BCS Problems? Solved!

Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times thinks that we are all overlooking an obvious title-contender.

What if Alabama hands Florida a second loss in Saturday's SEC title game and three-loss Missouri shocks Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game?

[Take a closer look at the BCS bylaws, Dufresne. In this situation, the National Title game is cancelled and Notre Dame is crowned as the National Champion.]

Everyone assumes Alabama would play Texas. Not so fast. Texas didn't even win its conference.

[True. But I'm pretty sure that you don't have to win your conference to play in the title game, right?]

[C]ommissioners considered a rule change that would have required title-game participants to be league champions. The commissioners decided against it, but many still think it's a good idea. Sorry, Texas, for the purposes of this argument you're out.

[Good sequence there. Assume X. See if there is a rule to support X. Admit that there is not a rule to support X. Announce that it'd be awesome if there was, in fact, a rule to support X. Proceed with analysis as if there was a rule to support X. QED.]

Meaning: the school that deserves to play Alabama in this scenario would be the University of . . . Utah. All this talk-radio and Internet chatter about USC somehow slipping in the BCS title-game back door is being done with complete disregard for Utah.

[So you believe that Utah is the better team? OK, I'm listening.]

USC is the better team, OK, we all know that.

[Gotcha. Good talk. Actually, the strange thing is that Dufresne goes on to put forth a host of objective or semi-objective arguments as to why Utah actually IS better than USC.... even though "we all know" that they aren't.]