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Florida, Oklahoma Aren't Only Teams Worthy Of Title Bid

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 5, 2009

Florida and Oklahoma will play a dandy game Thursday night in Miami, befitting two programs of this stature. No one can dispute that they are among the best teams in the country. One of them is about to be the national champion.

But here we go again. As the bowl season has unfolded, we find that parity in college football has once again rendered dubious the idea of picking two teams from the herd and calling them the best of show.

Did you watch one-loss Southern Cal absolutely demolish Penn State in the Rose Bowl?

Did you watch Utah cap an undefeated season by routing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl?

Texas and Ohio State play tonight in the Fiesta Bowl. Should the Longhorns win, wouldn't they have as much claim to the crystal national championship trophy as Florida or Oklahoma?

It is, no doubt, a futile gesture arguing against the current BCS system because it's what we have and it's going to stay. Last April, a plan to settle the championship with a four-team tournament got nowhere. The BCS, like arthritic knees, is here to stay.

Gator fans, of course, will say that's just fine. They'll win their second BCS title in three years if they beat Oklahoma. That's all great, provided you don't poke too deep under the surface.

But let's go there anyway.

PLEASE EXPLAIN: There was outrage in Texas when the Longhorns were squeezed out of the equation despite beating Oklahoma and finishing the season with just one loss, same as the Sooners.

That's hard to defend, but it's not the only curiosity about the road we took to get here.
Southern Cal lost 27-21 at Oregon State in late September. That same weekend, Florida was upset 31-30 at home by Ole Miss.

Ole Miss went on to finish 9-4, same as Oregon State.

Ole Miss won its bowl game (over Texas Tech).

Oregon State won its bowl game (over Pitt).

Neither the Trojans nor Gators lost again. Yet, Southern Cal's loss on the road wound up costing the Trojans more than Florida's loss at home.

I know the BCS formula is complicated and takes a lot of stuff into consideration, and since I'm not a math major or computer expert, we'll just leave that be for now. It sure is a little weird, though.

Besides, we know what happened.

Florida recovered from its loss and started stomping teams. Computers and human voters love blowouts, and the Gators provided, crushing the likes of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida State before thumping unbeaten Alabama 31-20 in the SEC title game.

Oh, wait a sec …

WHAT'S A UTE? Here came Utah, roaring out of the Mountain West.

Utes are cute, right? Nice little team.

Very nice, actually.

They beat Oregon State a week after the Southern Cal game (oops!); they beat 12th-ranked TCU to earn the obligatory BCS pat-on-the-head berth in the Sugar Bowl that goes to upstarts; and then they beat the tar out of Alabama to finish 13-0.

So what's the only undefeated team among the nation's top football schools doing back in Salt Lake City when there's a championship to be settled?

Just 'cause.

The Mountain West isn't a big-boy league, so no champion from a league like that will ever get an invitation to the BCS title game. It's that simple. They can tweak the formula for selecting the teams to that game all they want and it won't matter for a school like Utah.

No, the BCS championship has to be settled by familiar names.

Florida and Oklahoma qualify.

They might be the best two teams in the country, or might not.

Southern Cal might blow out either one of them, but we'll never know.

Same with Utah.

It does seem silly that college football's top division is the only NCAA level that doesn't decide its champion by a playoff. Even Florida high schools have to battle through five playoff games to settle a state champion, but we can't figure out a way to make that happen here.

So we're left with what we have.

Two terrific teams playing a game that will make you stop and watch.

Both are worthy of being here.

In that respect, at least, they aren't alone.

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