Or imagine this hypothetical situation where the best team in the conference loses their division so they don't have to play in the conference championship game. Then they can safely make it to the National Championship Game to play whoever wins the conference championship, even though they didn't earn the rights to play in their conference championship. Just a hypothetical of course.
It has happened THREE TIMES in the BCS era,
not just last year. Twice with w/ the BIG12, actually.
In
both cases the B12 "
champion" got smoked by an "
inferior" opponent--#15 Colorado
CRUSHED #1 Nebraska in 2001, as Chris Brown ran for 6 TDs in the
62-36 win; and by #1 OU lost by
28 to #15 KSU in the 2003 B12 CCG (35-7). Those two instances are far more egregious than the 3 point loss that Bama had last year. Not that the Tide deserved a second shot, much like Florida did not deserve their second shot at FSU in 1996.
#1 Nebraska at #15 Colorado 2001 - YouTube
2003 Big 12 Football Championship Game Recap - YouTube
In both cases, the B12 went on to lose the National Title game, even though there were equally deserving teams that got left out (11-1 Oregon with Joey Harrington was #2); while in 2003, #3 USC (11-1) got shafted--which is ironically delicious (but they still deserved a shot against 2-loss LSU in the Sugar Bowl, instead of the Sooners), which of course led to the split national title that year.
Those are my top 3 reasons the BCS needs to go away.
P.S.--For as much a people on here say that Oregon has no tradition, that could be partly the BCS fault. TWICE they were shut out of the NCG by the BCS, 2001 and last year, with a loss to Auburn by 3 points (2010 BCS CG) in between. Just saying, it is kinda ironic.