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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 2:09 a.m., Tuesday, December 2, 2008

CFB: Big 12 allowed BCS to handle its dirty work

By Jennifer Floyd Engel
McClatchy Newspapers

FORT WORTH, Texas — Texas got 'Horned, for lack of a better family euphemism to describe what actually happened.

Coaches and iBooks ignored results and fawned on style points, so Oklahoma plays in the Big 12 Championship Game and Texas gets, well, you know ... 'Horned.

I am still waiting for a call back from Big 12 commish Dan Beebe to deliver his talking points on why using the BcS rankings, which keeps putting Ohio State in the title game, to determine his championship lineup seemed like a good idea.

Shockingly, his "schedule" did not permit any telephone time Monday. This is, after all, a big week for them with the championship in Kansas City, also known as Team Texas Beat By 10 vs. Team Texas Beat By 25.

WTG, Dan. Way to turn your game into a political mess, too.

And this is why you will be hard pressed to convince me the college game is better than the NFL.

Who cares if Saturdays are entertaining, with rivalries and campus pageantry and wheels-off games like Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State? They obviously don't matter.

At the end of the day, the results mean nothing.

No longer can BcS defenders use the lame excuse that instituting a playoff would render regular-season games meaningless. If beating a team on a neutral field means nothing, they already are.

And Texas beat Oklahoma 45-35 on Oct. 11 at the Cotton Bowl.

I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. I watched Texas impose its will in the fourth quarter and listened afterward as Sooners coach Bob Stoops magnanimously admitted losing to a better team.

That should be an ender.

Yes, Tech later beat Texas by six points and Oklahoma then whupped Tech. IMHO, Tech became irrelevant for this Big 12 South championship discussion after being drubbed by Oklahoma.

Which is why a playoff is needed because a very salty Tech team with a single loss — even a blowout — also deserves a shot at a real national championship. More on that in a second.

Once boiled down to Texas and Oklahoma, the next step is exactly what would have happened in the SEC: iBooks and coach polls become irrelevant. Only 45-35 matters.

Which is how all things football should be decided.

Do you think, in a million years, if the Cowboys, Redskins and Falcons end up deadlocked at season's end, the NFL decides who qualifies for the wild-card spot based on ESPN's power rankings? Or Peter King's Fine 15? Hardly.

The result is the result in the NFL. Games decide champions.

This is why the NFL gets better as the season progresses because you are building toward the best game. And while the NFL crescendos with a playoff, college football nosedives into this bickering about who belongs where and who got 'Horned, and into what is usually a bunch of poorly played and boringly noncompetitive bowl games.

Calling for a playoff in college football has been deemed "tired," a waste of newsprint and bandwidth because nothing is going to change. The money is too good. The university presidents are too staid. The bowls too powerful.

I guess I am going to have to be the voice of reason here. Just because the emperor is not likely to put on clothes does not mean you do not keep pointing out he is naked. Or that it is disgusting and embarrassing.

And explain again why any fan is arguing against a December spent watching:

No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 8 Texas Tech

No. 2 Texas vs. No. 7 Utah

No. 3 Oklahoma vs. No. 6 Penn State

No. 4 Florida vs. No. 5 USC

Imagine a month of this group whittling its way down to a Must-See Game of big on big that ends with a legit national champion.

No automatic bids for fake "big" conferences like the Big East. No Ohio State back-dooring its way in year after year simply because the Big Ten does not play a championship game. No debates, no politics, no Texas getting 'Horned.

And while I realize feeling sympathy for Mack Brown and anything UT may be too much too ask, just imagine if this were Tech or OU or whoever your team is.

You have one loss. You beat your bitter, hated rival head-to-head in an epic game. And you have to watch them play for a chance to play for a national championship.

"I have empathy," Stoops said in his weekly conference call Monday. "For Texas and Texas Tech."

And I believe him. I believe he's sick of a system where a season's worth of butt-busting comes down to iBooks and polls. He has to realize what a joke this strength-of-schedule talk is considering, when schedules were made four years ago, did anybody think Cincy looked like a stouter game than Arkansas?

Nor should we pretend Stoops abstained from politicking. He ran a play, not take a knee, with 32 seconds remaining against Oklahoma State that allowed everybody to write "decisive" about his victory.

Not that I necessarily blame him.

Welcome to a BcS world. And Beebe and his Big 12 types should be embarrassed for giving this farce any validity in determining who plays for their championship.

What was the sixth tiebreaker? Electoral-college votes.

Actually it is probably better Beebe did not call Monday. What was he going to say? Texas got 'Horned for money, so a couple of old dudes in Orange Bowl jackets can travel the country and feel important.

You cannot defend the non-playoff system in college football. And until they get one, the NFL makes the college game look like BcS.