Getting our BCS hate on.

Well, we’re at that point in the college football season where we alternate between rubbing our hands with glee at the prospects of a BCS meltdown and crying in our beer …over the prospects of a BCS meltdown. The chances of a 3-team pile-up at the end of the season remains high with 3 undefeated teams (Texas, Alabama and Penn St.) sitting atop the BCS rankings. One-loss (to Texas) Oklahoma is #4 and sitting at #5 is USC also with one loss and which is probably out of the running altogether regardless of what happens to the other 3 teams by virtue of their weak strength of schedule and the gap between them and the leaders.

The most straight forward path to this meltdown is if the top 3 teams win out which means one of them, most likely Penn St., is going to get screwed out of the BCS title game. And how does a rematch of Penn St. and Oregon St. from earlier this year in the Rose Bowl grab ya? Even worse (better?) would be if either Texas or Alabama stumble once down the stretch in the regular season but still win their respective conference championship game. You then have the distinct possibility of two one-loss teams playing for the BCS title while an undefeated Penn St., suffering from a relatively weak strength of schedule flies out to Pasadena instead of Miami. There will be considerable effort, though, in the human polls to overcome the computer rankings to get JoePa into the BCS title game.
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The Big 12 is the best conference in football… or is it? The conventional wisdom has held that the SEC has played the best ball the last few years but that the Big 12 this year has equaled or even surpassed the SEC in its level of play. Indeed, 4 of the top 9 spots in the BCS rankings are Big 12 schools and it seems there is a huge match up every week (this week its undefeated Texas vs. an undefeated Texas Tech in Lubbock), but here’s what bothers us about this conference: It looks like the old WAC. It looks like your big brother’s PAC-10. Turn on a Big 12 game this year and it bears a striking resemblance to some of those BYU-San Diego St. shootouts of the 90s. Where’s the D?

We’re sorry, but when the quarterback completion percentages in that conference start looking like the scores on our fluids and thermo exams from Seminary, there is a problem. Colt McCoy (pictured) may be a hell of a quarterback and may very well win the Heisman but an 82% completion percentage? And check out some of the others: Graham Harrell (Texas Tech) 71%, Chase Daniel (Missouri) 77%, Sam Bradford (Oklahoma) 68%….. shoot, even the Nebraska quarterback is completing 70% of his passes.

The vast majority of the offenses in the Big 12 are some variation of the spread and its obvious that the defenses have not yet adjusted. It looks as if there are 1 or 2 extra receivers in the pattern on pass plays as often there is nary a defender in the same zip code as the man with the ball downfield heading towards the end zone. Its ironic that the defenses should be this at a loss to defend these spread attacks as they face them every day in practice.

Don’t get us wrong… we’ve loved these high scoring affairs in the Big 12 this year. It’s a far cry from the Oklahoma wishbone vs. the Nebraska Power I for the Oranges that we grew up with but the horrible play of the defenses in that conference does not have us yet ready to hand them the “best conference” crown.

P.S. Don't count out either Georgia or Florida, both with one loss, as they square off today in a virtual BCS elimination game at the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in Jacksonville.