Bad system or not, we have a deserving champion

The BCS is about to be pulled off the respirator. The strange amalgam of profit motive, computer dweebiness and institutional corruption has one more year before it goes in the ground.

Fine.

But don't for a second think that the flaws in the system overshadow the verdict delivered on the field Monday night.

Alabama won its second championship in three years by routing LSU, a 21-0 sleeper hold that did little for TV ratings, but put this team and coach Nick Saban in the record books. AP voters who had threatened a revolt to bring about a split championship largely fell into line. The Tide's domination gave them little choice.

And yet the Occupy BCS critics, though in far fewer numbers, were back waving their signs this morning, choosing once again to concentrate on the flaws of a system rather than the superiority of a particular team in college football's winner-takes-all stage.

Alabama was that good. In November, the Tide exposed the one flaw in LSU's arsenal -- the lack of a balanced offense. This time they fully exploited it. When LSU couldn't run, quarterback Jordan Jefferson had no hope of consistently throwing the ball down the field. It would have taken a big play -- Alabama's extraordinary defense gave the Tigers no air to breathe -- or a transformational mistake -- unlike November, the Tide was not in a giving mood -- for the tide, so to speak, to change.

Next season, Alabama and LSU will contend for the last BCS title. Alabama will lose key players across what might be the best college defense of all time. LSU needs to find a quarterback. If it does, the Tigers will be awfully hard to beat.

But so will Alabama, and Arkansas, and Florida and Georgia, and Texas A&M on the road, and on and on and on. It's the SEC, after all. Big Boy stuff. And whatever the new system, that's not likely to change.

MG

Alabama 21, LSU 0: The morning after

Truth be told, once the game settled into a rhythm -- you know, field goal for Alabama, 3 and out for LSU -- I started flipping back and forth between the game and "The Andromeda Strain," where an entire town is wiped out except for a crying baby and an old drunk who likes his Sterno. Kinda like Baton Rouge this morning.

Funny thing ... way back in September I picked LSU to win the SEC but not the national championship. Right and right, though I didn't quite figure on it playing out like this.

FYI, the image above is from the movie, though it could double as 'Bama's defensive playbook. -- R. Trentham Roberts

LSU-Alabama for the title: Who ya got?

Fellow SEC fans, let's start off by congratulating ourselves on six straight national championships. Back pats and hearty handshakes all around. Now then... who's it going to be?

Here's our picks. Stick yours down in the comments. It's gonna be a great night.

R. Trentham Roberts: LSU has more firepower now than they did in the first go-round. I figure 3 players will have better numbers this time: Jordan Jefferson (if only because he'll be playing the whole game), Ruben Randle and Kenny Hilliard. Can't say the same for Alabama -- Trent Richardson should go for over 100, but he already had 89 rushing and 80 receiving the first time. AJ McCarron, Marquis Maze? About the same. So make it ... LSU 23, Alabama 13.

Peter St. Onge: Alabama 17, LSU 14: The only consolation I get out of this is that Nick Saban will likely coach his way into another NFL job. 

Mike Gordon: Given that most wars have been fought and won in the time that has elapsed since either team played, it's tough to predict whether LSU or Alabama will play up to form. But for the sake of this exercise, let's assume they do.

Let's give LSU its edge in special teams. Let's stipulate that both defenses make it awfully hard to string two good plays together much less an 80-yard drive. Let's also agree that as great as Trent Richardson is, he will be largely negated by the deepest stable of running backs in college football today.

So here's where that leaves us: the quarterbacks. Jordan Jefferson didn't have to do much the first time around except be better than error-prone Jarrett Lee. A.J. McCarron threw a key second half interception and failed to find several receivers running uncovered in LSU's secondary. He has to play better. If he does, Alabama wins. The same goes for Jefferson. If he can run and throw against the Alabama defense, LSU will be very hard to beat.

My guess? McCarron makes a few more plays. That means that in this fight between two perfectly matched teams, Alabama will score a few more points. Tide, 24-20.

Tommy Tomlinson: LSU has a higher ceiling in this game, but it also has a lower floor. It's easy to imagine Jordan Jefferson imploding (and Jarrett Lee imploding right behind him) in a way that A.J. McCarron probably won't. It wouldn't shock me to see Bama run away with the title on the shoulder of a pick-six or two.

But... I wonder if, as good as this LSU team is, we're not still underestimating it. They played seven teams that are probably going to end up in the final top 25. Setting aside Alabama for a second, here's the list:

Beat Oregon (top 5) by 13

Beat Arkansas (top 10) by 24

Beat West Virginia (top 20) by 26

Beat Georgia (top 20) by 32

Beat Florida (top 25) by 30

Beat Auburn (top 25) by 35

That's six wins, over top competition, by an average of 27 points, plus that Bama.

Alabama beat Arkansas, Florida and Auburn by similar scores, and the Tide also beat Penn State by 16 (although Penn State might not finish in the top 25). That's a strong resume. But LSU, because of the teams they've beaten, has put together one of the great seasons in college football history.

I love this Alabama team. Most years, they'd win the national title. This isn't most years. LSU, 21-10.

Tuesday morning readings

* From The New York Times, a breakdown of Nick Saban's and Les Miles' salaries. (Make sure you check the graphics). Click here.

* Least forgiving headline of the day, from al.com: "Georgia rolls over and plays dead in Outback Bowl." Click here.

* From the Orlando Sentinel, coverage of South Carolina's school-record 11th win in the Capital One Bowl. Click here.

* From ESPN's Big Ten Blog, game wrap-ups and impressions of Monday's 1-4 league showing. Click here.

2012 conference schedule is out

And here it is. It all starts Aug. 30 with South Carolina and Vanderbilt. 'Bama and Florida both get Missouri and Texas A&M. Enjoy.

Bowl games are upon us

The fun starts Friday for SEC fans. Below is the list, and to the right is the LSU-Bama poll.

-- Dec. 30: Music City Bowl, Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest

-- Dec. 31: Liberty Bowl, Vanderbilt vs. Cincinnati

-- Dec. 31: Chick-fil-A Bowl, Auburn vs. Virginia

-- Jan. 2: Capital One Bowl, South Carolina vs. Nebraska

-- Jan. 2: Outback Bowl, Georgia vs. Michigan State

-- Jan. 2: Gator Bowl, Florida vs. Ohio State

-- Jan. 6: Cotton Bowl, Arkansas vs. Kansas State

-- Jan. 9: BCS championship game, LSU vs. Alabama

Correction: Obviously spoke a little too soon. The fun started Monday for fans of soon-to-be-SEC Missouri. Texas A&M, meanwhile, plays Northwestern on New Year's Eve.

Early look at 2012

New teams. New schedule. But what to make of the teams?

Jess Nicholas of Tidefans.com offers these predictions on the 2012 SEC season.

Trending upward: LSU, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi State and Vandy. Trending down: Arkansas, South Carolina, Auburn, Tennessee and, gulp, Alabama.

The Newbies? Nicholas puts Missouri and Texas A&M among the down arrows. As Dean Wormer might have put it, That's no way to start life in a new conference, son.

Read more of Nicholas' thoughts, ratcheer.

MG

Wednesday morning readings

* With Oklahoma State left on the outside looking in, Big 12 athletic directors show support for a four-team playoff and a plus-one title game. Story by Andy Staples of SI.com here.

* Georgia gets a big-time RB recruit in Keith Marshall. Story from Raleigh News & Observer here.

* Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com hands out his end-of-year awards. Story here.

* Bruce Feldman of CBSSports.com lists the 10 biggest duds of the season. Story here.

Next time just check the lost-and-found box

We were just wondering where those titles have been hiding all these years when we saw this headline on www.olemisssports.com. Hope the new coach polishes them up a bit.

MISSISSIPPI MAN: FREEZE TAPPED TO RETURN TITLES TO OLE MISS

SEC's new St. Louis media outpost weighs in on BCS

If SEC football fans aren't familiar with Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, they soon will be.

Since Missouri joined the party, Miklasz has been writing more about Southern football. And while he acknowledges an early addiction to the Paul Finebaum Show -- Courage, Bernie, there's help available -- he normally writes an informed column that's never short on opinion.

His take on The Rematch: Why the outrage?

Hugh Freeze to Ole Miss

It's official. Go here for the Ole Miss news release and to hear from Archie himself.

Freeze himself announced it on Twitter a couple of hours ago ...

I asked for a word from God, I found Jeremiah 29:11-14. I have taken the Head Coaching Job at Ole Miss, but it's not without a heavy heart.

And for the great unwashed among you, that passage goes like this ...

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

Who's bowl-bound and other thoughts

Who's going where:

-- Dec. 30: Music City Bowl, Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest

-- Dec. 31: Liberty Bowl, Vanderbilt vs. Cincinnati

-- Dec. 31: Chick-fil-A Bowl, Auburn vs. Virginia

-- Jan. 2: Capital One Bowl, South Carolina vs. Nebraska

-- Jan. 2: Outback Bowl, Georgia vs. Michigan State

-- Jan. 2: Gator Bowl, Florida vs. Ohio State

-- Jan. 6: Cotton Bowl, Arkansas vs. Kansas State

-- Jan. 9: BCS championship game, LSU vs. Alabama

For the record, that's 3 SEC-Big 10 matchups. That always makes bowl season a little more fun, though I wouldn't be all that surprised if the SEC didn't win a single one of them.

* Count me among those who wanted to see LSU-Oklahoma State. Here's why: If LSU were to defeat OSU, the Tigers would have played and beaten EVERYBODY (everybody in this case being the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th teams in the BCS, along with the teams ranked 16th and 23rd and a couple of other bowl teams for good measure). And if Oklahoma State were to win, they'd claim the title for beating the No. 1 team in the title game. (Besides, I have a bit of an easier time hearing Oklahoma State saying "We deserve a shot" than Alabama saying "We deserve another shot.")

* That said, now that it's LSU-'Bama, might I suggest this new motto for the Magnolia State: MISSSISSIPPI: BORDERING NATIONAL CHAMPIONS SINCE 2009.

* Congratulations to East Mississippi Community College, which claimed the national juco title with a 55-47 win over Arizona Western College in the El Toro Bowl on Saturday. (Story here.) Let's see ... No. 1 playing No. 2, on one team's home field (in this case, top-ranked Arizona Western) ... that all sounds vaguely familiar.

-- R. Trentham Roberts

The BCS Showdown and post SECCG edition

Update: The deal is done. LSU and Alabama finish 1, 2. The Rematch is on.


First things first: Congratulations to the University of Georgia. For one magical half, they made LSU look tepid and slow. They made Jordan Jefferson look like, well, the Jefferson of yesteryear. They made the Tigers' defense look disorganized. They took the fight to a bigger team and overwhelmed them for 30 minutes. They showed, particularly on defense, how much they've grown.

But they kept dropping the stupid ball.

In the end, the Bulldogs learned what every other team on LSU's schedule already knows. Get to the Les Miles' team early. Otherwise, the window closes. The vise tightens. The chances of victory, already small, become shards, and then shards again.

LSU is that good. Only one team has traded blows with them in the middle of the ring. That team is Alabama, which lost in overtime to the Bengals in Tuscaloosa, and at this hour appears to be the last detail standing before one helluva party breaks out in the bayous.

Ah, that last detail.

An imperfect system has one job: to pick the two best teams. This year, there are two teams with viable arguments for a single spot. Oklahoma State couldn't have asked for a better closing argument than the utter humiliation of its despised rival before a national audience Saturday night. But that will have to do for this year.

The computers and the human voters and coaches and the alchemists secretly manipulating the BCS data from some castle in the Balkans all had their say on Sunday. It appears the SEC will have its sixth straight national championship. It will still be five weeks, however, before we know which name goes on the trophy.

LSU's opponent officially comes out of the hat tonight on ESPN. But the tweets have been singing like cicadas throughout the day, and the din keeps pointing toward Alabama. Nick Saban's team had its shot, true. But his team played an almost identical season to LSU's. Alabama was every bit as dominant playing an eerily similar brand of football. On Nov. 5, one team made three field goals; the other made two. That's it.

Sure it's unfair for LSU to have played an extra game and now have to beat the Tide a second time. But as deserving a titleist as LSU would be, coronations for national champs went out when the BCS came in. No more bad matchups because of conference affiliations. The two best teams settle things. Period.

And that's what will happen Jan. 9. The two best teams from the best conference. Everyone else will be home watching. Even for the SEC, that will be a first.

mg

From Moo U to Happy Valley?

That's the rumor going around about Dan Mullen and Penn State. (It began with ESPN, a Scranton newspaper and a Jackson TV station.) Read the Clarion-Ledger story here.

Now this is how bowl invites are meant to go out

And now let us harken back to the days when there were only a half-dozen bowls at season's end (1957, to be exact) ...

LOST PHONE

NUMBER LOST

TEXAS BOWL

KNOXVILLE, TENN., Dec. 1 (UP) -- Tennessee clinched an automatic Gator Bowl invitation by beating Vanderbilt, but Texas A&M may have slipped into the Jacksonville, Fla., classic by dint of a smudged phone number.

Joe Livingston, a member of the Gator Bowl selection committee, said chairman Sam Wolfson wrote down the numbers of Aggie coach Bear Bryant and Texas athletic director Ed Olle on a slip of paper.

When Wolfson started placing his calls Saturday afternoon, he intended to call Olle first and offer an invitation to the Gator Bowl on Dec. 28. He and the rest of the 11-man committee were convinced that the Sugar Bowl already had a commitment from A&M.

He could not read Olle's number, which was smudged, and placed a call to Bryant in Houston, Tex. Bryant, whose Aggies had a better season record than the Texas Longhorns, accepted.

"Bryant appeared to be miffed at the Sugar Bowl for some reason," Livingston said. It may have been that the Sugar Bowl officials kept both Texas and Texas A&M dangling until the last minute.

Postscript: The Aggies lost 3-0 to Tennessee in Bryant's final game at A&M. Ole Miss pounded Texas 39-7 in the Sugar Bowl.

Just call him Coach. TOSU does

From Urban Meyer's contract (Go here for the PDF):

The Ohio State University, on behalf of its Department of Athletics ("Ohio State"), and Urban F. Meyer ("Coach") have had certain discussions regarding Coach's employment as Ohio State's head football coach. The parties recognize that Ohio State shall present Coach with a more thorough employment contract addressing additional terms of employment in the near future. Until that time, the parties hereby agree to the following terms as follows:

And so on and so forth. A couple of the many things of interest: Meyer's base salary ($700,000 per year) is half what he gets from "Apparel/shoe/equipment" ($1.4 million); and he gets $250,000 if Ohio State plays for the national championship.

Urban Meyer 2.0

Read THE fine print carefully in THE owner's manual for THE new coach for THE Ohio State University. Operating instructions comes courtesy of longtime Florida Gator worshipper Spencer Hall.

For starters,do not fold, spindle or mutilate. But you can press here.

mg

Who Ya Got? The Thanksgiving Leftovers Edition

Nothing riding on this weekend's game, except the final piece for the SEC Championship Game, the BCS Championship Matchup and the future of man as we know it.

Spin this anyway you like. Cut it. Mash it. Slice it. Ginzu Knife it ... The SEC still holds all the cards in the national championship race. If LSU wins Friday, they're in -- even if something really peculiar happens next week in Atlanta. If Alabama wins at Auburn. They're in. If Arkansas upsets LSU, they'll be in if Alabama stumbles or LSU falls to Georgia. It's hard to imagine another team or conference getting back into the discussion. And if chalk holds, it's LSU and Alabama Part Deux early next year in New Orleans.

How can you top five straight championships? By having two SEC teams playing for number 6, that's how. Release the hounds!!

Arkansas at LSU
When he was alive, my father used to predict the outcome of games based on the physical attributes of key players. In his eyes, those with "weak chins" were destined for failure. Which brings us to the Hogs. Bobby Petrino's piggies have the size and skill to make this a game against top-ranked LSU. Except that the Hogs are one team at home and an entirely different one on the road. Death Valley on a Saturday can become an alien outpost, but it still ain't in Arkansas. And Arkansas, in its road unies, hasn't shown it can take a punch.TIGERS, 35-24.

Georgia at Georgia Tech:

One of the truly nasty rival games of the year finds the Dawgs paraphrasing The Clash: Should we play or should we blow? The SEC Championship in Atlanta is clearly Georgia's higher calling. But these two teams just can't stand the sight of each other. Tech's defense stinks, again, but their option has driven Georgia crazy for three years running. This one has upset written all over it, particularly with UGA's muddled tailback situation. But can Tech run the ball? Not sure. Not sure of anything on this pick. But I'll run with the Dawgs. UGA, 28-24.

Alabama-Auburn
I've seen two punts blocked. I've seen Bo over the top and Bo run the wrong way. I've seen The Kick. I've seen The Comeback. I've seen Musso best Sullivan to Beasley and the bands flee the stadium when the tornado sirens went off around Legion Field.

But I can't for the life of me see how Auburn wins this game. And that's a little scary. Weird things always happen in the Iron Bowl, sure, and Auburn is a far better team on the Plains. But Alabama is bigger, deeper, more talented, more experienced and has a mad on much bigger than the 24-point lead it blew a year ago. If it needs any more incentive, there's that little matter of having a shot at keeping the national championship trophy instate for another year. TIDE, 28-10.

FSU at Florida:
Two awfully trendy pre-season picks limp into their rivalry game like punch-drunk ham-and-eggers. Who wins this one? The team that shows up, that's who. The Good Ship Jimbo springs another leak. GATORS, 20-17.

Ole Miss at Mississippi State:
Something is rotten in the Egg Bowl. For another year, Dan Mullen's Bulldogs couldn't win a meaningful conference game, and Houston Nutt's last Rebel team is one of the worst in school history. Ole Miss laid down several weeks ago, and it's hard to imagine it getting to its feet, even for the instate rivalry game. When the new coach gets to Oxford, he's not going to know where to start. BULLIES, 24-13.

Clemson at South Carolina:
We'll make this quick. A team that got steam-rolled by NC State doesn't have the ball bearings to go four quarters against a defense as talented as South Carolina. If the Roosters don't drop the ball all over the field and the USC defensive backs do a reasonable job guarding the Tiger wideouts, and if Steve Spurrier doesn't try to steal the spotlight with some cutesy calls, the Gamecocks size and speed on defense should prevail. USC, 21-17.

Tennessee 24, Kentucky 7.

Kirk Herbstreit on Urban Meyer and the spread offense

From today's "Mike & Mike in the Morning," on whether Meyer -- if and when he takes over at TOSU -- can make the spread offense work in the Big Ten ...

"Sorry, but the SEC defenses across the board are way, way more athletic and more physical ... the closest thing we have in college football to NFL defenses is the SEC. And if Urban Meyer and his offensive style can be successful in the SEC, it'll be like going up against the scout team when they go up against the Big Ten."

Herbstreit also talks about the LSU-Alabama-Arkansas conundrum. Listen here.

The Egg Bowl, in 140 characters or less

Pound sign of the times: What one end of Scott Field will look like for Saturday's Mississippi State-Ole Miss game in Starkville. (Personally, I would have gone with #dogtag.) In this matchup of two offensively challenged teams, perhaps it will help one of them find the end zone. State is also trotting out new uniforms for the game. Go here and here for a look. -- R. Trentham Roberts