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The Bowl Championship Series might have screwed up and put the two non-automatically qualifying teams in the same bowl game, but it did get something right.
The BCS National Championship game should be played between Alabama and Texas.
All along it has been said that the winner of the Southeastern Conference and the winner of the Big 12—assuming both went undefeated—would play for the national title. That is exactly what happened.
Many people say Texas doesn’t deserve to be in the title game because it barely squeaked past Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship game, but I don’t know how many times I have heard coaches, players and media alike say, “A win is a win.”
Yes, TCU beat more Top-25 teams by larger margins of victory than Texas did, and yes, it’s likely that a TCU-Texas matchup would result in a TCU win, but the fact of the matter is that we are talking about the BCS. Nothing it does makes sense, but at least it sticks to its guns.
The BCS has made it clear that it doesn’t care who the best team in the nation is. It only cares about the best team in BCS conferences. After all, it is called the BCS National Championship for a reason.
The BCS has never wavered from putting automatic qualifying teams in the championship. I don’t support the BCS in any way and think that a playoff system is the only real way to determine the top team in the nation, but for now, all we have is the BCS, and it has been consistent—consistently screwing over small schools, which is another column altogether.
Texas won out in the Big 12. It did its job as far as the BCS is concerned and deserves a shot at the title.
For the second time in five years, Texas will compete for the national title, and though it hasn’t been dominant all season, it deserves to be there.
Colt McCoy is a finalist for the Heisman Trophy for a reason. He has been a big impact player for Texas. McCoy has thrown for 3,512 yards and 27 touchdowns on the season, completing 70 percent of his passes and only throwing 12 interceptions, leading the Longhorns to an undefeated season and a BCS National Championship game.
Even though TCU has a larger average margin of victory than Texas, the Longhorns have proven they can deliver in the clutch and score when it matters most. Texas looked sloppy and unorganized against Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship and almost didn’t get the snap off in time for the final play of the game, a 46-yard game winning field goal, but in the end it delivered and earned the win.
I would have loved to see TCU get into the title game because that would benefit the Mountain West Conference—and therefore Utah down the road—but in terms of the BCS and the system, it runs the championship dead-on. An Alabama-Texas title game is how it should be.
p.fieldsted@chronicle.utah.edu
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