Undisputed Champs?

The Auburn Tigers are my national champions. Not because I think they are without a doubt the best team in the country. But because I think they could be the best team in the country, and I think that someone besides them needs to recognize that.

Everyone seems really quick to call USC the undisputed national champs. And why not? They went through their Pac10 schedule, undefeated. They went in and thrashed an Oklahoma team that no one could have ranked lower than 3rd in the nation. Everyone was calling for a great game, and USC came in and dominated.

However, to quote Lee Corso, not so fast my friend. USC did dominate. But they still aren't the only team to come through a major conference with a perfect record. Everyone is quick to say that USC would beat Auburn. This is where I find fault.

• USC caught OK on a bad night. OK lost all momentum on that terrible punt "return". As the analysts have been saying all day, OK just never looked the same after that. That just wasn't Oklahoma.
• Auburn blew out a few very highly ranked teams of their own. The 34-10 score of the #8 Tennessee game (on the road) is more of a blow out than it looks. Same with the 24-6 win over #5 Georgia and the 16-13 win over #10 Virginia Tech. So to compare to Auburn's 5 wins over top 15 teams, USC beat only 3 ranked teams all year (a very overrated Cal team at #7, #2 Oklahoma, and #19 Arizona State).
• When Auburn dominated teams, it showed up in the form of 14-24 point wins, as opposed to the 20-30 point wins USC racked up over insignificant teams. This is due to their style of play and their offense, not their talent level or quality as a team.
• I don't much understand all the strength of schedule rankings, but anyone should be able to see that the SEC is a far superior conference to the Pac10 (As a Michigan fan, I wanted Cal in the Rose Bowl so badly, as I knew we would get the same credit for a win over Cal or Texas, but that a win over Cal would have been significantly easier. What had Cal done this year? Lost to USC by only 6? Ha! But I digress).

The point of this post is NOT to say that Auburn is better than USC. It is not to say that I think that Auburn would beat USC in a head-to-head match-up. The point is that to call USC the undisputed national champion is unfair to Auburn. Why should they not get a shot? I would have to say that after last night, I think they would put up more of a fight than Oklahoma did.

I think that one of the reasons that it bothers me so much that everyone is so content to just give the title Undisputed Champions to USC is that this situation reminds me of the last time that two teams went through major conferences undefeated, 1997. Most analysts claimed that Nebraska was far and away the best team in the country. Yet Michigan went undefeated, and because of bowl conference-tie-ins at the time, Michigan and Nebraska didn't get a chance to fight it out on the field. They rightfully split the AP and ESPN championships that year. This year seems no different to me.

Need further evidence? Why did people refer to USC as the defending champs coming into this game? Last year, they didn't even have a perfect season. They had a loss. And they didn't go to the BCS championship game. They beat an (as much as I hate to say it) overrated Michigan team in the Rose Bowl. Yet somehow they grabbed half the national title. This year Auburn tops that performance. They went undefeated in the SEC.

Until some arrangement can come about where Auburn and USC can play each other to determine the true champion, there is no fair way to do this but to split the title. But USC looked better to you this season? Tell that to ohio state two years ago going up against Miami. Tell that to the Detroit Pistons going into the Finals against the Dream Team Lakers. Tell that to the Red Sox down 0-3 to the Yankees. No, forget that. You can't give someone a championship because they look better to you. If that's how you like sport, go watch figure skating. Or a dog show. In football, if you aren't going to settle it on the field, there is no choice but to split the championship.