The Crimson Tide Deserves to Play in the National Championship

I know that there have been dozens - nay, hundreds - of sports commentators, newscasters, and laymen talking about the reality of this year's BCS National Championship game.  And while I haven't bothered to do any real research at all about the topic, I'd wager that some of them think that Alabama shouldn't be ranked number two in the BCS, and Oklahoma State or Stanford should be the ones in the discussions instead. And, of course, lots of others think that Alabama is the second-best team in the nation, and pretty much everyone agrees that LSU is the best. Such is the nature of sports: everyone has an opinion. Here's a couple of examples from the media:

Keith Whitmire, Fox Sports Southwest
Chris Low, ESPN

And if you asked the general public, you'd probably find a pretty good mix of opinions on the subject.

Oh look!  Someone thought to ask the general public!

And so did somebody else!

In both cases, a majority of people think that the Alabama Crimson Tide deserve to play LSU for the top spot in college football.  And guess what? They're right.

At this point, a small background point is probably in order: the two teams have already played each other, in early November. It was the Game of the Century, if the hype was to be believed.  In reality, it was an ugly, rainy, muddy slugfest that ended in overtime; LSU won, 9-6, in Tuscaloosa.  One consequence of that loss was that Alabama, who is in the same division of the Southeastern Conference as LSU, lost its chance to play in the SEC championship.

Louisiana state, in today's SEC title game, absolutely destroyed Georgia.  It's clear to anyone with half a brain that LSU is by far the best team in football.  They've played 13 games - eight of them against ranked opponents, which is a school record and among the most since top-25 rankings became public.  Nobody in college football has played a harder schedule than LSU in 2011  (see strength of schedule rankings here).

So why should Alabama get the nod over, say, #3 Oklahoma State, or #4 Stanford? Here's why:

• Alabama has had a schedule strength almost as tough as LSU's - they're ranked second.  Stanford is 14th, Oklahoma St. is 16th.
• Stanford didn't win their conference, the Pac-12.  Oregon did.
• Oklahoma St. won their conference, the Big XII.  The Big XII is not a good conference, and at any rate, the OSU Cowboys lost to Iowa State, a 6-6 team.
• Alabama's loss to LSU was in overtime.  By the time the fourth quarter rolled around in every other game, LSU was leading.
• Alabama held LSU to 9 points (6 in regulation).  The next-lowest point total for the Tigers was 19.  Oklahoma State only held one opponent to 6 points - the really, really, really bad Texas Tech Red Raiders.  Stanford held San Jose State (an awful team) to 3 points, and Colorado (a team that is merely very bad) to 7.

It's easy to pick on the BCS (several ESPN SportsNation polls do that, as does pretty much everyone else) as a flawed system.  And it is a flawed system - it didn't fix the problems with college football not truly crowning a real champion; it pumps money back into the "have" conferences and keeps it away from the "have not" conferences; for a very long time it even prevented good teams from small conferences from playing in ANY of the BCS bowls.

But while there is talk afoot of creating a real D-1A college football playoff (isn't there always?), this is the system we have.  And the system we have - imperfect, created by greedy league execs and not real football fans - is right now doing the exact same thing that a playoff would do: pitting the two best teams against each other.

LSU is number 1, and rightly so.  Alabama is number 2, and rightly so.  And in just about 5 weeks, they'll get the chance to play, again - for the national championship.

And that's exactly how it should be.