This past Saturday was the day college football teams really had to prove their worth. The top teams in the country had to solidify their spots in BCS bowl games and prove they were worthy of their high rankings. Most teams did very well and proved their performance throughout the entire season.
Louisiana State University is the No. 1 team in the country. The LSU Tigers haven’t lost this year and generally the box scores of their games show how much they really thrashed their opponents.
They were playing Georgia, which is not a bad team at all. LSU struggled in the early going and were down 10-7 at half. But LSU stormed out in the second half and didn’t let the Bulldogs score again. LSU took them down 42-10, solidifying a spot in the BCS championship game. Their opponent is still up in the air at this point. There are a few teams that feel they deserve the spot.
One team that hopes to take on LSU is Oklahoma State. The Cowboys have destroyed opponents this year, their only loss coming in a double overtime defeat at Iowa State.
The Cowboys played Oklahoma on Saturday in a rivalry game that was sure to be very exciting. But Oklahoma State jumped out quickly to a 24-0 lead and never looked back. The Cowboys ended up beating the Sooners 44-10.
The Cowboys feel like this should prove their place in the title game against LSU. But it comes with some debate over if Alabama should be playing in the title game or not.
Although these two teams were able to win and prove themselves, there were a few teams that could not pull out wins this weekend. The biggest upset was No. 6 Houston dropping its game against No. 24 Southern Mississippi. The Cougars kept the game close in the first half, but as the second half slipped away, perhaps so did quarterback Case Keenum’s dreams of a BCS game and Heisman Trophy.
The other team that couldn’t quite get it together was Virginia Tech. The Hokies were playing Clemson, which had a respectable season thus far. But most figured that Tech would run over the Clemson Tigers in this one. It turned out, after a close first half that ended in a 10-10 tie, Clemson ran away in the second half and didn’t allow another score. This setback was very detrimental to Virginia Tech’s postseason status.
After this wild weekend, now begins the heat of the BCS debate. In an imperfect system, there is much to debate: which teams actually deserve a shot at the title game and which are just the products of an easy schedule. You can look at all the one-loss teams and could make a case that any of them deserve a shot at LSU in the BCS title game.
In the end, these games are supposed to give us enough to decide who deserves to be in what bowl game. Sometimes they do help us narrow down the real competitors in college football, but there will always be debate on this subject. This year, with so many good teams proving themselves this weekend, it is almost impossible to decide who deserves to play for the national championship.
