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Tuesday Question - LSU, Oregon or Kansas?
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CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Nov 13, 2007
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If the top three teams win out,, which two should go to New Orleans?
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Pete
Fiutak
Q: LSU,
Oregon and Kansas all win out. The national championship SHOULD be …
A:
Forget about LSU in the discussion. If it beats Arkansas and goes on to
win the national championship, then the body of work from start to
finish warrants a spot in the title game. The question is really around
Oregon and Kansas.
How do you leave out the unbeaten Jayhawks? As the only BCS school with
a no losses and on a late roll, they should get their shot at beating
LSU for the title, right? Just because KU's games come at the end of the
year, the early Oregon successes can't be glossed over. Both teams have
a right to be there, but I'd go with Kansas because of a nasty finishing
kick. It's one thing to take on Missouri and Oklahoma in early October,
but if KU can come through when the spotlights a re on, it'll have
earned its right to play for the national title.
Richard
Cirminiello
Q: LSU,
Oregon and Kansas all win out. The national championship SHOULD be …
A:
Let’s take this question in two steps. First off, Kansas doesn’t even
belong in this discussion. At 13-0, and fresh off beating Missouri and
Oklahoma, anyone not placing the Jayhawks at the top of the ballot
should have their voting privileges revoked. Unless there are two other
more qualified unbeatens, a la Auburn in 2004, the perfect team from a
major conference should always get a spot in the National Championship
game. Always. And especially if that team’s two most recent games were
wins over top 10 opponents. I’m in danger of going off on a tangent
here, but can everyone just forget which logo is on the helmet, and
evaluate the body of work? In the year of the upset, 13-0 must get
rewarded with a round trip ticket to New Orleans. Okay, deep breath.
Now, LSU vs. Oregon, which is a wee bit tougher. Two terrific teams
with two terrific seasons. Put them in the same stadium, and you’ve got
the Gary Crowton Bowl. Call me biased, and I’m sure you will, but the
one-loss SEC team rates an edge over the one-loss Pac-10. The Tigers
will have played a tougher schedule, and won an extra game against
either Tennessee or Georgia in the SEC Championship game. Seven of
their opponents were ranked when they played compared to just three for
the Ducks, a huge disparity. Plus, I’m just not as high on Oregon as
everyone else with a voice these days. Great team and a great story,
especially the turnaround of Dennis Dixon, but the defense isn’t
championship caliber, and their lone loss came at home to a Cal team
that wound up being way overrated. The next time someone is feeding you
a second helping of Duck, ask him what exactly makes Oregon so obviously
better than Oklahoma, Missouri, West Virginia, or even Ohio State. Long
story short: Kansas vs. LSU, just like we all had it back in August.
John
Harris
Q: LSU, Oregon and Kansas all win out. The national
championship SHOULD be …
A: The one team that deserves to play in
the national championship game if it finishes out undefeated is Kansas.
If the Jayhawks are to win out, they’ll have run the table in, at a
minimum, the second toughest league in college football. They’ll have
beaten Missouri and Oklahoma, both in the top five, on consecutive weeks
and not lost once all season long. Any team that finishes undefeated in
a BCS conference, especially one with a championship game, should be in
a championship game (as long as three teams haven’t finished
undefeated).
That leaves LSU and Oregon. Wow, this is tough.
Oregon is playing as well as any team in the nation, but the Ducks one
loss is at home to a Cal team with four losses. LSU lost to Kentucky,
but in three overtimes on the road. Both teams have solid
non-conference victories – Oregon over Michigan and LSU over Virginia
Tech. It’s so close, the only way that I could pick is to play a
hypothetical matchup over in my mind and pick the winner. That would be
LSU in a nailbiter, as all LSU games are. Unfortunately, I believe that
both teams would beat Kansas, but the Jayhawks, by virtue of what they
did in all 13 games, deserves the chance to play for the national
championship. However, if it beats Missouri and Oklahoma, maybe KU’s
better than we all want to believe.
Matthew
Zemek
Q: LSU,
Oregon and Kansas all win out. The national championship SHOULD be …
A: If Kansas wins out,
Kansas deserves to play on Jan. 7 in the Superdome. Period. No
explanation necessary.
The debate would surround LSU and Oregon, who--once again--should
play a game to decide a debate instead of having every college
football analyst engage in a pointless process of pure speculation.
LSU and Oregon would offer extremely similar resumes. The first and
last thing that needs to be said about a Tiger-Duck debate is that
there would be no fair outcome. Let me repeat that: there would be
no truly fair outcome if one of these teams won out and was denied a
spot in the BCS title game.
With that said, then, I made myself clear in the Nov. 5 edition of
the Weekly Affirmation: if LSU lays a series of smackdowns to its
remaining SEC opponents over the course of the next three weekends,
playing relatively turnover-free ball and generally maxing out, that
will tell me the Tigers really want to play in the Big One in the
Big Easy. I will give them the nod over Oregon based on their
overall aptitude and the many formidable teams they've beaten.
However, if LSU continues to live on a high wire by playing fast and
loose with the pigskin, that will indicate that the Tigers--so good
that they're almost always able to overcome their own
inconsistency--are not ready to shake their demons. Oregon--based on
steady season-long performances from Dennis Dixon and Jonathan
Stewart--would deserve to be rewarded for taking care of business.
Once again, this isn't a fair debate, because no BCS debate is ever
fair. It's why this BCS system will always be a mockery of a
travesty of a sham. But given the process we have, I think it's
entirely fair to demand that LSU act like a true goliath for three
weeks. Les Miles, show the world you can weed out turnovers. Show
the country you can get your receivers to stop dropping passes. Show
the electorate that you can get your kids to consistently play the
way you did against Virginia Tech. Achieve those goals, and you'll
minimize the amount of unfairness in an inherently unfair debate
that no team deserves to lose.
Michael Bradley
Q: LSU, Oregon
and Kansas all win out. The national championship SHOULD be …
A: Sorry, Oregon, but if the
Jayhawks win out, they must grab a spot in the BCS title game
against LSU. Kansas would be the undefeated champion of a big-time
conference and will have survived a closing stretch that includes
games with Missouri and Oklahoma, two top-five BCS teams as of
11/12. Kansas may not have played a tough schedule -- in fact, it
was dreadfully soft -- but going 13-0 in the Big 12 is worthy of a
spot in the "championship" game, according to the current system. As
for LSU, the Tigers have survived play in the rugged SEC, which has
10 bowl-eligible teams and doesn't feature any schools that have
lost to Notre Dame. The Tigers have a stronger defense than does
Oregon and a solid offense that scores more than enough points. It
may not seem fair to the Ducks, but since the Pac-10 remains one of
the staunchest opponents of a playoff system, Oregon gets what it
deserves.
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