On Saturday night the entire country witnessed the #1 ranked LSU Tigers battle the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide. It was a great defensive battle in which only 15 points were scored throughout the entire game. LSU won the game in overtime and Alabama was left wondering what could have been if they had executed a few plays better, how far would they drop in the polls, and will they have a chance to compete for another national title. Well, the polls and BCS standings were very kind and the hope in Tuscaloosa isn't dead. Alabama dropped a total of one spot to #3.
If the regular season is, in fact, the playoff system that the universities say it is then how is it that Alabama, loser or Saturday, didn't fall behind Stanford and Boise State in the BCS? Why doesn't it matter that they won when Alabama lost? This tells me that not every game matters, only SEC games matter. You don't have to be undefeated or win your conference to have a shot at a national title, you need to win the SEC championship and then not get blown out by the SEC champion in order to get a shot at the national title. It is shameful that a one loss team doesn't drop below an undefeated team in the standings.
I get the fact that strength of schedule matters, but I'm getting sick and tired of teams hiding in their conference schedules. The SEC, for the most part, relies on the strength of the rest of the teams in the conference in order to get through to the National Championship game. The problem there is that only one half of the SEC is terribly strong and it even then we are looking at 3 good teams at best on their schedule. I know that Boise State has a far weaker schedule, but they how many teams competing for a National Championship are willing to put this giant killer on their out of conference schedule. Georgia, an SEC team, was the only one to do it this year and was beat by 2 TD's in Georgia. Don't tell me that they can't compete against the best teams in the country either. Boise has lost 5 games since the beginning of the 2006 season and only 1 of them has come in a bowl game.
Standford doesn't play in a cupcake conference at all. The PAC-12 is no joke and has produced many National Championship contenders over the last 10 years. USC, Oregon, and Stanford have been in the mix for years now and they all have to play each other during the regular season. That is just as many hard games on the schedule as an SEC team and, honestly, the offenses are better in the PAC-12 so it isn't fair to write them off when comparing them to the SEC, but for some reason the college community does.
If LSU doesn't loose for the rest of the regular season and Alabama doesn't loose any more games then it is possible for them to meet in the National Championship game in January ahead of some undefeated teams. How can you claim that every game matters when you obviously feel that certain teams don't matter? How can a team that isn't in the running to win their conference be able to compete for a National Championship? How can you claim the system is fair when it is clear that it isn't? If the tradition is so important to college that the bowl system can't be touched, then why are traditional conferences and rivalries being destroyed for money and "super conferences"? Throw all of college footballs "traditions" out and get a playoff system within the bowl structure. Every other division has found a way and it is time for division 1 football to determine a true champion.
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