This season’s real problem? There are just too many dominant teams
This season has sparked a recurring complaint, one that surfaced again following Week 13 scares from Texas and Alabama: There are no dominant teams this season.
There was a time earlier this year when I felt that way myself, but now, with the finish line just a week away, I’d argue this season has suffered from the polar opposite oddity: There are too many dominant teams. Six of them, in fact. The delineation couldn’t be clearer in this week’s BCS standings, which feature six undefeated teams (Florida, Alabama, Texas, TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State) … then no one else with fewer than two losses. Just to punctuate the point, No. 6 (12-0 Boise) even beat No. 7 (9-2 Oregon).
It’s been a top-heavy season, not just nationally, but within most conferences. In addition to the five leagues with official championship games, the Big East (Cincinnati-Pittsburgh), Big Ten (Iowa-Ohio State), Pac-10 (Oregon-Oregon State) and WAC (Boise State-Nevada) all wound up staging unofficial title showdowns. It’s a scheduling coincidence made possible by the fact that, in each case, two teams separated from the pack. (Not so in the Mountain West, where TCU beat its two closest competitors, Utah and BYU, by a combined score of 93-35.)
Finally, this weekend, we get to see two of the Big Six collide when No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Alabama stage their long-anticipated SEC Championship showdown in Atlanta.
“I can’t think of a bigger football game that we’ve been a part of,” Gators coach Urban Meyer said Sunday. “There’s not a whole lot of difference between playing in the [BCS title] game and playing in the SEC Championship. … This is every bit as big.”
SI.com
11/30/9
