[secsportsfan]

OhioState v. Florida: The BCS Got it Right!

Much of the country is in the midst of the first real cold snap of the season. But you’d never know it from the hot air coming out of Michigan. Lots of upset people blowing a lot of steam over nothing.

The final computer and human rankings were thrown into the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) cauldron and low and behold a live Gator was pulled out. By the way, it was the human voters who saved the day because the BCS computers had the Gators and Wolverines dead even.

I don’t know what the computers were thinking, but anyone who saw Florida come from behind to beat Arkansas 38-28 Saturday night to win the SEC Championship knows what I’m talking about. What a thrilling game? Florida showed its tremendous team speed, talent, and ability to make big plays when it needed to. Talk about going for it? How about that 4th and 10 fake punt -- from its own 15 yard line while trailing in the 3rd quarter? That takes guts! That was the play that earned the Gators a trip to the National Championship game to face the Buckeyes on January 8th in Glendale, Arizona.

Florida is a conference champion with a 12-1 record. Michigan is the runner-up in its conference with an 11-1 record. It’s difficult to understand how anyone could possibly think a second place team (with one less victory) should go to the National Championship game over all the other conference champions.

And we are not talking about a dominating conference in the Big-10. I mean, nothing against the Big 10, it’s a fine conference. But it is clearly no SEC. Just take a gander at the BCS final top 20. 5 teams from the SEC; 3 from the Big-10. How about bowl bids? SEC – 9 bowl bids (most of any conference). Big-10 – 7 bowl bids.

How about non-conference schedule? The SEC was an amazing 41-7 versus non-conference opponents in 2006. This .854 winning percentage blows away any other conference. So, Florida is the Champion of the toughest conference in the nation.

Florida had the toughest schedule in the nation (opponents winning percentage of .643). The gators had 4 quality wins over Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, and Arkansas. Michigan only had 2 quality wins – Notre Dame and Wisconsin.

How boring it would have been to see Ohio State and Michigan for a second time this season (104th time overall). Instead we have two great conference champions from different regions of the country. Florida and Ohio State will be playing against each other for the first time in history. I can hardly wait.

Certainly the BCS system is flawed. College football needs a playoff. No doubt. With the current system there are always more than two teams at the end of the year that can make a strong case they should be in the National Championship game. Someone always feels jilted.

But, if you have to pick only two teams to play for the National Championship – this year those teams have to be Ohio State and Florida. The only thing I don’t understand is why there is even a controversy. It would have been a disgrace to pick Michigan over Florida. So, at least for this year, the BCS got it right. It was easy choice.


Mo Johnson, a long-time SEC sports fan, is the author of this article. He is publisher of SEC Sports Fan.

[cjg11582]

While I agree that given the circumstances I would have taken Florida over Michigan, Louisville and Boise State, the BCS can never get it right because the system is inherently flawed. Their margin for error is too great because the pollsters are too subjective (See Greg Walden, the former coach for Washington State, ranking Florida at #1 in the Harris Poll) and a case can be made for two other teams in the country that is perfectly legitimate. I do not want to delve into specifics, but lets not give any credence to a system with this surplus of questionable determining factors, we do not need to legitimize such bureaucracy.

Nice website.

[chsbletz]

Michigan has a dynamite football team---no reasonable college football fan can deny that. But, like the others above, I am in agreement with the way things worked out. The whole point of a national championship game is to determine the best college football team in the country, not the region. The best team in the midwest region was determined when the Buckeyes beat the Wolverines in November. Florida not only won every game on its schedule except one, but in winning the SEC Championship Game it won an additional game that Michigan wasn't compelled to play. And that additional game was against a very potent adversary. It seems to me that the number of games won against quality opponents should be the tie-breaker in situations like this and, this year, it obviously was.

[secsportsfan]

Glad we're all in agreement. like i said, not a tough call i don't think. lets just hope the game is good. if ohio state kills florida -- that would not be good, the michigan fans will be whooping it up....

[secsportsfan]

oh chzbletz (sp?) saw your kentucky emblem. congrats, they really suprised me. i think they almost finished 2d in the sec east...

[pbr_girl]

I so totally agree!! Florida deserves to go to the national championship! There is a quite a few Michigan fans at my school and that I know (don't ask me why!...I live in south...they are just wacko!! lol!) anyway, they think that Michigan should have gone and I told them that they had the chance to beat Ohio State and screwed up, so why should they get a rematch?, they had thier chance let someone else try and beat Ohio State! Also another thing they say is "Michigan only lost one time and that was to Ohio State, Florida lost to Auburn who are not even ranked", Yeah Auburn my not be ranked now ,but they were #4 when Florida played 'em, so Florida and Michigan are both one loss teams, people just thought Florida was more deserving..which is so TRUE!! So, yeah I think the BCS got it right, Florida is more than deserving! Hopefully Chris Leak will play his BEST game ever and people will stop critizising him so dang much! As they say for Chris Leak, "A man who has given so much to UF and still reieceves some much critizsium"....Anyway, FLORIDA DESERVES MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH (AND SO ON AND SO ON!) MORE THAN MICHIGAN EVER WILL!

~Nikki~

"Say its great to be a florida gator!"
"If you ain't a gator, your gator bait!"

[secsportsfan]

michigan fans in florida? nuts. i hope you dont go to univ. of fl.

anyway, i really, really hope florida pulls it out. i would LOVE it if they killed ohio state. would be awesome for florida and for the SEC. And, I think it could happen. it is better to be the underdog in a game like that -- i think

[pbr_girl]

Yeah, I know..it is crazy that Michigan fan's are in Florida! I don't go to the UF, atleast not yet! I'm still in high school!! Hopefully I will attend there though! I think it could happen to..hope they kick Ohio State's BUTT!!