Lol... Quick History lesson for those who don't know or have forgotten: A lot of people have either for gotten or never knew the real reason we (the college football world, coaches, fans, writers, etc.) went to the original BCS. It was because there was no playoff system. The previous methods left the entire scenario up to writers who vote in these polls. As a result, every poll had a different MN Champ some years. The goal was that since there was no way in hell to get a playoff then the next best thing would be to at least narrow it down to two teams and then lets let them fight it out. To do so, everyone came to an agreement: human polls were too biased to be used to determine the final two teams. East coast writers made up most of the poll voters and they never were awake long enough to see a lot of the west coast games. Midwestern writers made up another large segment and they always leaned to Big Ten teams. The best way to take bias out of it was to create a mathematical formula that used Strength of Schedule, margin of victory, etc. as the biggest factor. Human polls would also be used, but not as the biggest voice. It worked great until the 2003 season when everyone (writers, talking heads, etc.) proclaimed weeks before the season ended that OU and USC were destined for a battle royale in the Sugar Bowl. SC was outclassing their entire (pathetic) Pac 10 schedule and OU was rolling over anyone in their (already paved, smooth) path. The focus on these teams was so great that no one saw LSU quietly going about it's business, beating ranked team after ranked team in unspectacular fashion without the pomp and circumstance of the 50+ point ariel assaults being dropped on the likes of North Texas and Hawaii. When the end of the season approached, suddenly everyone took notice that LSU was within striking distance. Then word got out that if Hawaii lost (a team that SC beat), it would lower SC's SOS enough that LSU might squeeze past them. OU was so far ahead that it wouldn't matter if they lost the Big XII CG or not. Not that the Sooners would ever loose to KSU on a stage that big after having whipped so much ass that season. Well, OU did lose and rather than admit they were full of ****, the writers revolted and insisted that they knew better than some stupid mathematical formula designed to make decisions based solely on facts. They latched onto the fact that OU didn't win their conference title, even though they played three more ranked teams than SC, who didn't have the pitfall of a Conf. CG to contend with. So the writers threw reason aside when they pointed out LSU's loss to a ranked UF team and OU's loss to a ranked KSU while forgetting about SC's loss to an unranked Cal team. The next year the AP recused itself from the BCS formula and SOS, Margin of victory were removed as major factors in determining which two teams would play for the BCS CG. Instead we would rely on human bias once again under the guise of a "mathematical formula" that simply takes 66% of it's average from human polls. Sorry, that was way longer than anticipated...
I remember rooting for Syracuse to beat Notre Dame and Boise to beat Hawaii in '03 to lower USC's schedule strength. I believe if those games had gone the other way, LSU would not have gotten to play and beat OU in the title game.
What was BS that year, was there was a category for "quality opponents" or something, where it helped you if you played top 10 teams. We had one for beating UGA earlier in the season, but we beat them so bad in the SECCG that we knocked them out of the top 10 and lost our supposed benefit. We got penalized for beating the same top 10 team twice in one season....
yep in 03 and the formula was changed for the 04 season that component was dropped I think GA dropped to #11, so we barely missed out on getting a "double" bonus for beating them twice, Possibly the most extreme irony ever in the history of sports.
