Orrin Hatch Renews His Attack on the BCS

Orrin Hatch has been attacking the BCS system for several years now.  He has two specific problems as I understand it.  One is that his beloved, undefeated Utah Utes didn't get a "fair" shot at the National Championship game at the end of the 2008-09 season.  The other concerns how it is that participants from non-BCS conferences do not receive as much money for playing in a BCS bowl game as the primary participants from BCS conferences.  I have nothing to say about the latter issue except for the fact that the schools that have built college football and who invest the most money in it year after year deserve the bulk of the money.

The championship game of the 2009-09 season matched two one loss teams, Florida and Oklahoma, with Oklahoma losing 24-14.  That year, Oklahoma was in a 3-way tie for the Big 12 South championship thanks to the fact that Texas beat Oklahoma 45-35; Texas Tech beat Texas 39-33 on a last second play;  and then, disproving the apparent fact that Big 12 teams didn't play defense, Oklahoma crushed Texas Tech 65-21.  Oklahoma got into the conference title game thanks to its being ranked higher than Texas and Texas Tech by the BCS formula.

I presume that the Big 12 adopted use of the BCS standings as its tie breaker in order to facilitate the Big 12 champion's rise to #1 or #2 in the BCS poll.  Oklahoma's destruction of Texas Tech and then, in the title game, its destruction of Missouri sealed the #2 slot and an opportunity to be another Florida victim.

The fact that one-loss Oklahoma got into the championship game while an undefeated Utah did not get in upset Sen. Hatch.  Apparently he could see that 12-1 is not as good as 13-0, never mind the fact that Oklahoma beat two of the highest rated teams in the country while Utah beat an 8 loss Michigan team, not counting the loss to Utah.  The only other BCS school that Utah played before their magnificent bowl win over Alabama was Oregon State, which had two losses other than its loss to Utah, that by a three point margin.  I do not see in their schedule anything like Texas and Texas Tech.  The win over Alabama, which I must say I thoroughly enjoyed, was said by some to be due to a lack of interest on Alabama's part but this sort of excuse by BCS schools for losses to WAC and Mountain West teams is wearing thin.

The problem here is one we have had forever in college football. In 1968 and 1969, Joe Paterno's Penn State teams went undefeated with Orange Bowl wins and the best they could get out of human voters was #2.  In 1973, his team went 12-0 with an Orange Bowl win and the best he could get out of that was a #5.  And then in 1982, they went 12-1 with a Sugar Bowl win and came out #1.  In 1986, they went 12-0 with a Fiesta Bowl win and got another #1.  But Penn State returned to form in 1994 when they went 12-0 with a Rose Bowl win and came out #2.

Penn State's problem was with human polls, the Coaches Poll and the AP.  There are serious problems with these human polls.  The first is that they are subjective.  Everyone knows that college sports are regional in nature -- ergo regional biases come into the picture.  Second, unless voters do extraordinary due diligence, they will not remember exactly who beat whom, when, and by how much.  Third, given that coaches tend to be rather busy on Saturdays, they are likely either to pass their votes onto a grandkid or SID or just look at the scores in the morning paper before casting their ballots.  One thing is for sure, they will watch very few games other than their own.  Reporters are in a better position to watch games but even they can't see many.

When the BCS came into being, computer polls were added to the mix.  They have been crippled by being ordered not to include margin of victory.  That's a bit stupid, of course.  Limiting the importance of large margins of victory would be smart but they aren't allowed to do that.  What they can do that human voters cannot do reliably is figure in strength of schedule.  The BCS system currently consists of two human polls, the Coaches Poll, as always, and the Harris Interactive Poll, the latter consisting of a large number of "former players, coaches, administrators, and current and former media," and a set of computer polls the results of which are averaged.

Sen. Hatch's complaint has to be with the humans who do the voting and the computer polls.  His complaint is no different from but has less merit than those of Penn State fans back when they were constantly disrespected.  If Utah wants a shot at the BCS title game it needs to persuade the Pac-10 to include it when it expands to 12 teams, probably sometime this summer.  TCU and Boise State need to pray that the Big Ten takes 2 Big 12 teams when it expands to 14 or 16 teams and the Big 12 takes them.  BYU is screwed.  There is no way the Pac-10 would take two schools from Utah.  One thing is for sure, a playoff system will require something akin to the BCS to select and seed participants so there is really no escaping it.

Boomer Buckeye

In 1977, the Oklahoma Sooners came to Columbus, Ohio to play the Ohio State Buckeyes in what was a wonderful football game.  Before that game, I was a bit twisted between my original love of the Oklahoma Sooners football program (I grew up in Oklahoma and went to OU one semester) and my much more recent love for the Ohio State Buckeyes.   At the time I was a thorough-going Buckeye fan but I hadn't exactly abandoned my affection for the Sooners (or Illinois or Rice, for that matter).  In honor of that, the week before the game I revised the Oklahoma fight song to reflect my current loyalty and sang it to anyone who didn't stop me.  It went:

"Boomer Buckeye"

Boomer Buckeye, Boomer Buckeye,

Boomer Buckeye, Boomer Buckeye,

Boomer Buckeye, Boomer Buckeye,

Boomer Sooner, O-S-U!

I'm a Sooner born

And a Sooner bred,

But when I die

I'll be Buckeye dead.

Rah, Ohio! Rah, Ohio!

Rah, Ohio! O-S-U!

Those familiar with the song will know I deleted one of the verses, the problem with it being that "Oklahoma" has 4 syllables and "Ohio" just three which wreaks havoc with the meter.

That game was remarkable in one important respect.  Ohio State went down 20-0 and most Buckeye fans must have thought the game was over since Woody Hayes' teams didn't have an ability to come from behind.  So did ABC as they switched their national coverage to another game.    Coming from behind that far normally requires throwing a pass or two.  In fact, the Buckeyes scored 28 consecutive points while passing 6 times for 29 yards -- a typical Woody passing attack.  We eventually lost by a field goal. After that game, I decided that I was finished with my lingering affection for the Sooners.  They had drawn Buckeye blood and I wanted to see Sooner blood.  Fortunately, OSU beat OU in Norman, Oklahoma.

I actually went to Oklahoma for one semester, the last semester in which they were undefeated in their 47 game winning streak.  The next year, I watched Oklahoma lose to Notre Dame, a school I had already lost all respect for, by 7-0.  Oklahoma couldn't run the ball against the Domers and had no passing game -- indeed they had to turn to their 4th string QB, a kid I knew from my home town, to try to move the ball through the air.  He couldn't get it done either.

I developed almost all my collegiate sports attitudes while growing up in Oklahoma.  Besides my affection for Oklahoma football and Oklahoma Aggie (now Cowboy) basketball, I developed a love for the far away Big Ten.  My dad traveled to Champaign-Urbana from Enid, Oklahoma to go to college and became a wrestler on their Big Ten championship team, and played one year as a scrub on Red Grange's football team.  He made two friends their, two brothers from Illinois, one of whom later became an uncle.  Both which came back to Oklahoma to live their lives.  Later on, I went to the University of Illinois to teach linguistics and before school started my first year I was tackled on the quadrangle by this same uncle's son, with whom I was very close growing up.  I met my wife at Illinois, where she got a a PhD and my kid was born there.  It is hard to hate the University of Illinois, whatever nasty thing they do to the Buckeyes.

As I said, I developed as disdain for Notre Dame very early.  This was due to my listening to what became a famous ND vs Iowa game in which Notre Dame, out of time outs, faked injuries both at the end of the first half and the second half to stop the clock.  In both cases they scored to tie the game, first at 7-7, and then at 14-14.  I was outraged.  The next year a new rule was passed forbidding teams to fake injuries.  This was widely seen as directed at the Fainting Irish.  So, on top of being cheaters, they had the temerity to stop the Oklahoma winning streak.  I latter learned how that streak started.  Before the first win, there was a tie.  Before that there was a loss to, you guessed it, Notre Dame.

And now there is talk that we might add the Fainting Irish to the Big Ten.  The only thing the Fainting Irish have going for them any more is their independence.  Sadly, they are not even the best independent team.  That would be Navy.  They might as well join.