Two Teams in the BCS Bowls, a Valid Excuse?

Ask any of my college room mates, I was calling the Big Ten overrated way before it was cool. So when an Ohio State fan on a chat room blamed the BCS bowl games always taking two Big Ten teams for the conference's poor Bowl records I presented my hastily gathered case against him. His accusation did not catch me off guard, I often thought about the consequences of having two BCS bowl teams, but had never explored it fully. Well, here it is: the inside and outside look at the claim that two teams in the BCS Bowls can really hurt a conference's bowl record.

The claim by the Buckeye was true, the Big Ten constantly puts two teams in the BCS games. In 2006 the National Championship game was added to the four BCS games, giving us a grand total of five BCS bowl games. Since 2005, a year before two more slots opened, the Big Ten has put two teams in the BCS bowl games every year. Lately they aren't doing so hot in those BCS bowls. Since winning both games in 2005 when Penn State beat Florida State in an overtime instant classic kind of game and Ohio State was given a gift of a game against Notre Dame, the Big Ten has lost six straight BCS games. More often than not over the three year stretch the Big Ten team was also on the wrong side of an ass whooping.

The Ohio State fan was also correct about his claim that the BCS gave the Big Ten a tougher bowl schedule. When a conference puts two teams in the BCS one of them no longer counts in the conference hierarchy, thus the at-large team that received a BCS Bowl is left out of the conference standings as far as the non-BCS bowl games are concerned. The number three team bumps up to the number two spot and plays a tougher bowl game and so on down the line. Over the past six years the Big Ten put two teams in the BCS five times, the Big XII has accomplished that feat four times, the SEC has put two in the last three years running, the ACC, Big East and Pac-10 have never put two teams in the BCS. So obviously conferences putting two teams into the BCS gives it tougher match-ups. But, we are here to determine how much tougher.

Over the last five Bowl Seasons the Big Ten has had four losing seasons, all of them coinciding with the year they had two teams playing in the BCS Bowl games, and one .500 season the year that they had only one. That would point towards the Ohio State fan being absolutely correct; while not having winning seasons when they had one BCS team they did do better and have an even Bowl season. However the data for the other two conferences points the opposite way. The years the SEC had two teams in the BCS they had winning, and very good, records in the Bowl Seasons, the years they did not have two teams they had .500 Bowl Seasons, it seems they do better with tougher schedules. When the Big XII has two BCS bowl teams they have winning records, without two they have one winning and one losing bowl record. Like the SEC the Big XII also preformed better with two teams in the BCS Bowl games.

Looking at that data I don't think the Big Ten can complain about the two BCS bowl games, but there are a list of other reasons that I came up with for them, and I am not even going to list the ever-popular "lack of team speed" as one of them.

From what I can tell there are two forces that pull Big Ten at-large teams into the BCS when they don't have the best resume. The first is the Rose Bowl, which I have already talked about, a since the 2007-2008 Bowl season has the guarantee of the classic Big Ten versus Pac-Ten match up. This mechanism has only happened once, but in the 2007 season Illinois catapulted seven or eight teams with better at-large cases because Ohio State was in the National Championship game and the Rose Bowl wanted its precious match up. To make a long story shot USC destroyed them. The second force is what I call the Notre Dame attraction. This is simply name-recognition, and an example of that force is this years Ohio State. Both Boise State and TCU were ranked higher than the Buckeyes and the Rose Bowl had Penn State, but the fan base of Ohio State and the prestige of the name put them in the Fiesta Bowl over the two non-conference teams. (Texas Tech was also ranked higher but only two teams from a conference can have BCS bowl bids.)

As for losing Bowl records with the non-BCS bowl games there is one huge fact: the Big Ten has a a very tough set of tie-in's. The two and three teams go to play SEC two and SEC four. In case you were wondering the SEC is good. The Big Ten four goes to play the Big XII four, and the Big Ten six the Big XII six. The Big XII, also good. So besides having the absolutely brutal trend that the Big Ten winner either plays in the National Championship game or against the seven year running Pac-10 champion Trojans, the Big Ten has two forces pulling in at-larges to face higher ranked opponents. Add on top a tough bowl tie-in ladder that pits four teams against the best two conferences over past five years and you have a much more legitimate set of reasons than the two BCS Bowl team argument. Also your team speed is holding you back.

So never let anyone say I am not fair to the Big Ten, I am a college football fan and an honest enough man who cares about the facts. While everyone else is happy knowing that the Big Ten sucks, I am determined to show WHY the Big Ten Sucks.