Did the Big XII get it right?

[My Opinion Matters]

Despite the best efforts of Minister Mack sermonizing from the bully pulpit and his unholy army of Travis County Spinners at ESPN to discredit the Big XII and its tiebreaker rules, did the Big XII get it right?

It took me a couple of days to sift through the garbage heap of distorted information and propaganda that UT and its disciples dumped in our laps. I'm admittedly biased, but my most noble attempt at reaching an objective conclusion reveals that the system does in fact work. The Texas Argument has two fatal flaws:

1) Texas would like to remove Texas Tech from the discussion on the grounds that true contenders do not get blown out by 44 points. However, this discredits OU's victory and dominant performance against Tech. OU should be punished for playing too well against another 1-loss Big 12 South co-champion? This is completely illogical. If anything, this should have been spun by the spinmasters in favor of OU as clearly the most dominating and impressive victory in the round-robin elimination between the three teams. If OU wins by only 10 points, all this discussion about Tech not belonging never takes place. Simultaneously discrediting Tech, while giving none of the proper to respect to OU for administering the beatdown-very clever ESPN, but ultimately illogical.

2) Texas had no claim to the Big 12 South if we lose to OSU.We lose to OSU, Texas Tech goes to the Big 12 title game. Think about that. OU should be punished for a dominating 20 point road win against a top 15 intrastate rival in late November? Again, this is completely illogical, and yet its exactly what happened. We lose points in both of the human elements of the BCS the following day. We're good enough to be number 2 the week before, but we're dropped to number 3 after beating a top 15 team on the road?

I'm not even taking the entire season into consideration (which pretty clearly favors us, by the way) and its evident the Big 12 tie-breaker identified the most deserving team. Looking at only the games played by teams against one another in the Big 12 South OU makes the best case. Texas failed because the day they walked off the field in Lubbock they forefeitted control of their own destiny. Their only hope was for OU to play itself into the Big 12 title game, but somehow miraculously get left out of it. Fortunately, we had the only logical component of the BCS, the computers, on our side.

[Knippz]

"Texas beat Oklahoma but got the shaft" - Jason Whitlock, Kansas City Star

"Oklahoma has no business in the No. 2 slot in this week's BCS rankings" - Bryan Burwell, St. Louis Dispatch

"The ACC and SEC tiebreaking systems would have favored Texas. Both are more logical because the top two slots are decided by head-to-head competition." - Richard Justice, Houston Chronicle

Wow, those poor, poor Texas Longhorns. All the evidence indicates that Texas, not OU, deserved to go to the Big 12 championship.

Sorry, it was tough to get through those two sentences out without suffering a stroke from too much laughter. Not a single one of the above columnists uses reasonable criteria or facts to support their opinions. But that's okay because, as I've established previously, journalism today rarely involves facts, statistics, logic, or reason. Everyone has an agenda, and they simply state their agenda and use random sentences that "sound good" as their support for their argument.

This is my platform for using logic to determine why Texas has no leg to stand on. I'll destroy the arguments one-by-one.

1. Texas "settled it on the field" - I'm sorry, Texas lost the right to use this argument the moment they allowed Crabtree to score that final TD. Furthermore, OU and Texas Tech can't use that argument either. There is no "settling it on the field" if you have a loss in a three-way tie.

2. Texas beat OU "head-to-head" - ...and Texas Tech beat Texas head-to-head, and OU beat Texas head-to-head. Let's break this down. The 1st tiebreaker is head-to-head results. Hmmm....that doesn't decide the winner, so we have to move on to the 2nd tiebreaker....and the 3rd tiebreaker....and the 4th tiebreaker....and yes, a 5th tiebreaker. Since we've had to move on to the 5th tiebreaker, the 1st tiebreaker is completly irrelevant. There is NO circumstance where head-to-head matters anymore. You can't use the 1st tiebreaker TWICE just to send your favorite team to the championship game.

3. Texas Tech lost by 44 to OU, so they should be ruled out of the conversation completely. - So, let me get this straight - OU shot itself in the foot because they WON BY TOO MANY POINTS? You actually mean to tell me that if OU had let Texas Tech hang around for 4 quarters and pull away in the last couple of minutes by a couple TDs, OU would have had a STRONGER case for winning the conference? Just another case of morons using an absurd argument to try and enhance an agenda. The sad part is all the idiots who view this as a reasonable argument.

4. The SEC and ACC systems are better. - Why? Because they're different? Both systems use the BCS, which apparently is the big flaw in the Big 12 system. Yet for some reason these same people who rail on the BCS as a selector, think that it's MORE reasonable as an eliminator. Let's examine this logically. If you're the Big 12, and you have 3 highly ranked teams all competing for the BCS national championship, who would you rather send to the Big 12 championship to state their case for being in the top two? All things being equal (as they are, because again, this is the 5th tiebreaker), the Big 12 elected to send the top BCS ranked team to the conference championship, so that they have a greater chance at sending a team to the BCS championship! What a novel idea! Notoriety and publicity for the Big 12, and also the potential to send TWO teams into the BCS, thus generating MORE MONEY for the CONFERENCE. Oh the HUMANITY! Do you really think it's WISE for the Big 12 to change that system, just because Mack Brown is a legendary whiner?

5. Texas won at a "neutral" site. - This argument gets me in trouble with the OU faithful, so I'll start off by saying that I love the Cotton Bowl and the whole Red River Rivalry scene. It's one of college football's greatest traditions, and it's a rarity to have a rivalry series that is so competitive nearly every year. I don't want that changed at all.

But here's the rub: Illinois and Missouri in St. Louis is neutral. Missouri and Kansas at Arrowhead is neutral. OU in Dallas is NOT neutral. Sure, it's not Austin, and UT would have a much greater advantage in Austin. But OU never plays in Oklahoma in this series. As usual, there are statistics and facts to back up my opinions, so here is my reasoning.

OU has an overall record of 789-296-53 since inception (1895) for a 72% win percentage.
UT has an overall record of 827-316-33 since inception (1893) for a 72% win percentage.
However, UT has a 47-36-4 advantage in Dallas, for a 57% winning percentage.

If Dallas were truly neutral, that percentage in Dallas would be much closer to 50%. So, every time OU steps onto the field at the Cotton Bowl, with all else being equal (coaching, talent, etc.), they face a 57% chance of losing that game. Why? My guess is that while the seats are split between the two teams, and while the game is nearly halfway between the campuses, the environment as a whole still supports Texas. No Oklahoman has any reason to visit the Texas State Fair, aside from attending that game. The entire environment is dominated by Texans, so that provides a moderate advantage for the University of Texas.

While I support the game being in Dallas, I think it's entirely unreasonable to suggest that Dallas is a "neutral" playing field. The statistics clearly support that opinion.


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So, we've established that all things are indeed equal in the 3-way tie, and that UT has no legitimate argument for saying they were "shafted". Who, then, SHOULD go the Big 12 championship game? Isn't this EXACTLY what the BCS was created for - to decide which team is the better team among similar teams? Maybe it's not the perfect way to decide a conference champion, but can you REALLY think of anything better that doesn't hold a heavy amount of bias to it? Let's try to break this down reasonably.

Human voting - so we've discovered that human voters are influenced heavily by subjective factors. Never mind that OU held a pretty decent lead in the human polls prior to last week. Mack's politicking, and the ESPN media blitz against OU did significant damage to OU's status in the human polls. After holding that reasonable lead, and despite beating a strong ranked team on the road and with the Longhorns scoring 3 TDs in the 4th quarter to accumulate "style" points at home against a hapless Texas A&M squad, the Sooners lost enough votes to sway the human polls in favor of UT. The two polls combined into essentially what amounts to a tie.

A heavy emphasis was placed on "style" points during this race. If there is one thing that the Sooners have, it is style...particularly on offense. OU is on pace to shatter the modern scoring record. OU has averaged over 60 points per game in the last 4 games, 2 of those coming against highly ranked teams. Oklahoma also faced a moderately tough non-conference schedule, defeating ranked TCU and Cincinnati easily. OU has a 4-1 record against top 25 teams. OU also has the nation's 3rd most significant road win of the season. OU has outscored its opponents on an average of 53 to 25.

UT has a good defense, and Colt McCoy. Honestly, no player means more to his team than McCoy, so he has a legitimate claim for the Heisman. He's been phenomenal. UT is 3-1 against top 25 teams, yet has no significant road wins. They've outscored their opponents by an average 44 to 19.

Just for kicks, Texas Tech is 2-1 against top 25 competition, with no significant road wins. They've outscored their opponents by an average of 45 to 26.

A good portion of the human vote took these "style" points into consideration, but not enough. OU is the clear favorite when it comes to "style" points here. Mack Brown's incessant whining, the UT nation's groundswell of activity, and the ESPN war on OU clearly made a difference...though not quite enough to push their agenda to full fruition. However, there is still one week for them to mount their attack, and the media cretins are pushing their agenda in full force this week, as the comments at the top of this article indicate.

Computer polls - Here it is simple. Oklahoma faced a tougher schedule. Games against TCU, Cincinnati, and Nebraska trumped UT's games against Missouri and Colorado. Oklahoma also faced OSU on the road, which the computers considered. Here, the only unbiased portion of the BCS was unaffected by all the whining, and rightfully placed OU in front of Texas.

Texas, you don't have a leg to stand on. You don't have a legitimate argument to say that you were "shafted" by the system. And the media needs to just shut up and REPORT the news, not invent it.

http://sportsmediawar.blogspot.com/2008/12/bcs-and-big-12-south.html

[iknowyoudidnt]

Just think, if we hadn't taken care of Tech for Texas, they wouldn't have anything to cry about except how they choked @ TT. Because we did something remarkably well that they failed at, they get to have all this fun with their little campaigns, airplanes, the media slobbering all over them, and Oklahoma once again feeling the brunt of the hate nationally. They're a bunch of thankless bitches is what they are.

[kevpks]

We should be severely punished for daring to deny Texas their rightful place among the great teams to ever lace them up. We should be banished to the Humanitarian Bowl for our transgressions.

"In case you can't tell, I am being sarcastic" --Homer Simpson

[shaun4411]

Just think, if we hadn't taken care of Tech for Texas, they wouldn't have anything to cry about except how they choked @ TT. Because we did something remarkably well that they failed at, they get to have all this fun with their little campaigns, airplanes, the media slobbering all over them, and Oklahoma once again feeling the brunt of the hate nationally. They're a bunch of thankless bitches is what they are.

exactly. texas' proponents like to ignore the fact that ou did beat tech. without that win, there would be no argument here. that win is exactly as significant as every other win in this 3 way orgy. texas benefited from it, yet there rarely a mention of this in the national media. in every system like this, which uses the bcs to determine who advances, you lose objectivity and some deserving team will be left out. is texas deserving? yes. is ou deserving? yes. is tech deserving? yes. at what point does objectivity come into play and determine who is *more* deserving? what other criterion are used to determine worthiness? mack says its his h2h win over ou that puts him over the top. stoops says its ou's win over tech that puts them over the top. and if the media actually gave a sh*t about tech, leach would say their win over texas puts them over the top.

in the end, something as objective as computer formulas (ugh) ended up putting ou over the top. is it fair? well, in the sense that it was agreed to be the 5th tiebreaker, yes. there should be no whining because, nobody bitched about this before. yes, the bcs kinda sucks, and that's what gave ou the edge. taht's nobody's fault but the ADs of the 12 universities that accepted these rules. but they'll change those rules, and when they cause controversy in the future, they'll be revisted again and again afterwards. some deserving person will always feeel shafted. welcome to life.

to be clear, i think the big12 rule is better than the acc and sec rule. i dont like how they rule out a team with the same record simply because theyre ranked below two other teams with teh same record.

hey mack, now you know how Cal feels because of your incessant bickering.

[Desert Sapper]

The biggest piece to this is that if OU lost to OSU, Tech would have gone. A 44 point win over the team that would have otherwise gone makes the argument by itself.

Besides, college football has always been about what have you done lately, and 60 points in 4 straight games is a helluva statement.

[The Maestro]

The Cotton Bowl is a neutral field. It's up to the fans to determine who has the edge in the seats. Please refrain from using that argument.

So what...win where you are, regardless of the excuse that the whorns did not get a home game. Kinda like OU in the 1988 and 2004 national title games. No * next to Miami and LSU's titles for getting to play at home.

[TopDawg]

The fact of the matter is that in most 3-way tie-breakers, the system is set up to eliminate one team so that head-to-head among the remaining two teams can be used.

I have no problem with people who say that should be the system we use in the future or who say that under that system, Texas would've/should've gone. I think they're right, but I'm glad it wasn't the case.

I do have a problem with people who insist that we should have used that system this year since it's clearly NOT the system that was put into place when the season began.

Look, it's perfectly reasonable for a voter to say "Texas and Oklahoma seem to be very evenly matched to me. They both have some quality wins and a quality loss. Based on the seasons they've had, they are a few steps higher than Texas Tech in my book, so I need to pick between the two of them. OU may have more quality wins, but Texas has a quality win OVER Oklahoma, so I'm going to vote them ahead of OU."

It's ALSO perfectly reasonable for a voter to say "Texas and Oklahoma seem to be very evenly matched to me. They both have quality wins and a quality loss. Based on the seasons they've had, they are a few steps higher than Texas Tech in my book, so I need to pick between the two of them. OU's quality loss occurred longer ago and their quality wins are more impressive, so I'm going to vote them ahead of Texas."

The problem I have is when people pretended as if their conclusion was the only logical conclusion to reach. There was some of that going around, but I felt as if most commentators (not all, but most) played it like "here's how I see it" but left it open to others to interpret how they wanted. It was mostly the annoying Texas fans who pretended like there was only one way to look at it.

[Jacie]

Everything that everybody else said, I agree with because . . .

Texas fans = crybabies