TB, Thank you. Every Conference has 2, and possibly 3, pre-season “standard picks” to which team is going to the BCS Champ. game. Rarely do they pick a non walmart T-Shirt fan-base team, thus providing a false ranking with pre-season hype for the nation.
This year:
Big 12 = Oklahoma, Texas, maybe Missouri (Tech wasn’t in the pre-season picture)
SEC = LSU, Florida & Georgia (Alabama wasn’t in the pre-season picture)
PAC 10 = USC, maybe Cal (like always)
Big 10 = Ohio State, Penn State, maybe Michigan (Missagain, is out…)
ACC = Clemson (biggest pre-season hype this year), Florida State, Virginia Tech (Clemson was out fast..)

Then, if any of the non Walmart T-shirt fan based teams enter the picture, and lose a game, they will drop in the ranking fast. But if it was a walmart T-shirt Fan Base team that has a loss, they only drop in the ranking by a couple of spots.
Example: Florida’s Loss to unranked Ole Miss.

I just got the new Sports Illustrated. I don’t know why I still get it, don’t really read it and they don’t really have much to say. Anyhow, I still just got it in the mail. What is on the front cover? “Oklahoma Stomps Texas Tech”. Yes, that was true. It happened and it hurt.

My only problem is that the huge wins over UT and OkSt the past few weeks were barely mentioned. People were saying the Harrell to Crabtree catch was the face of college football in 2008, but it was not to be seen on SI. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy or anything, it just really irks me that by the time they get around to covering Tech, it is at their worst hour.

on whether we avoided the bad loss?

Because of all of the hype and national exposure, many people saw the OU game as a bad loss. All of the reasons for a bad loss outlined in the post happened, and Tech wasn’t able to generate any of the things that helped to avoid the bad loss earlier in the season.

Let me be the first to say that I whole-heartedly believe that judging a team based on a single game’s score is no basis for black-balling a team. The snowball effect was in overdrive last week. But I don’t think Tech was too unfairly punshed by the polls (margin of victory is not considered by the computers).

The BCS isn’t perfect. Everybody knows that the rules of the BCS will inevitably give someone the Brokeback Mountain treatment every year – yet we just can’t quit. IMO, the BCS has one advantage over a playoff in that it doesn’t reward a team that gets hot at the end of the regular season as a playoff inevitably would. There are innumerable opinions on how to fix the system, but we all know what they say about opinions.

If OU beats OSU and there is a 3 way tie, there is no clean way to resolve it, so I’m OK with however they decide who goes to the CCG. It’s on us to win our games. We still have had a great season. It would be nice to cap it on a bigger stage than the Cotton or Holiday bowl, but those ain’t too shabby.

As for Tech’s relevance, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. If we don’t get our shot this year, we’ll have another one soon.

 S.I. is making me sick. Last year they had a huge artical on how Missouri beat us and when we stuned O.U. we got a paragraph when we should of got the cover. This year we beat Texas and we got a small artical when we should have got the cover and when O.U. beats us they get the cover and a big artical. I don’t know about you but I’m going to unsubscribe to S.I. because I’m sick of them not relizing how good of a team we are.

Texas Tech was ranked about 12th in the nation, outside the top 10, but high enough for the “pundits” to say they recognized Tech’s capabilities.
What it really said is “Tech is good, maybe great, but until they win all their games we will not place them in the top 10 of any preseason poll. And, they will not be allowed to rise sharply as, say Alabama, USC or Texas. But if they lose, we will really penalize them because we did not want them in the top 10 anyways”
You were right about respect needing to be earned over a long haul. Until we can continuously show the world that we can beat anyone anytime, every year, for at least ten years, we simply will not receive the respect of those “pundits.”
So, despite their very biased and “quality program” oriented belief system, we must not knock the door down but blow it off its foundation in order for us to be equally recognized. Actually, we probably have quite a few other programs in the same boat (re: KState, TCU, Utah, etc.). Sometimes there will be a particular conference (Big-12 this year) that simply outshines any other. What really needs to happen for equalization to actually be in force (coverage and competition) is for all the writers and coaches to be required to sit down on Monday of each week in a teleconference and discuss openly the merits and the negatives of each contender, with this not even taking place until about the sixth or seventh week of the season. That way, most of the jockeying around during the first few weeks will only solidify the actual merits of the better teams that year. No pre-season hype. No surprises that continue to surprise or simply fall out of sight. That way, early brickorbrack will be minimized and season ending success will be rewarded, even aplauded. One loss by one contending team should NOT count against them any greater than one loss by any other contender.
I am not sure how well this all would work out, but it would probably legitimize the best of the best at season end, making the voting much more accurate, with no glaring errors.

… and the fact that it comes from a KSU fan who can empathize with Tech’s situation. There are still those who argue that the current BCS setup is fine. If that is so, then why is it that year after year, situations arise that are inherently unfair? Why does there have to be so much explaining, politicing and rationalizing? To me, it is crystal clear: A playoff system is the only way to eliminate much of the bias that is entrenched in the current system. It wouldn’t eliminate ALL of the bias – but a good measure of the problems that are so obivous would have a chance to be remedied.

The BCS “National Championship” is all about money, not about getting down to who is really the very best team over the course of an entire season- and therefore it is really only a College Football Lottery. The “favored” teams get much better odds than all the other comers, so much so that the latter’s chances of ‘winning’ the lottery is nearly zero. Until the Championship is decided with a playoff system, the ideal of fairness will be absent from every College Football season. In fairness, extend the season of those top teams – regardless who they are, and let’s see who makes it to the top. In fairness, let those top teams play each other on neutral sites. In fairness, let the championship be decided on the field, instead of inside some computer. We might just be surprised that the traditional powerhouses don’t fair as well as they expect. Remember what happened when “mighty” OU had to play “lowly” Boise State? Surprise!

If we win against Baylor and pir bowl game then we will finish no lower than 7. And let’s also see what happens in the SEC title game because Alabama could be blown out by Florida. So way too much football to go. Wreck’em Tech Beat Baylor Keep Leach!!!!!

And much remains to happen. OSU could upset OU, true. Probably not, but maybe. Anyway the season has been great, not much more that we can ask for as a fanbase. That being said, they best way to avoid having to politick is to win ALL of our games. Now we know what we need to do next year, right?

If I’m not mistaken, the conferences which don’t have a championship game do play a complete round robin and each team plays all the others (though I am not certain of this and don’ t have the inclination to look it up). If that’s the case, that to me is just as solid as a championship game in those conferences that decide to split into divisions.

I haven’t seen nearly as much politicking from the OU crowd in this debate, probably because they need Texas Tech in the picture. Suffice it to say, all three teams have had incredible seasons, and the fact that we’re trying to use logical argument to settle an illogical situation merely illustrates what a farce the BCS is. How ridiculous would it be if OU lost to Oklahoma State this weekend, Texas Tech went to KC and won the Big 12 title, and Texas ended up playing in the national title game? I guess that may be the scenario I root for, because it would surely be the downfall of the BCS, although we’ve thought that before (ahem, 2001 and 2003, ahem). Sorry, Red Raider fans, you’re being screwed by the groupthink that says you don’t get a second chance if you’re not a “name” program. Join the club.

Very well done, sir. Great write-up. No doubt about it, the “name” programs get breaks that others do not. Though, it is interesting that even those elite programs can feel slighted. USC feels like they are getting jobbed this year. Texas feels like they are getting screwed. When it comes down to it, we all have a chance to win every game we play. And that is what makes college football great. Tech, big school or not, was 45 points away from a MNC appearance.

Also, in 2002, you fail to mention that Texas (11-2 with a head to head win over your Wildcats) did not get an at large bid either. Texas was sent to the Cotton where Roy Williams & Co.beat up on LSU.

not disagreeing with your case that there is a bias towards some schools, but didn’t the situation you outline include USC losing a tie-breaker for the Pac-10 Championship with Wazzou? IOW, USC was invited to the BCS as the co-conference champions, while Kansas State was ignored as a team that couldn’t even win its own division.