USC No. 1 -- and plans to stay that way

NCAA lug heads ^ | 12-7-03 | By Ivan Maisel

[bonesmccoy]

BCS = BS

THIS IS SERIES!!!!

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

Simple computer science term - GIGO.

[bonesmccoy]

Ya gotta wonder if this is correlated to the lack of confidence we should all have in electronic polling/voting.

[Maynerd]

USC is getting hosed. However, the PAC 10 is weak this year as are SC's nonconference opponents. Hence, their strenth of schedule killed them. BYU & Notre Dame are pathetic this year. Auburn and Hawaii aren't exactly top ten teams. And how in the world did the lose to Cal?

[A2J]

USC deserves a shot for the title against LSU. However, I'm sure that USC is happy they won't have to face the number one defense in the country, a defense that is so swarming they should be outlawed.

[Tall_Texan]

I'm definitely an SC fan now. They deserve to win for getting screwed like this.

Nuke the BCS. Let's go forward to a playoff or backwards to when football people made these decisions, not a bunch of nerds with a Dell.

OU should be odd-man out. They could fix all this by stating that the national title game MUST involve only conference champions (excluding independants).

[Richard Kimball]

"You can't let a computer make decisions for you. Computers are going to take over. The next thing you know, everybody is going to be out of a job. Computers are going to play football. If you let computers run the world, what are humans going to do?"

USC has been terminated.

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

Computers add/manipulate numbers quite well. When some programmer decides how to 'weight' the numbers, it's the programmer ...
D_MN, I just nodded off and lost the thought!
I'm tired so, good night. There was a decent thought there but it's gone.
LOL Maybe tomorrow.

[SAJ]

Let's see. LSU lost to **whom**? Top-10 ranked team, true?

USC lost to **whom**? Unranked team, true?

But, doubtless, USC is the better team by dint of having played powerhouse non-conference opponents such as Hawaii and Notre Dame, right?

If someone supposes that USC, this year, should be in any fashion, computerised or based upon outcomes on the field of play, rated above LSU, then the only question is: What's that someone smoking, and where's DEA when they might (for once) be useful?

[Princeliberty]

LSU being cheated too. If they played USC
they would win and then be number 1 in both polls.
Most likely USC defeats Michigan and threat is a split.

Oklahoma getting to play is a disgrace.
They should take themselves out the championship game
after getting blow out by Kansas State.

Apparently Oklahoma has no class. Boy, that's not
a new story! And I hope LSU runs up the score
on them.

[Atchafalaya]

Or effed. Go Tigers; We should be playing USC! OU should be #4.

[Richard Kimball]

With that screen name, why did I suspect you were a Cajun? Since my Horns are out of it, I'm sure enjoying watching the BCS people have conniptions.

[My Favorite Headache]

Go Canes! lol...sorry had to throw a vote in for my boys and a whooping they will put on the Noles.

[need_a_screen_name]

Go Tigers

Shouldn't that be "Geaux Tigers?" ;-)

[Tall_Texan]

Let's examine more closely:

Non-Conf opponents:

USC - W @ Auburn 23-0, W vs BYU 35-18, W vs Hawaii 61-32, W @ Notre Dame, 45-14. Lone loss: 34-31 @ Cal on 9/27.

LSU - W vs LA-Monroe 49-7, W @ Arizona 52-0, W vs Western Ill. 35-7, W vs LA Tech 49-10. Lone loss: 17-9 vs FLA on 10/11.

OKLA - W vs N. Texas 37-3, W @ Alabama 20-13, W vs Fresno St 52-28, W vs UCLA 59-24. Lone loss: 35-7 vs Kansas St on 12/6.

Seems to me as if LSU had by far the easiest non-conf schedule, three home wins against schools just barely in Division I and a road win against the imploding Arizona Wildcats who couldn't even wait for the season to end to fire their head coach.

Oklahoma also has three home wins while in their lone road win they just scraped past an Alabama team that LSU later throttled.

USC's schedule wasn't that tough either but they opened the season shutting out a nationally-ranked Auburn team on the road and also had to beat the Irish in South Bend, a rivalry game that's never easy.

Now, let's look at the loss (something that seems more important than the wins to me). True, USC lost to unranked Cal but it was just by three points on the road in September. LSU lost at home to a highly-ranked Florida team by eight points in October. Oklahoma lost by 28 on a neutral field against a highly-ranked team THIS WEEK.

Clearly, the imposter of the trio is Oklahoma and this is the way both "human polls" saw it. LSU balances a non-conf schedule softer than Charmin with the rigorous SEC schedule while USC and Oklahoma both played a typical yet lackluster non-conference schedule, and dominated their conferences in a down year - except that Oklahoma didn't even win their conference the way LSU and USC did.

USC lost back when Gray Davis was Governor and LSU lost back when Bobby Jindal was ahead in the polls for Governor. Oklahoma lost on Saturday.

A case could be made for all three but clearly USC and LSU are the most deserving with the most compelling cases - conference champions and their lone loss came months ago.

[Agkistrodon]

with 3 one loss teams some one has to get left out. No way to make it fair. Maybe the real problem is the LACK OF A PLAYOFF. Which, by the way, every other college sport has.

Personally, I've seen all 3 teams play at least once this year and my instinct tells me to rate it Oklahoma-LSU-USC, but...my reason tells me LSU's non-conference was a joke so leave them out. Honestly, LSU's schedule is close to the year BYU was 11-0, and proved how much they didn't belong in a championship.

[Action-America]

Oh, boo, hoo, hoo.

Just more California whining about things that are the result of their own shortcomings.

I don't like Oklahoma a bit, since they are major Texas opponents - especially this year. I really enjoy seeing them lose. I have no particular reason to either like or dislike USC, other than that I occasionally like to poke fun at the granola crowd. But, as much as I like to see OU loose, I have to admit that they were the better team. USC had a much easier schedule than either OU or LSU and probably would not have been in the running, at all, had their schedule had been as tough as that of the other two schools.

But, the key is that the deciding factors were determined long before the season started and programmed into the computer, which is entirely impartial and which rates all factors evenly, unlike humans, who naturally give more weight to what happened yesterday, than something that happened months ago. Coaches, sports writers and in fact, all humans, are susceptible to fading memory and to letting their emotions and personal favorites affect their votes. Fortunately, we have a computer to deal with those human shortcomings. As a result, the Sugar Bowl will be a much better game this year.

A computer weights all factors, exactly as it is told and gives the answer, based only upon those pre-programmed parameters - no favorites, no emotions, no fading memory - just pure facts. Of course, the granola crowd out there in California, always seems to have trouble with facts, when they don't fit their pre-conceived notions.

I know how it feels to have a local team that is almost championship material. I'm from Houston, where we used to watched the Oilers and Astros consistently come up bridesmaids, but never a bride. The granola crowd, on the other hand, can't deal with the fact that USC just wasn't championship material this year, so they will whine about it, in the hope that the NCAA will reprogram the computer to favor them. After all, California is a state that likes set-asides and other preferences for the lower performers.

 

[RichInOC]

Ahem-hem...ahem-hem...

Big 12 Championship, Saturday...
Kansas State 35
Oklahoma 7

Rose Bowl...USC, Pac-10 Champs v. Michigan, Big Ten Champs
Sugar Bowl...LSU, SEC Champs v. Oklahoma, Big 12 Runners-up

[bigcat00]

Why does a team which loses the championship game in its own conference get to play for the NATIONAL championship?
That K-State game is enough to disqualify OU by itself, and thanks for pointing that out.

After watching my favorite team - WSU - get thumped by USC, I was impressed, but how do we know how they'd really match up against other teams unless they played them?

And might not Kansas State have a claim to being the best team in the country at this point in time?

[Yeti]

Go Cocks!

Oh, wait....

Nevermind.