Burnt Orange Report

Yes the BCS needs to go. But, if Mack Brown leads the charge, you can be assured that you will come up just short of what you need for final victory.

The real problem with the BCS is that it was designed to take away the arbitrariness of the press polls (AP and ESPN/USAToday, formerly the UPI Coaches' Poll), and bring in objective factors to avoid having another weak, undefeated team back into a "national title" like BYU in 1984 or GaTech in 1990.

The objective factors -- strength of schedule, quality wins, losses, computer strength rankings, were designed to offset the subjective, human evaluations. All was fine until the computers and the objective factors did not jive with the prejudices of the press poll. Now the BCS has to be "fixed" to reflect the judgment of the press polls, which is wrong. Maybe, just maybe, the time has finally come to let the press polls pick #1 & #2, and then use the BCS to allocate teams to other bowls.

Mack is right, but he would be more right if he led this charge when his personal interest wasn't at stake.

A couple of things swing the other way, and A&M loses big, true. A couple of things swing the other way for UT, and they lose to Kansas and Arkansas, and are making plans to go to San Diego or San Antonio. Good teams capitalize on the other's mistakes. Great teams make things happen. Texas is a good team. They capitalized on the mistakes that A&M made and outathleted us. But they aren't a great team. Great teams do not get shutout, no matter who the opponent is.

On the BCS:
If the horns want a BCS bid, then they need to start winning their conference.

If the horns want a BCS bid, then they need to beat OU.

It's not a difficult equation, Byron. Instead of taking care of business in Dallas, you guys were shut out, leaving Mack to freaking beg for a slot.

Well, ya know, if we could just ban Oklahoma for electing nutjobs like Tom Coburn then the Big 12 would be a breeze for us... but I digress. Heh.

This is the second year in a row that Texas has finished in the top 6. If you wanna argue good team vs. great team, that 's fine. But you can't deny that Texas is up there and they are consistently ranked in the top 10 or above.

I would like it more than anybody if Texas could beat OU. That's left us in a lurch more than anything else the past few years. My other sports desk comrades agree there should be a clause that guarantees a berth for Texas is the win in Dallas, but I still don't believe there is anything wrong with being beaten by the best.

I'm wth Byron when I say, either way, I would really like to see Oklahoma go away, especially under Bob Stoops. No one will ever convince me otherwise, I still beleive he lost last season's Big 12 Championship on purpose just to screw Texas out of a BCS berth.

Never said that Texas is not a top 10 team. Obviously, they consistently perform at that level. Of course, if A&M got four straight #1 recruiting classes at my school, I'd be a little disappointed with only top ten finishes and no championships. But I guess that's enough for Texas.

If Utah is not as good as it is, and does not get that automatic bid at #6 in the BCS, Texas DOES go to a BCS bowl. But that's not the way it went down. Texas could have taken care of all of this if they could have done ANYTHING against OU. They couldn't, so they don't get a BCS bowl. Take care of business. They can't keep you out if you win them all.

The BCS is more crapola that insulates short-sighted corporate sponsors from change.

And I say this as an A&M fan, not a UT fan. UT deserves to be in the BCS mix this season, but should they be at the expense of a team like Utah? I don't think so. But given our present system, it's a zero-sum environment for teams that deserve to have a BCS shot.

Until college football has a Top 10 playoff system, there's always going to be teams who are crapped on and teams who are "unjustly" rewarded.

Coaches and fans need to quit trying to "reform" the BCS and spend their energy arguing for the only real solution to the problem: A national playoff system that allows the corporate whores who sponsor the bowls to still shill their products within a meaningful structure that crowns a no-asterisks-needed national champion and that includes everyone, say, in the Top 10 so no one deserving team gets left out.

Between the BCS and our President, is it any wonder the Europeans think we're nuts?