Who's #1?

Question about 1993: While I know Nebraska, as Big 8 champs, was obligated to go to the Orange, was West Virginia similarly required to go to the Sugar Bowl after winning the Big East that year and going without a loss? If WVU wasn't, couldn't a case be made that Nebraska - which was unbeaten - and WVU, which I think only had a tie and no losses, SHOULD have played in the Orange Bowl to determined the national title?

In the end, both lose, and we end up with the controversy between FSU and ND. Could it have been prevented in the first place?

 

Only obligation to the Sugar back then was the SEC champion. West Virginia might have been an independent in football back then.

 

I thought that was either the first or second year of the Big East football conference.

 

Let me say, I hate Notre Dame. HATE 'em. If they went 0-11 for the next 10 years, I'd be a happy man. But even I'll admit they got hosed in 1993. One of the arguments people were putting out was "Well, Florida State lost but they didn't HAVE to schedule Notre Dame."
Huh?

I'll also throw in a vote for the 2003 split championship between LSU and USC. Kinda surprised no one's mentioned it yet. People in Louisiana are still pissed off that LSU's BCS title pretty much gets pushed aside and has an asterisk by it because the national media was trying to prove "West Coast bias" didn't exist.
Even now, when people write stories about the two teams, LSU is always referred to as "the 2003 BCS national champion" and USC is just called "the 2003 national champion." Add that to ESPN's ridiculous talk of a potential threepeat before the 2006 Rose Bowl between USC and Texas, and it's a sticky subject down on the bayou.
The whole thing isn't as bad as 1993, 1990 or 1997, but it's certainly a top-10 in my book.

 

You have a book coming out as well? That's just bad timing right there.

 

Now that's comedy.

 

You're rather distorting the facts there:

ND's sole loss was not to a "4-5 loss team", it was to a 9-3 BC team that was a top 10-15 team that year, and it was a 38-37 heartbreaker on a wind aided 50-yard field goal on the final play.

FSU's sole loss was TO ND in a game where they were SOUNDLY outplayed. And to say it was "only a 7 pt" loss is patently misleading to anyone who watched the game and remembers that FSU got a meaningless TD at the end to close the margin in a game where they'd been clearly outplayed and outgained on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

ND's bowl win was a dominating performance over a Top 10 A & M team. FSU's was a squeaker where Nebraska clearly outgained them and got robbed on a phantom call bringing back a TD that would've won the game.

Hard to see how anyone could objectively look at the 93 season and claim ND didn't get robbed.

 

Got to throw in Auburn in (I have a terrible memory) '04 (?) that went undefeated and never got a chance to play for a national title. Maybe USC would have beaten them, maybe not. We'll never know.

How do you go undefeated in the SEC and not get a chance at playing for the title. Unfreakingbelievable.

 

When your non-conference schedule is made up of three high school teams.

 

Boise State should've been No. 1 last year, they went undefeated afterall.

 

It's really not that vexing a question.

When more than two teams finish the season undefeated is the answer.

 

Yeah, Auburn's situation in 2004 wasn't as bad as some of the others because there were three undefeated teams. Somebody was getting jobbed there, whether it was USC, Auburn or Oklahoma. If Auburn had played USC and lost, and Oklahoma beat the crap out of somebody in a bowl game, we'd be having the same argument.

Plus, as an LSU graduate, it's my duty to point out Auburn got the benefit of a VERY questionable call when they beat LSU that year