You could blame it on the BCS. But you could also say it’s luck of the draw in a season defined by mediocrity – last year Florida played something like eight teams that went bowling (with two others a game short), and Oklahoma (and Texas) had brutal death-marches through the Big 12. And Florida survived a very stiff schedule in ’06 (that year we drew the four strongest teams in the West, including Arky in the SECCG.)

A playoff wouldn’t necessarily make things any better this year – it might just mean that teams in the top bracket could afford to drop a game they shouldn’t. Imagine how much less interesting Texas v Weenie U would be if it didn’t matter whether Texas even won. Crappy years happen occasionally… and this is one.

But Cincinnati’s OOC schedule is not “four terrible non-conference opponents.” They beat OrSt in Corvallis, a more impressive win in my estimation than Alabama’s W over Va.Tech given the location of the game. OrSt is 6-3, with losses to 9-0 Cincinnati, 7-2 USC, and 7-2 Arizona.

Likewise, TCU has a solid win over Clemson on its schedule, a team that may very well win the ACC still. The point being, While the Bearcats and Horned Frogs don’t have a necessarily stronger claim, they don’t particularly have a weaker one than the Longhorns, Crimson Tide, or Gators, in which case it would be all the more reason to have the +1 game!

that if I understand your “plus one” scenario, one likely case would be:
Alabama beats Florida
Alabama beats Texas
Florida beats school X
Alabama loses to Florida

Florida win NC? That’s a better result? I know I’m a Bama homer here, but I can’t see how that would make the SECCG a better product, or any other game for that matter. I also cannot see how that would make Florida a more valid champion than Alabama that way things are now? Help me out here.

This season, it’s pretty cut-and-dried, so long as UF, Bama, and Texas make it to the conference championship games undefeated.

1) However, think back to 2006 with the UF versus Michigan controversy. What if just a couple votes had swung toward Michigan? What if Urban Meyer didn’t lobby so hard for the Gators? What if Lloyd Carr lobbies equally as hard? Given the beatdown of UF over OSU, it’s hard to support that an OSU-UM rematch would have been optimal.

2) Also, how about the past couple times Utah has gone undefeated? I know some people will point to Andre Smith being out for the Bama-Utah game, but the fact is they still beat the 2nd best team in the SEC last year. How does Utah get a fair shot at the title without screwing over, say, Florida last year?

I think issues such as these two outweigh the case when the Pats beat the Jets in a hypothetical playoff rematch mentioned in an above post. Of course the playoff games would count more – you can’t lose at the wrong time. The same thing happens during the current regular season – losing earlier in the season seems more “forgivable” to pollsters than losing late in the season.

or at least the argument as I’ve always made it.

it’s that every week is certainly not a playoff

That’s not what my argument is. My argument is that the season is a playoff — and that’s not a distinction without a difference. What I’m talking about when I say that is that you qualify for the title game based on what you did during the season. (Ideally.) And any loss during that season can derail your chances. Under the current system, it’s possible (if not likely) that an undefeated TCU or Cincinnati could ride the computers to a title game berth if Florida were to lose to Florida State or Alabama were to get upset by Mississippi State and then that one-loss time were to lose the SECCG.

But let’s take things a step further: Are you honestly saying that if Alabama or Florida loses the SECCG by 1, TCU or Cincinnati or Boise should get into the plus-one ahead of them? If yes, then there’s no reason to say that a one-loss SEC champion should get into the title game this year, since a loss to Florida State or Auburn, for example, would be a much worse loss on the resume and should count against the team in question more heavily. If no, then you’ve effectively rendered the SECCG meaningless as far as postseason berths go, something that almost certainly would not happen under the current system. Unless of course Texas lost, which would even throw the current system into chaos and make things more entertaining.

My real problem with a plus-one system, which I could deal with on its own in real life, is that it’s a Trojan Horse for a wider playoff. No, plus-one would not devalue the regular season very much. I’ve even said that a six-team playoff would be fine, as long as we could set the system in stone for 50 years or something. But very few of the people calling for a plus-one system actually want a plus-one system. They want the four-team playoff so that there’s a controversy that in a few years will lead to it being expanded to eight teams and then to sixteen. That’s where the regular season gets devalued. And if you doubt it would happen, just look at where the basketball tournament was not too long ago and listen those proposing it should be as large as 128 teams.

I guess the BCS is damned if it do and damned if it don’t. You haters root for chaos to expose the system as a fraud and, absent that, you denounce the boredom. Your efforts are so transparent, they’re offensive. They’re also devoid of legitimate value and they’re never truly put to the test like the BCS.

When you expand the pool of participants for the national title, you also expand the number of slighted parties. Right now we’re on pace for five undefeated teams, meaning that a playoff would have to accomodate all of them and some others in order to be workable. And guess what happens when you incorporate some one-loss teams and not others?

Honestly, I am sick of attempts like this one to discredit a system that more often than not does it’s job. If you want to argue for a playoff system because it’s more enjoyable or exciting, that’s fine; but you better be willing to admit that it cheapens the regular season and randomizes the year’s results. What a joke…

Last year, if you installed a plus one… FL beats OK, Texas beat Penn St, Utah beat Bama…who would you of picked to play in the NC game…someone would still be left out crying.