What was the Big 12 thinking?!?!

The final BCS standings don’t come out for another week, but they have already decided one thing.  By ranking Oklahoma 2nd and Texas 3rd, the BCS handed Oklahoma a spot in the Big 12 championship game.

With three teams (Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech) tied for first place in the Big 12’s southern division the tiebreaker scenarios came in to play.  The first tiebreaker of course is head to head, which didn’t decide anything as Oklahoma beat Texas Tech, Texas Tech beat Texas, and Texas beat Oklahoma making them all 1-1 against each other.  The second tiebreaker is record within the division in which all three are again tied at 4-1.  The 3rd tiebreaker is record versus each team in their division in order of finish starting with 4th place Oklahoma State, which they all beat, then 5th place Baylor, which again they all beat, and finally 6th place Texas A&M, which of course all three beat.  After that the tiebreakers go to record against all common conference opponents, where again the three teams are tied with 5-1 records.  Which brings it to the 5th tiebreaker which happens to be which team is ranked highest in the BCS standings, which gives Oklahoma ranked 2nd the edge and the spot in the Big 12 championship game over 3rd ranked Texas and 7th ranked Texas Tech.

Now is that really the best way to determine who has a chance to play for your conference championship?  I mean, you’re letting voters, who have their own prejudices and bias, and a bunch of computers decide the division winner rather than what happened on the field.

So let’s discuss what did happen on the field.  Whether it’s right or not Texas Tech played themselves out of the conversation by getting hammered by Oklahoma and barely getting past a below average Baylor team.  Which leaves the decision really down to Oklahoma and Texas and if that’s the case I don’t see how you can say Oklahoma is better than Texas.  I mean, you have two very good football teams with the same record who played each other on a neutral field and Texas won that game.  However, because their final opponent (Texas A&M) wasn’t as good as Oklahoma’s (Oklahoma State) and didn’t give them the same SOS boost in the computer rankings the Longhorns got jumped in the BCS standings by Oklahoma and  may have lost any chance at a national championship.

So now Texas sits at home and hopes that Missouri can pull off the upset of Oklahoma and maybe vault them back up to #2.  But, even in that case there’s no guarantee because what if the voters feel that the national championship game should be between two teams that won their conferences.  If for arguments sake we say Alabama beats Florida in the SEC title game, that would give you Alabama staying #1, Oklahoma dropping out by losing to Missouri, Florida dropping out for losing to Alabama, and could potential put USC in the national championship game if they beat UCLA because they would the 2nd highest ranked conference champion.  The thing is though, that same argument could be made had it been reversed if it were Texas sitting second right now and Oklahoma third.

The blame here for all this mess belongs with the Big 12, who decided to put the BCS standings in as part of their tiebreaker scenarios.  There are so many other things that could have been used as a tiebreaker rather than something so full of bias it’s not even funny.  I mean, you could use point differential in the games between the three teams, which would have gone to Oklahoma with a +34 to Texas’ +4, and Texas Tech’s -38.  Or you could use point differential against division opponents or common conference opponents like they do with record against them.  If you think that will lead to teams running up the score on  opponents, I’ve got news for you, they already do that to try and impress the voters and help themselves move up in the BCS standings.

I just think it’s sad that something like the BCS standings is a part of your determining your championship.  Heck, if you’re going to use something arbitrary maybe they should take Texas Tech coach Mike Leach’s suggestion and use graduation rate to determine the winner, it would make just as much sense.