Another Take from the Mizzou Side of BCS Screw Job
 

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/spo...5?OpenDocument

Mizzou left out of BCS? It's nonsense
BY BRYAN BURWELL
POST-DISPATCH SPORTS COLUMNIST
Sunday, Dec. 02 2007

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Of course it doesn’t make sense. You know it, I know it, even
the doofuses who continue to perpetrate this idiotic Bowl Championship Series
system have to know just how fatally flawed and hopelessly messed up their
multi-million dollar scam is.

So Sunday night was just one more bit of annoying confirmation of how defective
the BCS is.

From the broad national perspective, to the narrower parochial one, I truly
hate it with all my heart. But since sports is very much like politics --
everything is local -- let’s deal with how Mizzou got robbed Sunday night by
the BCS and its convoluted computers.

Missouri finished its finest season in the history of the program with an 11-2
record, won the Big 12 North, knocked off both arch rivals in Kansas and
Illinois, and the Tigers finished with a No. 6 ranking in the final BCS
standings.

Logic says the Tigers had to get a BCS bowl bid, right?

So why are they sitting on the outside of the BCS with an invitation to the
still prestigious (but non BCS) Cotton Bowl, while five other schools that
ranked lower in the BCS standings -- including the 8th-ranked Jayhawks and
13th-ranked Illini -- received bids to the more preferred BCS bowls?

Seventh-ranked Southern California and Illinois are in the Rose Bowl. Kansas is
in the Orange Bowl, ninth-ranked West Virginia is in the Fiesta Bowl and
10th-ranked Hawaii is in the Sugar Bowl.


So how does any of this make sense? As the news began to filter through the
second floor hallways at the Reynolds Alumni Center on Sunday night, the grim
faces of many Mizzou athletes told the story of the night.

“It’s just a shame we got locked out,” said All-America tight end Martin
Rucker. “How does that happen? Mathematically, logically, it just doesn’t make
sense.”

By the time the Fox network BCS bowl selection show began at 7 p.m., Rucker and
his teammates had already left the building. They couldn’t bear to watch it.
They had been instructed to take the high road and go with the company line
that they’re “excited” to be Cotton Bowl bound.

But Rucker, the senior who has seen Missouri football grow from inconsequential
to important, couldn’t play the game. In the course of 48 turbulent hours, he’d
watched his team go from No. 1 in the country with a legitimate shot at a
national championship bid, to disappointed and disgusted outsiders with their
noses pressed to the glass watching the BCS dance cards being handed out.

Someone asked if this obvious slight was further proof of how badly college
football’s top division needs a playoff system to decide its national champions
and perhaps prevent a situation like this where Mizzou was unjustly left on the
outside looking in.

“I don’t know if you need a playoff system to see that it doesn’t make sense
that one team (Illinois) lost three games and lost to you, and you only lost
two games, and they’re going to a BCS game and you’re not,” said Rucker with a
resigned shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t think we need a playoff system to
understand that, do we?”

You could see the disappointment in their faces as the players got the
official word and most of them quietly left the alumni center without saying a
word. “I have a bunch of players who have a bunch of frowns,” said Pinkel.


But those frowning faces told another story of the night, as well. Is there any
surer sign that Pinkel’s emerging program is heading in the right direction
than the fact that Mizzou football is no longer satisfied with a Cotton Bowl
bid?

Three years ago -- heck, last year -- Missouri loyalists and Tiger players and
coaches would have done somersaults down Broadway if you told them that the
2007 season would conclude with an 11-2 regular season record, a Big 12 North
title, a week on top of the national polls, a legitimate Heisman Trophy
candidate, and a Cotton Bowl bid.

After six years of lesser bowls and underachieving seasons, a trip to a
traditional and prestigious Jan. 1 bowl game, with or without the additional
status of a BCS affiliation, would have been considered a watershed mark for
Pinkel and the Tigers.

So even in the aftermath of the crushing defeat to Oklahoma in the Big 12 title
game, even with the obvious insult by the BCS system, even as some folks will
spend a lot of energy and a ton of venom overanalyzing how the biggest game in
MU football history ended up with a less-than-storybook ending, let’s not lose
sight of the essential ongoing story line.

What happened over the weekend wasn’t the sad end of the story.

The rebirth of Mizzou football is a story that’s just beginning.

Hopefully this coming year they will use this as a chip on their shoulders and kick some ass. I can't see this as anything but positive for MU, even though i really wanted a BCS bowl. Bring on the Mcfaddens.

Better hope that MU doesn't play like they're disappointed to be in the Cotton.

Also, there is one other aspect that I was just thinking about. If, as others have pointed out, that the Orange had the first pick of the remaining "at-large" teams, then they should be blamed. Perhaps the Rose or Sugar would have chosen MU. But if the Orange was the first pick and they picked KU, then the other bowls could not pick MU due to the max 2 teams per conference rule (which is a stupid rule, IMO).

Totally agree and I've said as much several times.

I have some friends who are big Sooner fans and they are pretty pissed too. Something to do with being #3 in all the polls but #4 in the BCS and having to play West Virginia (ranked #9) in their bowl game basically shutting them out of any possible consideration for the championship.

It's not a stupid rule whne you consider the conference money involved.

Tell them they should e thankful they get to play in a BCS game at all because they suck and are overrated.

There's nothing wrong with it, really.

There's no argument that can be made that Kansas deserved the Orange Bowl more than Missouri. You'd get laughed off any newspaper page or TV program if you said that. It sounds to me the more I read like Perkins was after them from the start and sold them on it, and Alden didn't.

It's ok, really. Missouri is better than Kansas, and I think we'd have probably gotten hammered against a top 5 opponent like we were going to see. I think we're truly a 7-8-9 team and KU is 10-11-12 or so. We'll see I guess.

Being in the Cotton Bowl lets us play a team we match up better with better, one that's geographically close, a place where we can probably bring more fan support, etc. Players should be motivated by getting the snub like Auburn did before, in 04 or whenever.

It's cool, really. The Orange Bowl can have them. If they go down there and get embarrassed then that will say more than we can ever say about it.

OU might beat all of the other teams in the BCS. They have a legitimate gripe in that respect, but still only themselves to blame.

OU has no argument. They lost to CU and Texas Tech, both unranked teams. If OU was really a championship caliber team, they would play more consistently. With the kind of talent that OU teams has, there is no excuse for losing both those games.
People dog on KU for their schedule, but they can say one thing that a lot of other top teams cannot. They took care of business against lesser opponents.

Sure there is--KU lost 1 game, MU lost 2.

What, because MU beat KU, MU 'deserves' to go? By that logic, Kentucky 'deserves' to be in the national title game because they beat LSU. Or Colorado 'deserves' a BCS bowl because they beat Oklahoma.

The system is f'd up--always has been. But outside of the title game, no one is entitled to anything. The BCS isn't set up so that the top 10 teams get the bowl slots. After the top 2, its just a draft of the eligible teams.

Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is. KU and MU are both going to the same place--the 'Not the National Title Game Bowl.' If you're not playing for the title, who cares?

Your and idiot.

There is a reason nobody is making those points...

They are straw men.

Nobody is saying App. St is better than Michigan here. This isn't a 4 win team saying they are better than KU because MU beat them.

The win difference is 1. MU has a big north title...is ahead of KU in the BCS, coaches, and AP polls.

Did I mention KU hasn't beaten a top 40 team?

Not that I have ever cared, but what difference does a "BCS" bowl and a non-BCS bowl make if neither of them are for the national championship. I have not cared and I continue to not care about this porous marketing scam to make teams feel like they accomplished something even though they are playing for the same thing that Central Michigan and Rutgers are... nothing.

Take consolation in this MU fan: the Orange Bowl is the biggest crap hole of all the major bowls. I went a few years ago to see my Hawkeyes get pounded by USC and couldn't believe the decrepit cement bowl with the run-down parking lots in the middle of a nowhere neighborhood was the fabled Orange Bowl.
Aren't they tearing that thing down soon?

Raymond James stadium/Outback Bowl kills the Orange for an all around good time. Tampa rocks and the stadium is awesome.