The best team is supposed to get the bowl berth, although this is of course was a foreign concept for Beakers back when they followed football

That's not how bowls work. It's never how they've worked nor how they were intended to work although some of the qualifiers inserted into the BCS system in recent years have tried to facilitate that end.

Unfortunately it fails as often as it succeeds. Hence for every Utah and Boise we get turd balls like Hawaii and Northern Ill who put up even less of a fight than whichever helmet school would have taken their place had the bowls just been allowed to pick whomever they want.

Bowls were and are games designed to make $ for the bowls putting them on and they historically invite teams that they feel will best get them to that end goal.

Florida State vs. Alabama is easily my preferred matchup.

I really think FSU is the best team in the country right now. I've been blown away every time I've seen them take the field.

Well said.

No. The teams with the biggest draws/brand names get the bowl berth.

The point is to sell tickets and get ratings. So unless you're involved in a slot situation an "At Large" team will always be the one with the biggest draw.

Yeah the Beaker football brand is sooo hot ROFL Besides, you couldn't draw fans at Arrowhead...sad

Funny the SEC teams carry so much pride in this Championship streak when it's only 4 teams involved.

Well, it's whatever team they think is going to make them the most $. Usually that's brand and draw. In that case though the KU AD guaranteed a large # of tickets sold and beat MU AD to the punch. MU has no one to blame but themselves for getting punked out of that OB IMO. The blame sits at the door of Mike Alden. MU has and had a better program overall but neither school is a national draw in football. Your casual fan in Oregon for example isn't going to favor one over the other. I don't fault the OB for doing what it thought was in its best interest it's how business works.

Interestingly as an aside one of the cooler things about that season was that '07 Border War was one of the highest rated games of the season in college football. Both schools had captured the imagination of the nation to some extent and the curiosity brought viewers in

So, you are saying a non BCS Title Bowl is meaningless then?

No it's not meaningless but it's not an end all be all either.

Northern Ill for ex isn't considered to have had a better season or a better team than South Carolina b/c they were in the BCS and SC wasn't. Everyone w/ a brain firing on more than 1 synapse knows SC would have kicked the stuffing out of them.

It is just not an absolute qualifier of absolute success relative to another school that didn't play in one.

In the case of 2007 KU fans can boast the '07 OB it doesn't bother me or detract from our season. MU played and beat KU. Our only losses were to the league champs whom KU didn't play. We also played in a bowl that is as historically prestigious as the OB sans the BCS moniker and steam rolled our opponent. It was a fantastic NYD. We were better and proved it. That's what matters.

Now if we'd been bumped all the way down to the Alamo or Insight that'd be a different story but it wasn't. Both schools had tremendous seasons. MU fans bothered by that are just letting KU get under their skin unnecessarily in that circumstance.

Do you believe that's an unreasonably low number of teams to win a championship out of a single conference in less than a decade?

4 teams have won 7 championships in the last 7 years.

On the flip side, 4 teams have won 7 championships coming out of the Big Whatever in the last THIRTY FIVE years.

Oh yeah, and 4 of those titles belong to teams that got the hell out of Dodge.

You fellas have 2 teams that have won a national championship in the last 75 years in your conference. In fact, the only other school that can claim even a partial share is TCU way back in the mid 30s.

Yeah, only 4 teams have won National titles out of the SEC in the last 7 seasons - amateur hour, indeed.

I didn't even think about that... More championships left the Big 12 than stayed.

Ouch.

none left with you

I just don't get the smack these guys are running. It simply makes no sense on any level.

"Leading with your chin" somehow doesn't cover it.

nobody is talking smack on Alabama, LSU, Florida etc if that helps you.