Yesterday night, this year's lineup of bowl games was released. As far as the BCS matchups go, there were really no surprises: Utah vs. Alabama in the Sugar, OSU vs. Texas in the Fiesta, Penn State vs. USC in the Rose, Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech in the Orange, and, of course, Florida vs. Oklahoma in the title game.
Over the past week, I've heard countless people argue the flaws of the BCS, and complain about the unfair nature of the system. But this time, the computers got it right; Florida and Oklahoma, not Texas, deserve to participate. All the Longhorn fans point to the head-to-head matchup, and claim that by virtue of their victory in the Red River Shootout, they should get the bid.
But this logic is far too basic and much too flawed to merit listening to. If head-to-head is should be he first tiebreaker, as Texas claims, then why doesn't Texas Tech get the bid instead? After all, the Sooners, Longhorns, and Red Raiders all have identical 11-1 records, and each member of the trio knocked off one of the other members during the course of the season. If Texas wasn't happy with the system, they should have addressed before the season began; they signed off on using BCS standing to break 3-way ties, and thus have no right to complain about. Maybe if they had scheduled legitimate opponents such as Big East champ Cincinnati and 10-2 TCU (two of Oklahoma's nonconference foes) instead of patsies such as Florida Atlantic, UTEP, and Rice, their strength of schedule would have kept the Sooners from jumping over them.
