P.S. On a more Domer-friendly note, this rendition of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” is pretty good.
P.P.S. The always excellent Heisman Pundit addresses the recent whining from some quarters about USC’s claim that it’s going for a third straight national title:
There seems to still be an element out there that doesn’t think the Trojans are going for their third-straight title. No, they are not Japanese soldiers stuck out on an island off of Sumatra, but some real, live journalists. And of course, the LSU Tigers themselves. Other writers, like Pete Fiutak of Collegefootballnews.com, also tried to tout this line of thinking in the past year but gave it up after it quickly became apparent how untenable it was.It really boils down to this, straight from the BCS website:
2003
For the only time since the BCS was formed, there is a split national champion. LSU finishes atop the coaches’ poll by beating Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl in a pairing of the top two teams in the BCS Standings. USC, ranked first in both polls on Bowl Selection Sunday, is left out of the BCS championship game when the Trojans finish third in the BCS standings. But USC wins the Associated Press’ championship after beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Oklahoma, which spent the season as the top-ranked team in both polls, earns a spot in the Sugar Bowl by finishing first in the final BCS Standings even though the Sooners lose to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game. LSU, the SEC champion, edges USC for second place in the final BCS Standings to advance to the Sugar Bowl. The Result: A split decision: LSU finishes atop the coaches’ poll; USC is No. 1 in the Associated Press poll.Got it? There are no half national titles. Both USC and LSU won the national title in 2003. They were co-champions, which is one reason both were invited to the White House. The BCS decides the winner of the Coaches Poll, something the BCS itself admits to in the above text from its own website. So USC is going for its third national title in a row. Case closed.
(Emphasis added.) That’s exactly right. And I say this as someone who has always acknowledged the legitimacy of LSU’s share of the 2003 title — unlike Boi From Troy and some others, I’ve never tried to (seriously) argue that USC was the “real” champion in 2003. Both teams were “real” champions. Sure, I think USC would have beaten LSU if they’d played each other, but that’s not the point. Both the Trojans and the Tigers got screwed by the system in ‘03, in the sense that neither had the opportunity to play for an undisputed national championship. Both earned the national championship that they won (LSU, the BCS/Coaches poll championship; USC, the AP championship), and both have every right to call themselves national champions. If LSU had won the 2004 title and was contending for the 2005 title, I’d have no problem with them talking about a “three-peat,” and they shouldn’t have any problem with us doing it. It’s no disrespect to them. They won the national championship in 2003, fair and square. But so did we.
P.P.P.S. And don’t give me this crap about how USC “agreed” or “signed on” to the BCS when the 2003 season started, and therefore can’t complain about its results at the end of the season. First of all, the BCS formula gets tweaked so often, it borders on laughable to claim that any coach or administrator, let alone a player or fan, even understands the newly “perfected” version that emerges each offseason, let alone “agrees” to it. Secondly, what power does one school have to buck the BCS anyway, even if it wanted to? With the Pac-10 and every other conference and every team in the nation signed up for the BCS, Mike Garrett is going to, what, declare that the system is unacceptable to USC and go join Division 1-AA? Riiight.
Trojan administrators, coaches, players and fans didn’t “agree” to the BCS any more than you “agree” to the traffic laws before you get behind the wheel of your car. It’s simply the system that’s in place, and there isn’t really anything you can do about it, so you live with it. For the most part, the system works okay, and when that’s the case, you don’t complain. But every once in a while, something happens that’s valid under the existing system but obviously unjust by any reasonable standard — like getting a speeding ticket for going 56 in a 55 zone, or getting left out of the BCS championship game even though you’re #1 in both polls. In such circumstances, of course you’re going to bitch about it, and if you can find some way to get out of the ridiculous ticket, or earn a national championship by some other route, you will. Are you out-of-bounds in being upset, and in trying to somehow correct the injustice, simply because you “agreed” to the system at the outset? Of course not.
More to the point, the Associated Press championship has been around for a lot longer than the BCS, and will, I suspect, be around long after those three initials become nothing but an unhappy memory. It’s patently absurd to claim that the AP national championship suddenly ceased to have any meaning at the moment when the BCS sprang into existence. The 2003 USC Trojans have just as valid a claim to the national championship as does every other team that’s ever finished first in the AP poll. The BCS changed absolutely nothing in that regard. There is no serious argument to the contrary.
Last but not least, any and all USC-haters who want to make an argument that we Trojans shouldn’t claim the 2003 championship must first ask themselves: what if it was your team? If your team finished #1 in both polls but got locked out of the BCS title game, then proceeded to blast the #4 team in the country in your bowl game, finish #1 in the AP poll and take home the AP national championship trophy, wouldn’t you call yourselves “national champions”? If your answer is “yes,” then you’re a hypocrite for criticizing USC, and if your answer is “no,” you’re a liar.
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Categories: Uncategorized
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December 27th, 2005 at 4:18:11 am
I cannot wait for Texas to win.
December 27th, 2005 at 6:57:34 am
Oh boy are you in trouble then…because you are going to be waiting an awfully loooong time.
USC wins by at least two touchdowns.
December 27th, 2005 at 9:47:57 am
Speaking of football, what a pathetic end to Monday Night Football…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10611857/
…A team that already had its playoff berth clinched playing a team that hasn’t had a shot in a month.
I remember watching Monday Night Football as a kid. It was a big deal. Yes, Howard Cosell was annoying, but he certainly made it entertaining. Don Meredith gave it just the right light touch and Frank Gifford, though not great, provided solid commentary.
Last night it was a pathetic shadow of its former self. What a sad thing to happen to a formerly great American sports institution.
December 27th, 2005 at 1:38:02 pm
Brendan -
Can you open up commenting on the Wiki for your bachelor party event?
Thanks.
:-p
December 27th, 2005 at 4:17:29 pm
Not to mention, Brendan, that the situation in 2003 was in such upheaval that a handful of coaches, contractually bound to vote LSU #1 bucked the system they “signed on” to and voted USC #1.
December 27th, 2005 at 4:37:11 pm
The PAC-10, along with the rest of the conferences, bought into the BCS system. The BCS shafted Southern Cal, no doubt. But that’s the system they bought into. They didn’t get invited to the big game–were they good enough to be title winners? Yes. Would they have beaten LSU? They certainly could have. Would they have beaten Oklahoma? I certainly think so. Did they play in the BCS championship game that year? No. Is the BCS the agreed upon system? Yes. Did Southern Cal win the BCS in 2003? NO
December 27th, 2005 at 4:58:31 pm
Beef, I’d like to see you answer my latter two points — about why we should act like the AP championship magically ceased to exist in 1998, and whether you would claim a national championship if the exact same thing had happened to Notre Dame.
December 27th, 2005 at 4:59:21 pm
Actually, I’d like to see you answer any of my arguments, come to think of it. Because really, you didn’t do that at all. You just repeated the same crap argument that’s already been made by others, and rebutted by me above.
December 27th, 2005 at 5:31:10 pm
Brendan,
As the token Tiger fan here, I feel obligated to comment. I can’t find too much to disagree with in your assessment, as I’ve repeatedly tried to tell my fellow Tiger fans who still apoplectically chant “FUSC” that they need to get over it. I’m more than happy to forget about USC, and be content with the national championship we won in 2003. No one can take that away from us, and continuing to gripe just makes us look petty.
But I think what really gets at a lot of LSU fans is the fear that our 2003 championship is somehow forgotten or diminished by all this media “Three-peat” hype. It seemed that even that season, we were often the scrappy underdog, and it took a convincing win over a good Oklahoma team (recall the “best ever?” talk before they lost to K-State) to finally earn widespread respect. Most of us just want to be sure that, when the dust settles, folks remember what really happened in 2003. Just because USC has had more success than LSU in the two seasons since shouldn’t diminish what we accomplished that year; national championships are, after all, awarded on a yearly basis.
Oh, and keep in mind that if a dangerous-if-overlooked Texas Longhorn team upsets your Trojans, USC will have won exactly as many crystal footballs as LSU over the last three seasons: one (though they’ll also have an extra AP title and an impressive winning streak!).
And I agree - it’s a real shame USC and LSU didn’t get to duke it out in 2003. I think our defense would’ve shut you guys down.
Heh. Had to throw that in.
December 27th, 2005 at 7:16:39 pm
1) I really wouldn’t have a problem if they started saying “Third AP National Championship”. As far as I am concerned, the AP Championship has more legitemacy than the BCS Championship anyway. In my opinion the BCS Championship is just a poor replacement for the defunct UPI National Championship.
2) I fail to see the problem. There were many years in which the UPI and AP had different champions. While they was always arguments over which was the better team (as with LSU and USC in 2003) there was no problem with acknowledging both as champions.
3) There will be no “true” National Champion until there is a system of playoffs anyway.
December 28th, 2005 at 12:06:44 am
The comical aspects of the BCS are reflected in how, every time some team gets jobbed, the scoring system is altered so that–lo and behold–had the new system been in place the previous year, the jobbed team would have played in the BCS Championship game. After the 2003 season, the BCS was altered, and my oh my, had the new system been in place, LSU would have played USC in the Sugar Bowl.
That said, two things about college football.
1) There may not be a playoff system for 20 years, if then, and it doesn’t matter that there aren’t enough dump trucks in America to carry away all the money CBS or ABC would pay for an eight-team system. What matters to the Big Six Conferences is control, and it is my understanding that any playoff, even a four-team one, would cede control to the NCAA. No way. Instead, the Big Six will drop enough crumbs to prevent Congressional intervention, allowing a Utah State in here and there.
2) This much I hate to admit, but the “every game is a playoff” argument has some merit. I sat, heart-in-throat, as Leinart called the audible, 4th and 9, in South Bend. Had I thought, Well, this will hurt our seeding, instead of This Is the End, the game wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much. The College basketball regular season has been ruined by the field of 64. Duke v. NC State? Wonderful. See you in March.
December 28th, 2005 at 12:23:20 am
I think this is the first time in ages that Texas went blue
December 28th, 2005 at 1:45:18 am
I agree with the poster who would allow USC to claim an AP threepeat. But I would also see the AP national champion as inferior to the BCS national champion. Yes, for years there were many co-champions of the AP and UPI. But when the BCS was started by the NCAA the BCS winner became the NCAA national champion.
That said, I am all in favor of any team and their fans making every claim they can legitimize. It serves the NCAA right for the terrible way they have set and re-set and re-set… the BCS formula.
Good grief!! Can’t they just say if there are two, and only two, undefeated teams then they will play for the national championship? If there is one or more than two then they can use some preset formula to decide the two teams. This common sense rule would have eliminated Oklahoma in ‘03.
But that couldn’t settle the controversy in ‘04. USC and Auburn finished as the only undefeated football teams. Were they co-champions? They should have been but the AP didn’t rebel against the system and give the co-championship to Auburn like they did in ‘03 with USC.
The best solution to me is to have the +1 national championship game. Let the top four teams play in two of the BCS games with the two winners playing a week or two later in a national championship game. Some say this just moves the controversy to the 4th and 5th seeds. So what? It is going to be there somewhere. The point is to give every undefeated team the chance in a playoff. With all the conference championships these days how likely is it there will be more than four undefeated teams?
why do I let this get to me :-)
December 28th, 2005 at 2:19:42 am
when the BCS was started by the NCAA the BCS winner became the NCAA national champion
I don’t believe it’s factually correct that the BCS “was started by the NCAA.” I believe it was started by the conferences and the TV networks. I believe, indeed, that a major reason we don’t have a playoff is because the conference don’t want to cede control to the NCAA, as a poster above alluded. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. But if I’m right, your argument for the superiority of the BCS over the AP championship pretty much falls apart. Not to say that such an argument can’t be made, but you haven’t made it, because it simply isn’t true that the BCS was created by the NCAA and therefore its winner is the “official” NCAA champion. Again, please correct me if I’m wrong, someone.
December 28th, 2005 at 11:17:36 am
I suppose somebody will rationalize that the reason I feel this way is that I am a Michigan State fan, but I fail to grasp why it is so important to have an undisputed national college football champion. What exactly was wrong with the “old” system of conferences and bowls lining up, establishing or maintaining rivalries across the country? To my mind, the worst thing about the BCS is not the controversy, the tinkering, the reliance on computers or any other absurdity, but the destruction of one of the grandest traditions in all of sport — the Big 10 / Pac 10 matchup in the Rose Bowl.
Somebody mentioned the field of 64 above and how it “ruined” the college basketball regular season. I’m not sure I follow that argument, but I will point out that just because we have a large tournament field in basketball, there is still controversy at who gets in and who’s left out; and when the #1 seeds fall, does that necessarily mean the eventual champion is the best team in the land? Or did they simply have an easier path because the truly better teams had an off night earlier in the tournament?
My point being that even a playoff system for football will not solve the “problem.” As somebody noted, there will always be controversy as to which team gets the last spot in the bracket. And the “Any Given [Satur]day” rule is, if anything, magnified in a sport like football where there are only 12-14 games in the entire season.
I’m not sure that it’s possible, most years, to declare which team is “the best,” even if you did have a head-to-head matchup in a playoff. Unless we’re going to start talking about best-of-seven series or something assinine like that. Besides, if you have a conclusive champion, that kind of takes the fun out of it all, no?
Let’s scrap the BCS entirely and return the bowls to their former status. End all talk of playoffs. Just enjoy the games, hope your team wins, and then have fun arguing until next season.
December 28th, 2005 at 5:47:15 pm
Read this:
“I will point out that just because we have a large tournament field in basketball”
like this:
“I will point out that despite the fact that we have a large tournament field in basketball”
December 28th, 2005 at 10:11:02 pm
Foster: you’ve made some very good points. If I may revise and extend. My contention is that the 64-team March Madness has ruined the college basketball regular season. Yes, there is some controversy re the last 7-9 teams, the 11-13 seeds sandwiched between the 40 major conference champs & obvious at-large picks, and the automatic second-and third-tier conference champs (or conference tourney champs). However, worrying whether a 16-14 Villanova team or a 20-win U of Detroit team gets in to March Madness is amusing foolishness, because neither of those teams will make it past the middle of the second weekend. What is the lowest seed ever to win? Arizona, with Miles Simon? My point is that there wasn’t a team to win the Final Four since the expansion that didn’t breeze to a March Madness berth. In the old days, John Lucas’s Maryland would play David Thompson’s NC State, and everything was at stake, because only one team from each conference was allowed in. Now, Duke plays North Carolina in the ACC Tourney, and who cares beyond Tobacco Road? They’re both in already.
Here’s one for the Trojans: once in the 60s, Paul Westphal’s USC team went 20-2 in the regular season. Can you ID the two losses? Right. UCLA: one at Pauley, one at the Arena. And it was off to the NIT.
December 30th, 2005 at 2:43:44 am
I’m just throwing this in here to be disagreeable and to perpetuate my spite for the USC Condoms, but, as I’ve said before, USC’s defense is about as strong as a wet paper towel. Texas will annihilate USC’s defense. There will be a consensus national champ this year: The Texas Longhorns.
December 30th, 2005 at 2:53:00 am
Riiight.
Tell it to Oklahoma.
I’ll have to remember this comment so I can quote it in a few days on the blog…
Anyway, texasyank, I believe the lowest seed ever to win the NCAA Tournament is an 8 seed… NC State… right? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. Also, I think a 10 seed made it to the Final Four once. And I *know* that a 10 seed, Gonzaga in ‘99, came within a few points of the Final Four (losing to eventual champion UConn in a game that was so close, the Hartford Courant’s headline the next day was, in giant letters, “WHEW!”) But for the most part, you are correct about the “last teams in” being mostly irrelevant to determining the champion. However, that would not be the case with a 4- or 8-team football playoff. I mean, suppose for example that there was a debate about whether Ohio State, Oregon or Notre Dame deserved the final spot in the four-team playoff this year. Or Miami, Auburn and Virginia Tech battling for the final spot in an eight-team affair. Any of those teams could contend for the championship in a two- or three-game playoff. I know that’s not directly relevant to your point, just thought I’d mention it as a “how A is different from B” side note.
December 30th, 2005 at 3:47:31 am
Brendan,
I don’t know when or if you might read this with your wedding mere hours away (congratulations to you and Becky, BTW) but I owe you both an apology and a thank you.
I was so sure that the BCS was NCAA-run that I thought I would easily find a link for you. Alas, I finally gave up after fully scouring the NCAA and BCS websites. While the NCAA aparently “supports” the BCS by linking to it and mentioning it in stories the “official sanctioning” of it was conspicuous by it’s absence.
There is still a tiny doubt in my mind because a negative cannot be proved but I found no link so thank you for bringing my incorrect assumption to my attention. I’m still puzzled by when I made this assumption. I think it may have been the fact that the commissioner of the SEC seemed to be the driving force of the BCS while at the same time presiding over the basketball selection committee.
One thing I want to mention after reading all that the BCS website has to offer — since the BCS is not officially part of the NCAA they lack the legitimacy to claim they always match the #1 and #2 teams in a national championship game. They obviously only match THEIR #1 and #2. This year they lucked out to match the AP but that will probably not always be the case if there are more than two unbeaten teams or if no team is left unbeaten.
Happy zeroeth anniversary Brendan and Becky.
December 30th, 2005 at 2:06:29 pm
“I believe the lowest seed ever to win the NCAA Tournament is an 8 seed… NC State… right?”
8 is correct, but is was Nova in ‘85(the yr the tourney expanded to 64 teams)…next highest seeded champs were both 6 seeds(NC State 1983 & Kansas 1988)..highest seed to reach final four was LSU(1986)- seeded 11th.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:42:32 pm
In my opinion USC didn’t win any national championships. What’s this three-peat crap? USC didn’t win the national championship in 2003, LSU did. And in 2004 SC played a garbage Oklahoma team instead of Auburn, the best team in the country. Then in 2005 everyone knows that Notre Dame beat them. USC got it handed to them with the “Push by Bush” and everything. Thank you Vince Young for shutting those cocky USC mouths. The glory days are over for them and they should be prepared to have some long years ahead of them with Notre Dame.