<p>“At least this removes another bit of controversy from the championship debate.”</p>
<p>It removes any controversy that Hawaii should be playing, but it still leaves out in the open the fact that Georgia was ranked #4 (with Ohio State at #3) and with the #1 and 2 teams losing Georgia should have gone to #2. Georgia’s convincing win demonstrates that they could have easily been moved into #2. Not to say that VT should have been overlooked, but it again raises the question of the possibility of a +1 system.</p>
<p>OR at least establish a rule that you have to win your conference championship in a GAME. UGA got ruled out by ESPN because it didn’t win the SEC, but the BCS system is set up so that you should be able to lose early and win late for good ranking…UGA did just that and got ruled out last second because of a conference championsihp.</p>
<p>The SEC is a powerhouse conference. 6-2 in Bowls this year. Let’s take another look at this system.</p>
<p>I don’t know if SEC is really <em>that</em> good. Other than the UGA’s win over an opponent that hasn’t really proved themselves (they almost lost to Washington, the last Pac10 team and that game was the toughest they had during the regular season), the other 5 were either 3 or 7-point wins. All of them could easily have gone the other way. On the other hand, the score of Michigan’s win over Florida isn’t indicative of how much Michigan was controlling that game (Michigan fumbled twice at the goal line!!). Arkansas’ loss was ugly too. Florida and Arkansas, which beat LSU, both represent the upper tier of SEC.</p>
<p>Never the less, the SEC sent more teams to the bowls than any conference and have racked up more wins. </p>
<p>Georgia is right up there with Arkansas and Florida (how about a 42-30 win over Florida). Next years season is even tougher than this year and will be a chance for them to prove themselves.</p>
<p>You know what’s funny about college football…</p>
<p>Wisconsin beat Michigan 37-21
Florida beat Tennessee 59-20
Tennessee beat Wisconsin 21-17
Michigan beat Florida 41-35 (would have been a blowout without the turnovers)</p>
<p>sending more teams is more a function of #teams finishing with W/L ratio >= 1. sec got 10 teams with that ratio mostly because their out-of-conference schedule is generally very weak and each played 4 of those easy games. once you got those 4 wins (some teams did have 1 good opponent; for example, south carolina scheduled clemson but lost), all you need to do is to win 2 of the remaining 8 (1/4) conference games to become bowl eligible and you don’t even play everybody.</p>
<p>now compare that to pac10. first all of, pac10 usually has much tougher non-conference games; they always plan it that way (it’s not their fault when ND was surprisingly weak; but teams like oregon played 3 teams that ended up in the bowl games!). even if a team gets 3-0 out of those games, it needs to win 3 out of the remaining 9 conference (1/3 instead of 1/4) games to be bowl eligible and it has to play everyone. it’s much tougher for pac10 teams to be bowl eligible. to me, it’s an irony that teams in a smaller conference end up playing more conference games (9 for pac10 vs 8 for sec)! sure, sec has championship game but that affects only the two teams involved. by the way, don’t forget pac10 has only 10 teams!</p>
<p>Mountain West (4-1)
W Brigham Young (#1) over UCLA (Pac-10 #5)
L Air Force (#2) to Cal (Pac-10 #7)
W Utah (#3) over Navy (Independent)
W New Mexico (#4) over Nevada (WAC #4)
W TCU (#5) over Houston (Conference USA West #2)</p>
<p>SEC (7-2)
W LSU (West #1) over Ohio State (Big 10 #1)
W Auburn (West #2) over Clemson (ACC Atlantic #2)
L Arkansas (West #3) to Missouri (Big 12 North #2)
W Miss State (West #4) over Central Florida (C-USA East #1)
W Alabama (West #5) over Colorado (Big 12 North #3)
W Tennessee (East #1) over Wisconsin (Big 10 #4)
W Georgia (East #2) over Hawaii (WAC #1)
L Florida (East #3) to Michigan (Big 10 #3)
W Kentucky (East #4) over FSU (ACC Atlantic #4)</p>
<p>Pac-10 (4-2)
W USC (#1) over Illinois (Big 10 #2)
L Arizona State (#2) to Texas (Big 12 South #2)
W Oregon State (#3) over Maryland (ACC Atlantic #4)
W Oregon (#4) over South Florida (Big East #4)
L UCLA (#5) to Brigham Young (Mountain West #1)
W California (#7) over Air Force (MAC #2)</p>
<p>Big 12 (5-3)
L Oklahoma (South #1) to West Virginia (Big East #1)
W Texas (South #2) over Arizona State (Pac-10 #2)
W Texas Tech (South #3) over Virginia (ACC Coastal #2)
L Texas A&M (South #4) to Penn State (Big 10 #5)
W Oklahoma State (South #5) over Indiana (Big 10 #9)
W Kansas (North #1) over Virginia Tech (ACC Coastal #1)
W Missouri (North #2) over Arkansas (SEC West #3)
L Colorado (North #3) to Alabama (SEC West #5)</p>
<p>Big East (3-2)
W West Virginia (#1) over Oklahoma (Big 12 South #1)
L Connecticut (#2) to Wake Forest (ACC Atlantic #3)
W Cincinnati (#3) over Southern Miss (Conference USA East #4)
L South Florida (#4) to Oregon (Pac-10 #4)
W Rutgers (#5) over Ball State (MAC West #2)</p>
<p>Big 10 (3-5)
L Ohio State (#1) to LSU (SEC West #1)
L Illinois (#2) to USC (Pac-10 #1)
W Michigan (#3) over Florida (SEC East #3)
L Wisconsin (#4) to Tennessee (SEC East #1)
W Penn State (#5) over Texas A&M (Big 12 South #4)
W Purdue (#7) over Central Michigan (MAC West #1)
L Michigan State (#8) to Boston College (ACC Atlantic #1)
L Indiana (#9) to Oklahoma State (Big 12 South #5)</p>
<p>Conference USA (2-4)
L Central Florida (East #1) to Miss State (SEC West # 4)
W East Carolina State (East #2) over Boise State (WAC #2)
L Memphis (East #3) to Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt #1)
L Southern Miss (East #4) to Cincinnati (Big East #3)
W Tulsa (West #1) over Bowling Green (MAC East #1)
L Houston (West #2)to TCU (Mountain West #5) </p>
<p>ACC (2-6)
W Boston College (Atlantic #1) over Michigan State (Big 10 #8)
L Clemson (Atlantic #2) to Auburn (SEC West #2)
W Wake Forest (Atlantic #3) over Connecticut (Big East #2)
L Florida State (Atlantic #4) to Kentucky (SEC East #4)
L Maryland (Atlantic #5) to Oregon State (PAC 10 #3)
L Virginia Tech (Coastal #1) to Kansas (Big 12 North #1)
L Virginia (Coastal #2) to Texas Tech (Big 12 South #3)
L Georgia Tech (Coastal #3) to Fresno State (WAC #3)</p>
<p>WAC (1-3)
L Hawaii ( #1) to Georgia (SEC East #2)
L Boise State ( #2) to East Carolina State (C-USA East #2)
W Fresno State (#3) over Georgia Tech (ACC Coastal #3)
L Nevada ( #4) to New Mexico (Mountain West #4)</p>
<p>“all you need to do is to win 2 of the remaining 8 (1/4)”</p>
<p>I’m sorry but even winning two games in the SEC is kinda hard when you are playing oppenents by the like of Florida, LSU, UGA, Auburn, Bama, USC, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, I’ll even throw in MSU…that leaves playing Vandy and Ole Miss. You are not likely to be scheduled playing both of these teams seeing as they are in different divisions… so winning even two games is not that easy in the SEC</p>
<p>You realize that because all the teams play each other, that a significant portion of them are going to get at least 2 conference wins, right? No conference has more than 2 teams manage to get less than 2 conference wins, and they’re all in crappy conferences where you have much less parity (Conference USA, MAC, Sun Belt, WAC). Reminds me of what someone posted online when a Florida defensive linemen jumped offsides about the same time Michigan was breaking the huddle; “he may have Southern speed, but he still has Southern brains”.</p>
<p>Also, keeping track of who wins more bowl games is pretty stupid, since it’s so largely dependent on the match-ups you get. Think about how much better the Big Ten could’ve done if, say, West Virginia or Missouri hadn’t choked at the end of the season, and Ohio State isn’t put in the National Championship game. Ohio State gets put in the Rose Bowl and has a better shot at winning. Illinois gets sent to a bowl they might have actually deserved to go to, and weren’t guaranteed to get stomped in. Pretty much everybody else gets bumped down a game (including Michigan State to the Motor City Bowl, which they may have actually not choked). It’s a much different picture.</p>
<p>^^^ Hate to sound mean, but duh. Any team that lost to an obviously better team can be said to have won if only, oh if only, they had played a worse team instead.</p>
<p>Sending more teams is not necessarily about w-l. It’s more about perceptions by various bowls as to how much money they can make if they have participants from certain conferences. It is perceived, correctly, that having almost any SEC team will make any particular bowl lots of money. It is perceived by bowls that having Notre Dame, assuming that they can qualify, will make them lots of money. It is perceived, probably falsely, that having any ACC team will make them lots of money. It is perceived that having a Big East team will not make them lots of money. Despite its good bowl record and the fact that their teams do travel well, unlike many ACC teams, the Big East has bad bowl tie-ins unlike the SEC and ACC.</p>