BayBuck;1901474; said:
FYI, the loss to Iowa State was Iowa's only regular-season loss that year; their 2nd loss was in the Orange Bowl to USC. So the comparison would be between 2 unbeatens (though OSU was 13-0 while Iowa would have been 12-0), but I still don't believe previously-unranked Iowa would have actually climbed above an OSU team that was top-10 in every regular-season poll. It's debatable for sure, but there's not "no way" the Buckeyes would have still been in the BCSNCG.
You are correct....that's what I get for posting quickly before heading to class and not having the time to check my memory.
I still stand by the "the is no way Iowa would have been ahead of OSU" claim. Another component of the BCS formula during the 2002 season was the quality win. If I remember correctly (it has been a long day and I just got home from some racquetball and took a wicked shot to the head) the formula defined a quality win as a win over a team in the Top 10 of the BCS. I think you had a bonus 0.1 point deduction for a win over a team ranked 10, 0.2 if the team was ranked 9, 0.3 if the team was ranked 8, etc.
Now according to the final BCS standings for 2002, Washington State was ranked #6. OSU's win over Washington State netted OSU a bonus of 0.6 point deduction. I don't think Iowa had any such quality win. So if Iowa also finished undefeated and by some stretch of really weird logic they were ranked #2 in AP poll and USA Today poll (and of course the rest of the assumption is that OSU would have been ranked #3 since they would have been the only other undefeated team), that 0.6 bonus point deduction would have more than made up the difference. I know that one time during the regular season, the bonus deduction OSU was receiving actually propelled them to a #1 ranking in the BCS for one week. (I remember by friend who is a Miami fan fraking about it too. Some foreshadowing I guess as I sat next to him in Tempe).
I mention this not because I am a BCS apologist nor am I necessarily pro-BCS. I am not anti-playoff I am not pro-playoff. I think the "every game is important" has been dismissed by some too quickly. There are few teams where every game is important really applies to, I think we all realize that. The majority of teams do not have a chance at the national championship no matter the format.
If there were a playoff, no matter where the line is drawn, there will always be a team saying that they should have been let in....same could be said about the BCS when there are multiple 1-loss teams vying for a spot in the BCSNCG.
What I think will happen eventually, not what I want or don't want, is a playoff that utilizes a BCS type device to determine the playoff teams. Maybe it starts with just 4 teams or maybe 8 teams. Hell maybe it starts with 16 teams.
I think this because as most everyone agrees, it is all about money. Imagine an 8 team playoff that utilizes the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Cotton Bowls (going back to old-time tradition of the January 1 bowls there)...each of those games meaningful...each demanding big bucks for tv. Too much money to not be had.
Or maybe we will see the creation of 4, 16-team super conferences, where the conference champion is then put into a 4 team playoff. You would actually have 8 teams in the playoff as the conference championship would be the first round. This would actually have 64 teams at the beginning of the year claiming that every game is important...much more than can currently say that.