End of Another Football Season

I think that when I show this blog to Gnat she might just roll her eyes.

Speaking of rolling, the Alabama Crimson Tide rolled its way to a National Championship yesterday, obtaining the 4th straight national title for the SEC (nobody will be taking away THEIR automatic bid any time soon) and, though it comes amongst some controversy with Colt McCoy's injury early in the game, it has left me wondering about the differences between strengths of conferences today. Partially I am curious because the new AP and Coach's polls came out today (the final one for the year) and I was shocked by the new rankings. Here is a link should you like to go take a look yourself.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/polls

The top 10 are Alabama, Texas, Florida, Boise State, Iowa, Ohio State, TCU, Iowa, Cincinnati, Penn State, Virginia Tech. (BYU was 12th... since I know you were wondering)

What is this? Texas gets pasted by Alabama by 16 and doesn't move even one spot? Florida jumps Boise State while Boise State plays, and beats, a legitimate National Title contender while Florida shellacs a very over-rated Cincinnati? Why all the love for the Big 6 conferences (Cincinnati over TCU)? Florida and Texas get special treatment for playing an AQ conference opponent while BSU moves up only one spot (had to move up a little because TCU and Cincinnati lost) for not, but didn't Texas lose?

Well, I am crying foul.

The BCS's bowl game system creates a whole slew of meaningless games. Meaningless in the sense that it fails to determine a consensus national champion while playing 30+ games and including 60+ teams. What it does do, is require teams to put up, or shut up. What I mean but this is that while teams are responsible for their schedules before conference play begins, somebody else makes those calls for their post season. This means that while people may claim the SEC is the deepest conference in the country at some point the Arkansas of the world will have to prove it on the field. My question is, why all the SEC love? Are they really that much better than the MWC or Boise State?

So here is how these conferences/teams did in the put up/shut up part of the season.

SEC
People argue that this is the deepest and most difficult conference to play in. However, the fact that only 3 team had winning records in conference play says that they are as top heavy as anyone else. The conference went 6-4 in bowl games this year, good for second best bowl record among conferences. The conference's 1 and 2 teams both won BCS games and one was for the "title", whatever that means, but how about number 3? (Remeber, the conference only had 3 teams with winning records in conference play) They lost Penn State. No 4 won but the 2 teams tied at number 5 (4-4 in conference) split games losing to VA Tech and beating TX A&M (a big who cares on that one). The four teams tied for 7 (3-5 in conference) split games as well with wins over powerhouses like Northwestern and East Carolina (each by 3 in OT) and losses to UCONN and Clemson. For a conference touted for their depth they Alabama and Florida really seemed to be swimming in a pretty shallow pool...

MWC
Openly criticized for its lack of depth, yet the conference with the best bowl record (4-1). In the final ranking even with a loss by TCU the conference has 3 teams in the top-20 and AFA was even on a few people's ballots. Wyoming won its bowl game against a Fresno State team that beat Illinois and lost to Cincinnati and Wisconsin by a combined 11 points. 5/9 teams ended the season with winning records and the non-conference schedule across the conference included, Oklahoma, Florida State, Clemson, Virginia, Texas Tech, Texas, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, California, UCLA, Tulsa, Boise State, Navy and TX A&M (some were played more than once including bowl games). Is the conference deep? Not really, but they have gone 6-9 since 1999 against the SEC including a Wyoming win at Tennessee in 2008.

Boise State
The WAC is weak. There is not case to be made for them. What they do have, however, is a great team in Boise State. This year Alabama had wins over 5 ranked teams. BSU had 2. Florida had 2 and Texas had 2. They finished the season with 14 wins, ranked #1 in scoring offense, #10 in total offense and #14 in both total and scoring defense. They were a top 30 team in a slew of other categories including Rush Defense, Pass Offense, Rush Offense, Pass Defense, and in several special teams categories. They also finished third in turnover margin. Kellen Moore threw 39 TD's and only 3 Int. They have a decent case to have played in the title game and with only one graduating starter they are poised to have another great year with non-conference games against Oregon State at home and Virginia Tech on the road. The other games are against Toledo and Wyoming.