ChiefsPlanet 2009 NCAA National Champion

[Frazod]

Screw the BCS. Now that all the smoke has cleared, who do YOU think should be the National Champion?

Poll to follow.

[Sam Hall]

I got the quick impression that Alabama didn't care about playing Utah in the Sugar Bowl. I know a win is a win, but that first quarter was bizarre.

Most of all, I think Florida would beat Utah.

[007]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

They each have 1 loss, just like Florida.

Florida won the "national championship game" Utah is undefeated. The rest don't qualify IMO.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Rick Reilly's take:

Some gifts people give are pointless: Styling mousse to Dick Vitale. An all-you-can-eat card to Kate Moss. The BCS Championship given to Oklahoma or Florida.

It means nothing because the BCS has no credibility. Florida? Oklahoma? Who cares? Utah is the national champion.

The End. Roll credits.

Argue with this, please. I beg you. Find me anybody else that went undefeated. Thirteen-and-zero. Beat four ranked teams. Went to the Deep South and seal-clubbed Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. The same Alabama that was ranked No. 1 for five weeks. The same Alabama that went undefeated in the regular season. The same Alabama that Florida beat in order to get INTO the BCS Championship game in the first place.

Yeah, that's how it is now in the shameful, money-grubbing world of college football. If you're Florida and you beat Alabama, you get a seat in the title game. If you're Utah, you get a seat on your sofa.

Hey, remind me: What do they give out for one of those BCS things anyway? It's been so long since I cared. Something from Sears? This is the sixth year in the past 10 that the title has been in dispute under this cash-grab, fan-dis, monopoly that the BCS has created. Which is why the title game just doesn't matter anymore. It's like being named Miss Ogallala. Or Best Amish Electrician.

Just take a look at the teams that think they're worthy of being called national champs:

USC? Great year. Wonderful. Let's all go to SkyBar and celebrate. But it lost to Oregon State, a team Utah beat.

Texas? You think beating Ohio State by a nubby three points gets you the title? The Big Ten was 1-6 in bowl games! That's like pinning David Spade!

Florida and Oklahoma? They lost. Utah never did.

So that's it. Utah is the national champion. The Utes should probably have two now, actually. They went undefeated in 2004, too, and their coach still thinks they were the best team in the land. Smart fella named Urban Meyer. Coaches Florida now.

By the way, we're calling our title the "national" championship because it actually includes the whole nation*—all 119 Division I schools—unlike the BCS, which includes 66. Yeah, the BCS somehow eliminated the middleman—the NCAA. The conferences these schools play in take their dump trucks full of cash straight from the TV networks and fairness can go suck a lemon.

Do me a favor. Call Ohio State president Gordon Gee and ask him why he won't support a playoff. He's one of the most powerful presidents in the NCAA. He could get it done. If he says anything other than, "We don't want to share the loot" then you know he's lying his bow tie off.

"This is not how we normally do things in America," says Utah president Michael Young. "In America, quality usually wins, not conspiracy. And there's a reason people usually enter into a conspiracy. It's money. You make money doing it. And those that are in on the conspiracy want to stay in and keep everybody else out."

Sure, BCS blowhards will hand you schlock about how the college football season is like a playoff, how it's an elimination tournament every week. Really? Well, how come Florida and Oklahoma weren't eliminated with their losses? Utah ran the table, beat everybody set in front of them, including Ala-damn-bama in no less than the Sugar Bowl, and gets the bagel.

Oh, by the way? It was Utah's eighth straight bowl win, the nation's longest streak. Among the losers during that run? Let's see USC, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh, and now the legendary Houndstooth Hats.

"What else do we have to prove?" asks Utah's magical quarterback, Brian Johnson. Good question. He and the Utes essentially whipped Alabama at home. Handed Nick Saban a garlic necklace to wear the entire offseason. Stepped on his team's neck 21-0 in the first three possessions and never looked back. Let's see. Who was it that was losing to Alabama until nearly six minutes into the fourth quarter? Oh, yeah. Florida.

What, you want the Utes to win a spelling bee? Make a prize-winning souffle? Knock up Angelina Jolie? What?

It just slays me. It really does.

Call Myles Brand, president of the asleep-at-the-wheel NCAA, and ask him if he and his greedy presidents are going to stand in defiance of president-elect Barack Obama, who said again this week he wants a playoff and wants it yesterday.

Call Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner and BCS bully John Swofford and ask him what he's going to do if Obama starts asking the Justice Department to look into anti-trust violations against the BCS. The Utah attorney general has already launched an investigation into that very thing.

Ask him what he'll do if Obama asks the Department of Education to consider withholding federal funds from these schools that have entered into his secret club. You don't think playing in the title game means millions in general-fund donations for a school? That's as unfair as anything Title IX fought against.

Until all these people do the right thing, I'll be celebrating with the true national champions — the undefeated, untied Utah Utes. (Our new slogan: Utahk about a team!)

Lemonades for everybody!

[007]

NIce article OTW.

[cdcox]

College football has two choices for determining a NC. They could use a tournament or a ratings based system. If the NCAA had chosen a tournament, those who pimp Utah based on their undefeated record would be completely correct (assuming Utah went through the tournament undefeated).

But the NCAA chose a ratings based system. And in a ratings based system one would presume you are looking form some kind of estimate for the best team. Does anyone think Utah would beat Florida, Oklahoma, or USC in a best of 7 tournament? If the answer is no, you shouldn't pimp them for a NC in a ratings based system.

A one-loss team can still easily be the best team in the nation. Whether Utah pimpers realize it or not, it is a stochastic world, and we're living in it.

[007]

Originally Posted by cdcox

College football has two choices for determining a NC. They could use a tournament or a ratings based system. If the NCAA had chosen a tournament, those who pimp Utah based on their undefeated record would be completely correct (assuming Utah went through the tournament undefeated).

But the NCAA chose a ratings based system. And in a ratings based system one would presume you are looking form some kind of estimate for the best team. Does anyone think Utah would beat Florida, Oklahoma, or USC in a best of 7 tournament? If the answer is no, you shouldn't pimp them for a NC in a ratings based system.

A one-loss team can still easily be the best team in the nation. Whether Utah pimpers realize it or not, it is a stochastic world, and we're living in it.

The NFL does not even use a best of seven system. Why the heck would you pull that out? It has always been one and done.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Guru

The NFL does not even use a best of seven system. Why the heck would you pull that out? It has always been one and done.

Tournament = one and done (at least for football). If there is an upset it is part of the system, and that's the way it is.

Ratings based system = what is the best team despite the records. One way to ascertain this is to play a mental tournament, of who would win the majority of games if the series were long enough. This negates the effect of upsets. 7 games seems long enough to dispel any notions of Utah making a run on any of the elite teams.

In a ratings based system you are trying to answer the question, who would win a best of 7 round-robin tournament (each team plays all the others 7 times) between:

Florida
OK
USC
Texas

Or if you want to make the argument that Utah would beat all of these teams 4 out of 7 times, be my guest.

This is why ratings based systems suck. You are always left with these stupid arguments at the end.

[007]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Tournament = one and done (at least for football). If there is an upset it is part of the system, and that's the way it is.

Ratings based system = what is the best team despite the records. One way to ascertain this is to play a mental tournament, of who would win the majority of games if the series were long enough. This negates the effect of upsets. 7 games seems long enough to dispel any notions of Utah making a run on any of the elite teams.

In a ratings based system you are trying to answer the question, who would win a best of 7 round-robin tournament (each team plays all the others 7 times) between:

Florida
OK
USC
Texas

Or if you want to make the argument that Utah would beat all of these teams 4 out of 7 times, be my guest.

This is why ratings based systems suck. You are always left with these stupid arguments at the end.

AFter what they did to Alabama, I would say they have a chance. Unfortunately, the NCAA does not want to give that chance. Ever.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Guru

AFter what they did to Alabama, I would say they have a chance. Unfortunately, the NCAA does not want to give that chance. Ever.

Obama is gonna fix this. Book it.

[007]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Obama is gonna fix this. Book it.

I hate government involvement in anything. But....

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

Rick Reilly's take:

Counter:

Utah No. 1? Ute got to be kidding me

By Gregg Doyel

The U.S. sports media has a new flavor of the month, and it's Utah. Which means it's up to you, readers and listeners and sports fans all over, to say no to this nonsense.

Not you in Utah, of course. You in Utah can say yes. The Utah football team just beat the crap out of Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to finish an undefeated season -- the only undefeated season in major college football -- at 13-0. You in Utah ought to be proud of your team, thrilled for your achievement and reveling in the BCS bloodshed as you watch this imperfect system try to justify putting a one-loss team, either Florida or Oklahoma, ahead of your perfect Utes.

Go ahead with that, you in Utah.

Meanwhile, here on planet Earth ...

I mean, come on. Utah? From the Mountain West? There's an awful lot of momentum for Utah to be crowned king in the final Associated Press poll, the final one of the 2008 season, which comes out shortly after the ostensible national championship game between Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday night. The AP poll has that kind of freedom, considering it has cut ties with the Bowl Championship Series. The AP poll could make a stand for Utah, and against the BCS, all in one motion by erecting the Utes as the No. 1 team in college football.

Gag me.

Could we in the media, and everywhere else for that matter, please look at the Sugar Bowl for what it was? It was an exhibition game. It was meaningless. It was watered-down football, what with Alabama missing the very best pro prospect, and probably the very best player, in the SEC in suspended offensive tackle Andre Smith.

Now I'm in the position of having to make excuses for that cretin Nick Saban, and that really ticks me off. But here goes. In the span of one day, Alabama went from the fantasy of hoping to play for the national championship to the reality of having to play Utah in the Sugar Bowl. Until it lost to Florida in the SEC title game, Alabama thought it would play for everything. And then it ended up playing for nothing. That's the Sugar Bowl, if you're Alabama. It's nothing.

Go back to August, and it's a different story. Had you told the Crimson Tide in August, when they were unranked, that in January they would be playing an undefeated team, even Utah, in the Sugar Bowl, Alabama would have been good and fired up. But a lot changed. Over time Alabama ascended to No. 1, a plain mistake, but a mistake foisted on us by the same voters who now have the power in their hands to make Utah No. 1. So anything is possible.

But Alabama went from No. 1 to the stinking Sugar Bowl. Alabama was understandably down. Utah, given the chance to play a BCS league big boy, was understandably up. The result was understandable. Utah won 31-17.

And now it's everywhere. The Washington Post says Utah should be No. 1. That's not going to happen, of course, and the New York Daily News says Utah's exclusion from the No. 1 conversation is proof that the BCS is a failure.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth ...

People, please. Utah is the same team that beat Michigan 25-23. Michigan went 3-9 this season.

Utah is the same team that beat Air Force 30-23. Air Force went 8-5.

Utah beat Weber State 37-21. Weber State isn't even in Division I.

Utah beat New Mexico 13-10. New Mexico went 4-8.

These are facts. But people don't want to hear facts right now, because they'd rather burn down the big, bad BCS witch. As if the BCS is so bad. I'm all about getting the right system, just as long as someone can come up with one. An actual playoff, with 40,000 fans of Oklahoma or Ohio State or Texas being asked to mobilize week after week after week to the far reaches of the country? Not realistic. Games every weekend through the month of December, like they do it in Division I-AA? Feasible, but not ideal.

A plus-one system? Fine. But who are the plus-one teams this year? The winner of the Florida-Oklahoma game is one. Utah, I guess, would be another. What about Texas? Southern California?

You say plus-one, I say plus-four. And some years, plus-six. Which puts us back where we started, with no real solution to the BCS problem. Meanwhile, the BCS has been infinitely better than the previous system, where the No. 1 team in the country might beat the crap out of the No. 7 team in a Jan. 1 bowl and be crowned the national champion. At the time, people thought that made sense. You see my point? People are dumb. People are weak and easily influenced by the here and now.

So, people, please. Do not be fooled by the here and now of Utah's win over Alabama. Do not be fooled by the media clamoring.

Utah is a very good team, probably even a top 10 team.

But Florida would kick Utah's ass. And so would Oklahoma.

Assuming they weren't still laughing after watching film of Utah's games with Weber State and New Mexico.

Also, throw in the fact that Florida beat TWO #1 teams by double digits, plus #4, #6, #20 and #25.

Florida never struggled against mediocre teams like New Mexico, Weber St or Michigan.

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by frazod

DAKC votes for Florida. Mecca votes for USC.

Who'd have thought it?

Me voting for Florida - what a reach, considering they ARE the Champs.

[kstater]

I voted for Utah. The naysayers will say, "look at who they played, nobody". But let's face it the big schools don't want to play teams like Boise St or Utah. It sure as hell ain't from the lack of trying. IIRC a couple years ago, some major CFB team had scheduled BSU, and decided they didn't want to play them anymore so they bought them out.

[Lzen]

Hate to say it, but it is Florida.

And I agree with Doyel. Utah, IMO, would get their butt kicked against Florida.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

Me voting for Florida - what a reach, considering they ARE the Champs.

Sure they are - the same way the Suckeyes deserve a BCS berth every year.