national title matchup was not the most technically sound or even pretty game played all year, but it was a matchup of the top two teams that resulted in a clear cut winner. Likewise, the championship certainly was not the most memorable national title game of all time, but it brought the ultimate sense of finality that the season needed. Alabama emerged victorious and America has a champion… at least till next season.
