Rating College Football Teams (or NAC products)

It remains difficult for me to see how anyone can concentrate on work this time of year.  The first 7-10 days of January, it seems to me, are for spending time with friends and family, reflecting on the year past, and setting goals and plans for the year ahead.  Most importantly, of course, they're for watching college football.  For those of you who don't know, Mirage is based in Austin, Texas, home to The University of Texas Longhorns (yes, capitalization of the 'T' is required).  The Longhorns, as any true college football fan is aware, were utterly screwed out of a championship game this year, forced instead to watch a team they beat in heads up competition play for the national title.

Now, much like with the Electoral College system, I try to avoid getting sucked into conspiracy theories over the current BCS system.  This year's, however, seems beyond the pale, for the simple reason that play on the field was ignored.  With two teams as closely competitive, as well performing and well respected as OU and UT, it is simply inexplicable how anyone can ignore the results of heads up play.  Here's the 5 point speech:

1.  Oklahoma and Texas each finished the regular season with the same 11-1 record.

2.  The strength of schedule of the two teams is virtually identical:  same number of games against opponents with 9 or more wins (5); Oklahoma played one more top 25 ranked teams than Texas did (5 and 4, respectively); but Oklahoma also played more games against teams with no more than 4 wins (3 and 2, respectively)

3.  Texas beat Oklahoma 45-35 on a neutral field in the annual matchup

4.  Texas destroyed Ohio State University 24-21 in the Fiesta Bowl

5.  Number 4 is a bit dodgy; did I mention that Texas beat Oklahoma on a neutral field?

The point is that what happens on the field matters.  Or at least should.  If Oklahoma beats Florida Thursday night, people will refer to them as the National Champions of college football.  Yet they lost to a BCS bowl winner.

That just doesn't make sense to me, any more than the generally taken reference that Cisco has the "Number One" NAC product, when we continue to replace them in account after account.  And can anyone give a coherent description of Cisco's migration plans surrounding the discontinuance of CCA?  Or a "tie-breaking" system that favors the loser over the winner?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Comments

[Alan Shimel]

Happy New Year Grant! Though I feel for you about Texas, if they would have just beat Tech, we wouldn't be in this mess. I would like to see a play off too! Living in Florida though I am looking for a Gator win.

On Cisco NAC being number 1, I always assumed they were talking about revenue or total customers. Cisco is a machine and companies like Mirage and StillSecure just can't match those numbers. Doesn't mean their product is any good though ;-)

alan

[Drew]

The problem with your argument is that the Big XII South was a three-way tie with the fifth tie-breaker being used. Reducing the argument to a head-to-head matchup is a non-sequitur. Otherwise, Mack's final Coaches ballot surely would have had Tech over Texas.