BCS.....forces us to have a Northern Illinois/Fla St orange bowl!!

Not sure what you mean by that. How does this give us a black eye?

There are plenty of people that think LSU shouldn't have gone from seventh in the next to last week to second after the final week of 2007 when only two teams that were ahead of us lost (#1 & #2). The BCS screwed up and despite the fact that they had the two best teams in the CG, it was controversial and it looked like it was LSU's fault. At the very least they felt LSU should be ashamed for backing into the CG.

I remember a few comments like that, but most agreed that the 2 best teams were in that game. Who else were they going to put in over us, right? And we justified it by winning.

If it gave us a black eye, it was prolly just a small shiner.

I agree that we were justified by winning and we knew we were justified as soon as Mizzou and WVU lost. The comments you heard may have been muted to an extent, but trust me outside Louisiana it was a bit more of a rumble.

Who else were they going to put in? Georgia feels like they got screwed. Of all the others, I remember V Tech was actually laying claim to a chance at the title, conveniently forgetting the beatdown they took from LSU in September. Yeah just a little shiner.

I think the reasoning is that the BCS feel pressure to include - whenever theoretically possible - schools that do well from lesser conference in order to keep those conferences believing they have a realistic shot at a championship. I remember when everyone thought Boise State and Utah did not belong in major bowl games. Both wound up appearing and winning the Fiesta Bowl (Boise State did it twice).

At least those teams had a ranking that justified their appearances, however.

Also, looks like major sports publications are also crying foul:

http://espn.go.com/college-football...-alabama-georgia-player-year-college-football

The BCS formula should have ranked conferences as well as teams....and then ranked the teams accordingly. This proves my point that the BCS is like the rest of America when it comes to making "everyone is a winner; lets all take turns and share" public policy.

Rewarding excellence should be the policy....not a type of "sports" affirmative action. The same mentality is going on with the fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington. Let's tax the truly successful and make them share.




The pollsters and the BCS programmers are totally to blame for this mess....all in the name of "athletic political correctness".

The system has always been one big participation trophy. 50 bowls = 50 bowl "Champions" If you have a good season, you get a participation trophy, namely, a trip to a meaningless bowl.

Personally, I can care less. First, I don't think we can bitch about not being in a BCS Bowl because we didn't take care of our business. Second, it doesn't cost us anything because the SEC shares the money. Third, it doesn't help us next year or anything. We win our division, we will have a chance to be in the big game. That's true every year because of the conference we play in. Last, I am happy for a school like N. Illinois. They will never have this chance again. Good for them.

Some of you seem to be under some delusion that any of these games, except the big one, means anything. What's the difference between being the Orange Bowl "Champion" and the Chik Fil A "Champion"?? They are both pretty worthless if you ask me.

So I guess when you were playing high school(if you played) there was no difference in playing in a district game as opposed to playing in a playoff game right?

The misconception is that the bowls give prestige to the teams...and that LSU deserves more prestige than the chick-fil-a bowl can give them.

The truth is that it's the teams (LSU and Clemson) that give prestige and recognition to the Chick-Fil-A bowl.

Guido, I think, is saying that the only difference is between the BCS championship bowl and all the other bowls...that, besides the national championship game, one bowl is only marginally better than the next one.

None of these bowls, except the BCS Championship one can be called a playoff. They are exhibition games. They are a participation trophy for the kids. Thank you for playing college football and have a great offseason. They don't hang a flag in Tiger Stadium for being the Orange Bowl "Champion." You haven't won anything of consequence.

The bowl games are like the NIT, except, we don't have an NCAA tournament yet to make them completely irrelevant. Once we have a tournament, these games will be viewed for what they are, meaningless exhibition games, like the NIT.