There has been a ton of debate since the BCS top 10 was announced on Sunday. Regardless of the debate of who is more deserving to play undefeated LSU, the decision to allow a rematch between the Tigers and Alabama has a lot of college football fans in an uproar.  (photo courtesy of blogs.ajc.com)

Oklahoma State created the buzz when they not only won the Big 12 (which…has ten teams, but that’s not important right now), and they did so in convincing fashion, blowing out the preseason #1 Oklahoma Sooners 44-10.  Critics of the Alabama pick to play in the title match cite the fact that Alabama didn’t even win their own conference, and that the Crimson Tide lost their game at home versus the road loss the Oklahoma State Cowboys incurred at Iowa State.

As much as I cannot stand the BCS, here are three reasons they actually got it right:

1.  If you’re not in the SEC, you had better go undefeated: Like it or not, the SEC is the king of college football conferences…and it’s not even close.  Even the SEC was a bit watered down this year, mostly due to the underachieving SEC East Division, but here is something to chew on.  The last five (and soon to be six) BCS National Champions are SEC teams, so it’s not just love from ESPN and the media that makes it look like the SEC is the best conference–the SEC proves it and has proven it for the last 60 months.  Because of that kind of track record, the SEC is always going to have a leg up.

2.  The Big 12 was not nearly as good as it showed in the polls. While Baylor and Kansas State have been great stories for college football, other than Oklahoma State, the Big 12 was watered down, and that dilution began before the season even kicked off, when Nebraska bolted for the Big Ten (…which actually has twelve teams…but that’s not important right now).  Add to Nebraska’s departure, Oklahoma vastly underachieving, when you consider they were the preseason #1, a down year for Missouri, a Texas A&M team that was completely whipped in the second half of practically every game, and how in the world Texas was consistently ranked is beyond me–they finished with a very underwhelming 7-5 record and still have no offense.  Bottom line–the Big 12 was a far cry from a BCS heavyweight.

3.  Let’s compare losses: Bama lost at home in overtime against LSU, who is the #1 team in the country.  Oklahoma State lost on the road to Iowa State, who checks in as the #54 ranked team in the country, according to CBSSports.com.  Iowa State finished the season with a not-so-stout 8th place finish in the 10-team Big 12 Conference, just ahead of lowly Texas Tech and Kansas.  Conversely, Bama lost to LSU, who beat the Pac 12 Champ (Oregon), the Big East Champ (West Virginia), the SEC East Champion (Georgia), the #2 team in the nation (Bama at the time) and Arkansas, who ranked #3 at the time and finished the regular season rankings at #7.

Overall Conclusion: You don’t deserve a shot at a national championship if you lose to the 54th best team in the country.  We should expect much more than that from a national champ.  The SEC is going to be king until another conference can knock them off the top of the mountain.

Let us know your take on it…..reply to this post, and feel free to banter on our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/CollegeSportsFeed

What was supposed to be a ho-hum weekend of college football turned out to be the biggest upset weekend of the season. CSF breaks down the national championship update and the current state of the Heisman from the week that reshaped the 2011 season and put the BCS picture into a tizzy.

Upset Weekend: The weekend got off to a crazy start on Friday, when #2 Oklahoma State, who controlled their own destiny to a Big 12 Title and BCS National Championship game, was stunned in Ames to the Iowa State Cyclones.  The loss took OSU out of the national title hunt all together and severely jeopardized quarterback Brandon Weeden’s chance at the Heisman Trophy.

On Saturday, Oregon looked to take advantage of the Oklahoma State loss and jump to at least 3rd nationally, but those hopes were dashed on a missed field goal at the end of regulation to Matt Barkley and USC.  The Ducks fought their way back into the game (USC led 38-14 at one point) but ultimately fell short 38-35.  Oregon’s second loss officially puts them out of the BCS Title hunt as well.

About an hour later, Oklahoma, who had trailed most of the game to Robert Griffin III and his Baylor team, also found themselves in great position to make a push for a BCS title run.  OU quarterback Landry Jones battled his team back into the game and forced an apparent overtime, but Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops got greedy.  With Baylor conceding overtime, they attempted to run the clock out, but Oklahoma opted to use a timeout in attempt to get the ball back with less than a minute to go.  Griffin III showed the Sooners that when you play with fire, you get burned.  The junior QB led his team down the field by running and passing and capped off the game’s final drive with a touchdown pass to Terrance Williams with 8 seconds left on the clock to regain a seven-point lead, and the Bears beat Oklahoma for the first time in 21 tries by a score of 45-38.

Heisman will come down to the wire: All season, the Heisman front-runners have changed more frequently than Charlie Sheen’s roommates.  Here’s the recap.  Stanford’s Andrew Luck is up.  Okie State’s Brandon Weeden is down.  Baylor’s Robert Griffin III has worked his way back in the picture after being forgotten for the last month.  Bama’s Trent Richardson is back in the hunt, but Oregon’s LaMichael James dropped significantly.  Boise State’s Kellen Moore is all but forgotten.  Meanwhile, Houston’s Case Keenum has 38 TDs and only three interceptions, while Wisconsin’s Montee Ball has continued his record-setting season with 31 total touchdowns, respectively.  Oh, yeah….and Kansas State’s Colin Klein has 36 total touchdowns for the surprising Wildcats.  But don’t worry.  The major rivalry games take place this weekend, so all of this is likely to change in a week.  Confused yet?  Just wait until the conference championship games happen in two weeks.

The Big 12 Conference is looking more like a countdown for a space shuttle launch than it is a football conference these days.  The 2011 season will be the first year since the inception that, despite still being called the Big 12, the conference will only have ten teams.

Nebraska bolted for the Big Ten (which now has twelve teams) and Colorado moved to greener pastures and potentially more revenue with their move to the newly established Pac 12 Conference.

Over the last few days, there are more and more rumblings of Texas A&M moving to the SEC, which would likely be straw to break the dwindling Big 12′s back.  But the move to college football’s most powerful conference won’t go through without the Big 12 Conference pulling out all stops to maintain the status quo (if there is one).

Regardless of what the Big 12 officials and the state of Texas choose to do, in the end, A&M would be crazy not to jump at this opportunity.  The SEC has long been the best conference in all of college football, and with their recent contract with ESPN, their recent dominance of the BCS National Championships (an SEC team has won the National Championship in each of the last five years), and recent talk of courting Florida State or Virginia Tech to create two, separate 7-team divisions, the SEC shows no signs of looking back.

When the dust settles, we take a quick peak at where the other teams in the conference could end up:

Texas: The Longhorns should be kicking themselves for not jumping at the opportunity to join Colorado when the Pac 10 came calling last year.  Instead, Utah jumped at the chance to get out of the BCS purgatory known as the Mountain West.  Look for the Pac 12 to become the Pac 14 in an attempt to rival the SEC 2.0 version in 2012 or 2013.

Oklahoma: Like their hated rivals, Texas, there was a lot of talk last year of the Sooners joining the Pac 12, despite the fact that Texas and Oklahoma are nowhere near the Pacific coast, which was the original geographic concept of the conference when they were the Pac 8.  You lost yet?  Anyway, look for the Sooners and Longhorns to continue their rivalry within the same conference, which will likely be the Pac 14.

Missouri: Like the Huskers, the Big Ten courted the Tigers last season, but Mizzou opted to stay, especially once it was confirmed that Texas was staying.  The Big Ten would love to bring on the Tigers and bring a great rivalry with Nebraska inside the conference.  This would make the Big Ten’s thirteenth team, and maybe at this point, they really should think about dropping the “Big Ten” name, even though they have retained that name despite having eleven teams since Penn State joined the conference in 1993.

Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas Tech, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State will have to scramble to find a home.  These programs have had flashes, but unlike Mizzou, Oklahoma and Texas, they haven’t quite been able to crack or stay in the Top 25 for more than a year or two at a time.  And that will hurt them and possibly leave them with no choice but to join a new version of the Mountain West, but for basketball, Kansas may have to pull a Notre Dame and go independent.  Confused yet?

Rumors and scenarios will run rampant in the coming months, but one thing is for sure.  The Big 12 was already on life support, and A&M’s likely departure will be the death of the conference.

Peter Marhoefer- Mr. Touchdown USA

1. Baylor and Quarterback Robert Griffin will go into Ft. Worth and upset TCU on Saturday. This will launch Griffin into Heisman Trophy talk, and vault the Bears into their first bowl game since entering the Big 12.

2. Northwestern will challenge Ohio State for the Big Ten Title.  The Wildcats do not play Ohio State or Michigan on this years schedule. The lineup is littered with Junior and Senior talent, and Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald has proven he has the ability to “coach up” his players. Three big tests are on the schedule Nov. 6th at Penn State, Nov. 13th hosting Iowa, and finishing up the season Nov. 27th at Wisconsin. If the Wildcats can pull off two wins in those three games, look for a Big Ten Title tie with a one loss Ohio State.

3. After a 1-1 start, Colorado coach Dan Hawkins can avoid a mid-season firing with a win over Hawaii this weekend. A loss to Hawaii followed up with a home embarassment to Georgia, look for Hawkins to have one foot out the door.  Look for Colorado to court former Buff Eric Bieniemy, the current Minnesota Vikings Running Backs Coach.

4. The attendance at Saturday’s Iowa State – Kansas State game in Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City will make both schools re-evaluate the continuation of the neutral-site contest. With five home and four away Big 12 games looming next year, neither school will be interested in playing three home conference games in off years in the future.

5. Boise State will escape Laramie, Wyoming this weekend. Wyoming may not win, but a fired up Cowboy’s team playing in honor of fallen teammate Ruben Narcisse will give the Broncos everything they can handle. Even with two weeks to prepare, Boise State will be looking ahead to next weeks showdown with Oregon State. Cowboys Coach Dave Christensen will have his high powered offense ready, and a team playing it’s second Top Ten opponent in a week will not be fazed by BSU’s number three rating.

Every year I look forward to the chance that I have to watch football day after day and, in particular, to see teams compete against each other that might otherwise never meet on the field had they not made it to a bowl. And this year has, once again, delivered some highly engaging football. Often, when the schedule is released too many people look at the obviously imbalanced or even the lesser-known face-offs and deem the games predictable or uninteresting, and ultimately, not worth the time and effort it takes to watch them. I will be honest in saying that I have been guilty of the same practice on occasion.

But this bowl season has changed that. With many games being decided in the last seconds of regulation play, it has been an exciting time to watch. I have noticed myself moving through channels and searching out bowl games with lower ranked teams and, surprisingly, really gaining interest in the games. Then I had the chance on New Year’s Day to watch the Iowa State Cyclones and the Minnesota Golden Gophers duke it out in the Insight.com bowl. Coming into the match-up, both teams had earned six wins on the season.  And, truthfully, they were rather exciting to watch. The teams had great talent and made significant plays on both sides of the ball.  Although both the Cyclones and the Gophers are two teams that I otherwise would not follow, I found myself resoundingly cheering and enjoying a highly entertaining match-up.

Frankly, thus far, I have been quite unimpressed with the big BCS matches. These games have been one-sided and pretty droll to watch. I turned the channel after the first half of the Sugar Bowl.

I maintain that if more people were to watch these small bowl games, they might have a better appreciation for post season bowls. I know that next year I will be looking out for more of these bowls as they are unadulterated evidence of  the true spirit of college football.