I know I complained about this last year but UGH, would they just shut up!
USC cannot win the Bowl Championship Series national title, but the fifth-ranked Trojans can still win an AP national championship.
Pretending that anyone should give a crap about the bogus and meaningless AP title for a second, why should the Trojans win it? Utah (#6) beat Alabama (#4). USC (#5) beat Penn State (only #8). Seems to me like Utah would be more likely to jump USC in the BSC rankings because of their win. OH that’s right, the AP has their own silly rankings that put Penn State at #6 and Utah at #7. But Alabama is still fourth in both polls. So beating #4 is better than beating #6 any day. So if there was any team that deserves to have the fake national championship, it should be Utah.
In the last AP poll, Florida got 50 1st place votes. USC got none. So if Florida wins, why on earth would USC get any more votes? And even if OK wins (they got 9 first place votes), why would any of Florida’s votes go to USC?
Sure, USC claims that it should be able to beat either of the teams going for the National Championship. The problem with USC is that it always loses to some nothing team it its nothing conference. Remember when they had a shot to play in the national championship game? They lost to UCLA. This year, they lost to Oregon State. If you cannot beat #24 in the AP poll (unranked in the real rankings), why should anyone believe that they could beat #1?
But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. They chose to play by the rules that created the BCS in the first place and they should live with the results that the system creates. Whoever the AP decides to crown as their favorite team of the year, if that team is not the BCS champion and happily accepts it, I will name that team the recipient of the College Football Sore Loser Award.
I think Matt Hayes says it best when he wrote:
What if USC hadn’t blown chances to play for it all three straight seasons?
“I’m not saying the bowl system isn’t great and I love the traditional matchups,” Carroll said. “But I still want the issue settled on the playing field.”
USC could have settled it on the field the last three seasons and didn’t.
There are no what-ifs about that.