http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/cfb/entries/2008/12/01/big_12_not_bcs.html
1.Big 12, not BCS, to blame for Texas-OU mess: Oklahoma finished No. 2 ahead of No. 3 Texas in Sunday’s BCS Standings which means the Sooners will play in the Big 12 championship game against Missouri. The BCS will get blamed for this because the BCS gets blamed for just about everything that goes wrong in college football. In fact, this is the Big 12’s fault. Their fifth tiebreaker in the case of a three-way tie in the division is that the team with the highest BCS ranking wins the spot in the championship game. The SEC has an additional tiebreaker for this situation that simply says that if there is a three-way tie and the top two teams are within FIVE spots of one another in the BCS Standings, then the head-to-head game between those two teams will be the tiebreaker. Under that rule Texas would have gone to the Big 12 championship game because it beat Oklahoma 45-35 on a neutral field back on Oct. 11. Remember how all of us screamed when Florida State went to the BCS championship game over Miami in 2000 after the Hurricanes had won the game on the field? Head-to-head competition matters. Look for the Big 12 to change its rule and adopt the SEC model in the future.
2. Something is wrong at Georgia: Give Georgia Tech all the credit in the world. They beat Georgia, dominated the Bulldogs in fact, to win that game on Saturday. I picked Georgia Tech to win the game because what happened is exactly what I thought would happen. The Bulldogs’ defense was not mentally tough enough nor was it disciplined enough to slow down Paul Johnson’s offense. The issue is not that Georgia failed to meet expectations. Expectations are established by people and people can be wrong. Georgia was a preseason No. 1 but probably shouldn’t have been after the injuries of OT Trinton Sturdivant and DT Jeff Owens. Still, there is something missing in the Georgia program. This team made too many mistakes and penalties and never got better in that phase of the game. Willie Martinez is a good football coach but a team at this level should never get beat after scoring 42 points at home. Head coach Mark Richt says that he is not planning any staff changes. But it is the job of the head coach to identify the problem and fix it. Richt needs to examine every phase of his program because there is something wrong.
Atlanta-Journal Consitution
12/1/08
Magnolia Tribune
