40 Acres Sports

As we have completed another college football season, some wonder if really the two best teams were represented in the BCS National Championship Game. Many college football fans would like to see a playoff to determine a champion on the field instead of the cocktail mixture of polls and computers. Fans would be able to deal with this elixir of data called the BCS formula if they felt that 4 teams would be chosen instead of just the top 2. I would like to see the college presidents adopt the PLUS ONE model to determine the championship. Here is how I would like to see the BCS Bowls take shape first.

• Rose Bowl affiliation: Pac 12 & Big 10
• Sugar Bowl affiliation: SEC
• Orange Bowl affiliation: ACC
• Cotton Bowl affiliation: Big XII
• Fiesta Bowl affiliation: Big East / non AQ schools

We will give the Rose Bowl special treatment to maintain their tradition of having two BCS conference affiliations. The Sugar and Orange can maintain their regional BCS counterparts to help with travel and tradition. The Fiesta Bowl is the one that gets screwed because of past transgressions. They will associate themselves with the Big East or whatever comes of the non AQ schools. Most of the non AQ schools come from the Mountain or West region anyway. The new kid on the block would be the Cotton Bowl with its affiliation with the Big XII. The reason that the Cotton Bowl gets invited to the party is the money that this stadium can generate. No other BCS bowl site can boast the suites, access and marketing power that Jerry has created. The five BCS bowls will also end the doubling up that goes on when trying to host their affiliated conference and next week the BCS championship game. The playoff scenario below tries to take into consideration the geographic locations of the bowls to accommodate travel.

• Cotton & Rose will host the playoffs & the Championship game will be at the Fiesta
• Fiesta & Sugar will host the playoffs & the Championship game will be at the Rose
• Orange & Cotton will host the playoffs & the Championship game will be at the Sugar
• Rose & Sugar will host the playoffs & the Championship game will be at the Orange
• Fiesta & Orange will host the playoffs & the Championship game will be at the Cotton

The use of five bowl sites allows 2 of the non-playoff venues to continue with their affiliations and a bowl site will participate in the PLUS ONE system 3 out of the 5 years. The championship game will be played on MLK Day which is a holiday for many people. One important factor is that the BCS can still keep their claim that states “every game matters.” Another proposal is to have the BCS computers come up with the two most deserving teams after the bowl season is over. Fans do not want to hear any more about BCS computers after the regular season. At least this solution has the debate between the 4th and 5th best team getting into a playoff and not getting wrapped up in what a computer spits out.

One thing needs to be said for those that get sick and tired of the SEC winning all of these BCS Championships. Moving to the PLUS ONE model will increase the likely hood that two of the playoff bound teams will come from the SEC. Three of the past six years the SEC has had two of its teams make the Final Four in the BCS rankings. Get ready fans for even more SEC money and bravado coming from this conference. Why do you think SEC commissioner Mike Slive is in favor of the PLUS ONE model?

I am hoping that we get to see this PLUS ONE model in college football soon. Let the play on the field determine the champion not the computers.

Not that you should really be surprised, but the BCS has officially put Texas and Alabama in the National Championship game at the Rose Bowl on January 7, 2010. Alabama was the unanimous #1, finishing at the top of both human polls and the computer poll. Texas finished #2 in both human polls and finished #3 in the computer poll behind Cincinnati, who interestingly enough looks like they would have been in the title game if Texas lost to Nebraska.

I have been reading quite a bit of talk about how Alabama is going to roll over Texas. Everyone needs to relax. Maybe those people should go back and watch game film of the Alabama vs Tennessee game and the Alabama vs Auburn. Alabama is just as lucky (if not luckier) than Texas to be playing for the National Championship.

And just so you know, Texas has a 7-0-1 record against Alabama, dating back to the days of Darrell Royal and Bear Bryant. Hook ’em. See you in California!

Nothing makes Texas fans happier than the misery of rivals [tag]Oklahoma[/tag] and Texas A&M. The Sooners sneaked their way into the [tag]BCS[/tag] National Title game, but as just like they’ve done in five of their last six bowl games they went home as losers. We went to bed happy when OU lost to [tag]Florida[/tag] but one Oklahoma sorority girl could not be consoled:

(Side note, I had no idea the Rooster Teeth guys were UT grads.)

SI.com writer Stewart Mandel has written up his predictions for all the BCS and non-BCS bowls and has the Horns headed to the Fiesta Bowl. He’s predicting [tag]Texas Tech[/tag] will win out and make it to the BCS title game. The Red Raiders winning out would make football hell freeze over but is actually the clearest path for the Horns to make it into a BCS game. Mandel’s BCS and Big 12 predictions are below:

BCS Bowls

Orange: Maryland (ACC champ) vs. Cincinnati (Big East champ)
Rose: Penn State (Big Ten champ) vs. USC (Pac-10 champ)
Sugar: Alabama (BCS at-large) vs. Utah (BCS at-large)
Fiesta: Texas (BCS at-large) vs. Ohio State (BCS at-large)
BCS Championship: Texas Tech (BCS No. 1) vs. Florida (BCS No. 2)

Big 12 non-BCS Bowls

Alamo: Missouri (Big 12 No. 4) vs. Northwestern (Big Ten No. 4)
Holiday: Oregon State (Pac-10 No. 2) vs. Oklahoma State (Big 12 No. 3)
Toilet: Michigan (Big 10 No. 9) vs. Texas A&M (Big 12 No. 11)
Sun: Arizona (Pac-10 No. 3) vs. Nebraska (Big 12 No. 5)
Insight: Minnesota (Big Ten No. 6) vs. Kansas (Big 12 No. 6)
Cotton: Oklahoma (Big 12 No. 2) vs. LSU (SEC)

Thanks to a (joyous) [tag]Penn State[/tag] loss the Longhorns have moved up another spot in the latest BCS rankings released Sunday. Thanks to that loss and human voters seeing the error of their ways, Texas is third ahead of [tag]Florida[/tag] and more importantly [tag]Oklahoma[/tag]. The Horns dropped big from number one after their loss to [tag]Texas Tech[/tag] but moved back passed those teams this week in both the USA Today Coaches Poll and the Harris Poll.

Texas’ ranking against the Sooners is huge on the chance their is a three-way tie between those two teams and the Red Raiders for the Big 12 South. In that scenario the division winner will be determined by which team has the highest BCS ranking. If the Horns end up winning out and in the Big 12 Championship, a win over the North’s representative would likely mean a shot at the whole enchilada.

The BCS top 10 rankings are listed below:

Related: View the full BCS rankings