The BCS matchups are made, and no one is happy outside the Dirty Coast. LSU-Alabama is the least of the controversy; somehow a Virginia Tech team that got clubbed twice by Clemson is going to the Sugar Bowl to take on a Michigan team that got in ahead of a Michigan State squad that beat them head-to-head and sported a better conference record and identical overall mark – and played within a field goal of winning the Big Ten title game. Meanwhile, Boise State and Kansas State go begging despite finishing 7th and 8th in the final BCS standings, and West Virginia proves why the Big East has never deserved an automatic berth by slipping in at #23 to take on Clemson.
Once again, the annual breakdown of What Would Happen Back In The Day:
ROSE BOWL: Oregon-Michigan State. None of your damned playoff games here; Michigan State wins the Big Ten at 7-1 and thus gets the ticket to Pasadena. This should be a hot one; there might not be a more exciting team than Oregon but nobody answers the bell in big games like the Spartans.
SUGAR BOWL: LSU-Stanford. Andrew Luck vs the Honey Badger. You’d watch this, and so would all nine Cardinal fans.
ORANGE BOWL: Oklahoma State-Alabama. 2 vs 3 for the right to be champion if LSU faceplants. Again, I don’t know where Okie Lite thinks they’re going to find any points against that defense.
COTTON BOWL: Arkansas-Boise State. Better upgrade the scoreboard software.
FIESTA BOWL: Kansas State-Clemson in the battle of nobody gives a shit, because Fuck Clemson.*
CITRUS BOWL: Wisconsin vs South Carolina. That badger is going to kill somebody.
And there’s your national championship picture. LSU can win out by beating a 1-loss team ranked #4. Or it can lose and the winner of Bama-Ok State can grab the ring. Unless they look unimpressive while Stanford positively thrashes LSU (don’t make me laugh, their non-cons were Duke and San Jose State). Meanwhile, we get some really good games to pass the time during the Moveable Feast, which itself has moved to January 2 this year so I don’t annoy the hell out of all the hungover guests the morning after the party.
Once again, we’d all be better off if the BCS never existed and we went back to how things were in 1990. But if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a couple of years, you know this song already…
* Spencer Hall and Holly Anderson each get a nickel.