Fiesta Winners: BCS, Ohio State's Pride

Oh Texas, this wasn't it.

This wasn't What You Needed.

In fact, if What You Needed met What You Did in the Fiesta Bowl at a party, What You Needed would suddenly remember it left the iron on at home. If What You Needed had to pick teammates for a 3-on-3 squad between What You Did, Brett Favre and Terrell Owens, you'd be spending more time on the pine than Stephon Marbury. If What You Needed had to pick a wingman between you and Randy Johnson, What You Did might as well just order a pizza and hope there's a Golden Girls marathon on.

After weeks of flapping gums and an entire stimulus package predicated solely on 45-35 signs and airborne banners, the Longhorns finally had a chance to prove it deserved a share of the national title with a standout coda to an excellent regular season.

And Texas, this couldn't have been a more disappointing sequel if it was masterminded by George Lucas.

From the start, Ohio State played like they had a chip on their shoulder the size of Brian Orakpo. Texas played the whole first half like it was stuck at a Christmas party with its inlaws and was just desperately trying to find the first door out.

This was so far from What You Needed, it couldn't get to the game you needed in six degrees of separation if we put Kevin Bacon and every football game played this season.

And against this opponent.

When Ohio State was announced as a BCS team yet again despite doing nothing outside of the Big Ten (and nothing much inside it, the Buckeyes' best win was over Michigan State), Iraqis everywhere hurled their shoes in the general direction of Jim Tressel.

It was Ohio State, after all, a team that treats the forward pass with the same excitement Shawn Kemp shows to a plate of broccoli, a team whose grind-it-out offense is about as hip as Joe Paterno's pantaloons drawer.

And Texas blew it. A 24-21 victory-in-name-only that was decided on a heroic late drive and a just-barely-there spot on fourth down with 16 seconds left.

For the second time this season Texas pulled out a superb late drive.

And for the second time this season, it just didn't matter.

Unlike the Texas Tech comeback, Texas was. But make no mistake, they weren't a winner. That belonged to the BCS and Ohio State's battered pride.

For Ohio State, while the Buckeyes might not admit it, this was a victory. After getting thoroughly embarrassed in its last three appearances on the national stage, this time they merely got beaten. While no one popped a bottle of champagne in the lockerroom, the Buckeyes stock went up. Texas' stock, meanwhile, might get you a few shares of Enron and a cup of coffee.

And no one won bigger than the BCS after yet another doomsday scenario came and went less noise than a preseason WNBA game.

Because if that was a championship performance, as Texas coach Mack Brown insists it was, college football doesn't need a playoff, it needs a truckload of crystal footballs to hand out ever year.

We get it. People don't like the BCS because it robs everyone of what would be unbelievable television, a three or four week playoff to decide college football's championship. It's run by a bunch of university presidents and conference commissioners who couldn't be harder to cheer for if they were giving you a root canal with no anesthetic.

But if you want good television, rent The Sopranos. If you want good football, watch the BCS national championship.

Every year, the BCS pits the No. 1 ranked team versus the No. 2 team ranked team. And this year, like every other year, the wisdom of the coaches' poll, the Harris poll and the 33-percent contribution from six computer models seem to have gotten it dead on accurate.

Texas deserved no part of that national title game. And it had nothing to do with formulas or computers with agendas, it had to do with excellence on the field week in and week out. When they couldn't afford to lose or even show so much as a thread out of place on their uniforms, Florida and Oklahoma executed near flawless football week after week.

Texas had its chance on the field and blew it – twice. Once for the BCS route when safety Blake Gideon literally let the victory slip through his hands against Texas Tech, and once for the AP route against Ohio State.

USC beat Penn State in the Rose Bowl, but it too lost its chance on the field when it couldn't stop a tailback that's only the 5-foot-7 and 193 pounds he's listed at if he's holding two phone books and standing on two more. And when it needed to be perfect afterwards it mixed in offensive clunkers against Arizona and Cal.

And the beauty of the BCS, which, unlike its more celebrated brother the NCAA tournament, is that it's a season achievement, not simply a reflection of which team played the best across the final three weeks of the season.

But even if you can't agree that the BCS generally finds its way to a national champion (and considering the split national title has disappeared from vernacular as quickly as Notre Dame legacy; just once in the BCS era has the title split compared to three times in the decade before), Texas' loss should remind us that there's plenty of time to complain without ruining the best week on the sports calendar.

Maybe Utah will have a case for the national title. And maybe Florida and Oklahoma will play a game so unwatchable Matt Millen will flick it off and then maybe USC has an argument for a national title.

But until that happens, can't we at least take a deep breath, knock back a few pretzels and enjoy bowls season without devoting more ink to the supposed BCS crisis than the economic crisis?

Haven't Oklahoma and Florida done enough to at least earn a shot at proving they're national championship worthy?

Oklahoma beat the nation's No. 1 defense in TCU (and a team, that were its kicker more reliable than an '82 Yugo, could have beaten Utah for the Mountain West title then would've pile-driven Andre Smith-less Alabama into the Superdome turf), the Big East champion Cincinnati, Big 12 North champion Missouri, Texas Tech by 44 and scored 60 points against five consecutive teams, four of which won at least nine games.

Florida beat Alabama, Georgia, Miami and Florida State and scored 56 points against South Carolina's 14th-ranked defense. Don't they at least deserve a chance to play before the national championship gets decided for USC, Utah or whichever BCS bowl winner was most recently televised?

Only Utah has any real reason to feel slighted, but with the Utes' abysmal strength of schedule (which was high enough to be mistaken for an Oklahoma score or the age of Alex Rodriguez's latest conquest), it's difficult to argue that wins over Oregon State, Alabama and TCU make for the kind of resume Oklahoma or Florida, which beat nine bowl teams in 10 tries, can trot out. But give Kyle Whittingham's club credit for trying. They scheduled Michigan before Rich Rodriguez turned that team into a college football tribute to his 401k account, but a win in the Big House just doesn't mean what it used to.

Is it fair? Maybe not, but sports has never been the realm of fair. Is it fair that the Yankees can spend more money than John Daly's beer budget in the offseason while the Royals dig through their couch for a free agent signing? Is it fair that major conference teams get into the NCAA Tournament with sub-.500 records when mid-majors get left out?

If you want fair, watch Judge Judy. Sports are rarely so, particularly if you're a non-BCS school.

But if we need to scrap the BCS, get rid of a formula that guarantees every year we get the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked team meeting head to head, something that has happened just twice in the BCS era in the college basketball tournament (according to the RPI) and just once for the national title, we need something great to prove another system is definitively better and not just more entertaining.

And, oh Texas, this wasn't it.