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BCS got it right?
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Forsyth County News

The fools got it right. In spite of themselves.

Or did they?

This year the BCS has delivered unto us a championship game pitting Florida and Oklahoma. For anyone who breathed nothing but college football over the past three months, this seems like the right thing to do.

Name two teams that played better football over the past six weeks. It can’t be done. Oklahoma spent that time imitating Fielding Yost’s “Point a Minute” Michigan teams from the turn of the century. The last century.

They’ve piled on more than 60 points in five straight games, a feat not accomplished since the Wilson Administration.

Look up “offensive juggernaut” in the dictionary, and you’re likely to find a picture of Sooner quarterback Sam Bradford tossing another touchdown pass.

And what about Boomer and Sooner, those poor horses that pull the Sooner Schooner around the field after every score? Shouldn’t someone from the SPCA be looking into the cruelty inflicted upon these overworked equines?

Florida’s no slouch, either. The Gators haven’t scored quite as prolifically as the Sooners, because teams at least make a stab at playing defense in the SEC. Still, no team had hung within four touchdowns of the mighty Gators in the past two months, until Alabama stayed within 11 of them Saturday night. But even that performance was impressive.

“They’re a great team,” Oklahoma running back Chris Brown told the New York Times. “You watched those guys beat the number one team by 11 points.”

Whoa, wait a minute here. Brown plays for a team that waxed the nation’s number one team two weeks ago to the tune of 65-21. And they beat Texas Tech worse than that score. It was 42-7 at the half.

The Sooners then won their conference championship game 62-21.

And yet, questions linger.

Since when does the BCS match up the two teams playing their best at season’s end?

Since now. A year ago, Southern Cal and Georgia were the two hottest teams down the stretch. They proved it by thrashing their bowl opponents by 32 and 31 points, respectively.

A year ago, we were told to look at a team’s “entire body of work.”

Applying that logic now, we’d have selected Utah and Boise State, the nation’s only two undefeated teams. Ah, but there’s no room for such logic, because neither team plays in one of the conferences comprising the established elite.

You know, like the ACC and Big East, which sent teams with a total of six losses into the Orange Bowl. Hope everyone can stay awake for that one.

Still, the elitists managed to produce five other one-loss teams. How do you pick one-loss Florida and Oklahoma over one loss Texas, Alabama, Southern Cal, Penn State and Texas Tech without playing it off?

You know, all of these computer rankings and preseason polls have to start somewhere. There has to be a base value.

And who’s to say? Exactly six teams from the AP preseason Top 10 are still ranked. Only four remain in the Top 10.

Texas certainly has a bona fide gripe here. They beat both of the teams that played for the Big XII championship.

They beat Oklahoma by 10 points on a neutral field. Of course, Kirk Herbstreit taught us a year ago that you can’t play for the national championship without winning your league championship. Which ignores the precedent set by Nebraska in 2001.

But here’s the kicker. If the Big XII used the same tie-breaker formula that the SEC uses, then Texas, not Oklahoma, would have played Missouri Saturday night.

So, then, it wasn’t the BCS that chose the teams for the championship game. It was the Big XII tiebreaker. What kind of a cockamamie system is this?

Let’s return to our initial premise that the system actually worked this year. Still think Florida-Oklahoma is the correct matchup?

ESPN.com put it to a vote. As of 1:00 pm Monday, 126,107 people had responded. The nays had it, 51 percent to 49 percent. No, there’s a vote of confidence. Furthermore, 31 percent felt that the wrong teams were in the championship game. Only 19 percent had no gripes.

I’d say that means that 81 percent favor a playoff.

Let’s see what President Obama can do about it.