National Championship? The case for America's darlings

(This is Part one in a two-part series where Taylor and I debate whether or not Notre Dame deserves to play in the National Championship Game. Check out Taylor’s part 1 arguing why not here)

                The debate about whether or not Notre Dame deserves to be in the National Championship not really an indication of the flaws and merits of the BCS as a whole.  It is of my opinion that because of how the process works Notre Dame deserves to be the leader in the National Championship conversation.  The BCS bills itself as a regular season based format where every week should be treated like the post season and every week.  The system claims to attempt to put the two best teams in the National Championship game every year but actually that is not its end goal.  A regular season that acts as a post season has to give major precedence to undefeated teams.  It has historically done so except with regard to mid majors who have had weaker schedules, like my personal favorite Boise State. 

                Part of the discussion for me to is the lack of relative strength of the SEC this year.  Personally I don’t think the SEC is as strong as it historically has been, it is a conference that includes a lot of bottom feeders and whose top 6 teams: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina and Texas A&M have a combined 2 wins against top 25 non SEC teams.  The two wins are quite impressive, Alabama’s dismantling of Michigan and Florida’s victory over Florida St but again that is only 2 games.  The rest of the SEC is just plain bad, seriously Vanderbilt might be the next best team outside of those 6, kind of scary.  This is a group of team’s that have beaten and looked impressive against each other and bad teams but not much else.  Look at Jeff Sagarin’s conference rankings they aren’t even the top ranked conference, coming in 2^nd behind the Big 12.  

                Basically the argument boils down to 3 teams in the discussion for being in the National Championship over Notre Dame, the teams are Oregon, Florida and Kansas St.  Personally I am of the belief that Notre Dame deserves its place there, not because it is better but because they have done what the system has asked of them better. 

                Let’s start with Oregon.  The simplest argument is that Oregon’s one loss came to Stanford a team that Notre Dame beat so Notre Dame deserves to be in the National Championship ahead of them.  Honestly though this is poor logic and far too simple an explanation.  Well first let’s look at their respective resumes; from Jeff Sagarin’srating Oregon played the 31^st hardest schedule in football while Notre Dame played the 30^th so I’d say that is a tossup.  Now obvious Notre Dame has the advantage in record being undefeated compared to Oregon’s one loss.  Now look at their play against common opponents, of which there were 2, Stanford and USC.  Based on these two performances I’d say that Notre Dame has the slight edge but it’s basically a tossup.  Notre Dame beat Stanford in a controversial overtime game while Stanford was able to hand Oregon their 1^st loss of the season in a 3 point overtime game.  Against USC both teams’ top units excelled while their inferior units struggled as Notre was able to win 22-13 led by their defense while Oregon won 62-51 on the strength of their offense.  In their other games while Notre Dame has the impressive victory over Oklahoma in Norman they struggled at times against inferior teams that they should have dominated.  Oregon doesn’t have a win as impressive as Oklahoma, though they did beat Oregon St. handily they dominated the rest of the schedule not playing in another close game, I’d give Oregon the slight edge in games there.  Now on to which team I think should be favored on a neutral field, I’d give Oregon a slight edge maybe 3 points but honestly considering how impressive Notre Dame’s defense has been I could see them playing a game like Stanford did and really slowing down Oregon’s prolific attack.  All things considered if the resumes of two teams are this close I give the edge to the team with the better record and that team is Notre Dame.

                Now onto Kansas St.  To me the case against Kansas St is quite simple they just aren’t as good as Notre Dame.  Even though Kansas St played a harder schedule 24^th hardest compared to Notre Dame’s 30^th, the overall resume Kansas St presents is less impressive.  Their most impressive victory isn’t all that impressive in comparison to Notre Dame as they beat a Oklahoma team by 5 in comparison to the 17 that Notre Dame beat them by and they don’t have a 2^nd win as impressive as their victory over Stanford.  Also they got dominated by Baylor a 6-5 team whose 2^nd most impressive victory was against a 7-5 Texas Tech team.  In my mind the loss takes them out of the discussion, a game like prevents you from going to the National Championship. 

                Florida on the other hand has the most impressive case of any 1 loss team that would compare with Notre Dame for a spot.  To me there is actually a case that Florida has been more impressive this season than Alabama, but since they won’t get to the SEC Championship game and I don’t think they are as good they won’t get the chance to prove it.  They have played the 13^th most difficult schedule in football this season, losing 1 game an 8 point loss to currently 3^rd ranked Georgia in Georgia and have won every game they have played besides that.  This includes victories over Texas A&M, a dominating victory over South Carolina, and wins over LSU and Florida St.  Without question this team has a more impressive array of victories than Notre Dame.  Well there are 2 parts to why I say Florida doesn’t deserve a spot for 1 I just don’t think the SEC is as good this year as in years’ past like I noted above.  Notre Dame also gets a bad rep for playing close games against inferior teams something they have unquestionably done, but guess what so has Florida.  They beat Bowling Green by 13, scored 16 offensive points against mediocre FCS team Jacksonville St, and a 7 point victory over Louisiana-Lafayette.  To me this doesn’t make up for the loss on the resume that Notre Dame doesn’t have.  They might be favored on a neutral field, but personally I don’t think the team is as strong as Oregon and I don’t think the difference is large enough to make up for the one loss. 

                Also quick note on Ohio St.  Even if they were eligible to go to the National Championship they wouldn’t deserve to play in it, they had the 51^st easiest schedule in football this season

                There are a lot of different arguments to be made for who deserves to go to the National Championship game this season.  To me though it is clear that Notre Dame deserves without question to go there.  They were able to put together an undefeated schedule against a schedule that ranked comparably to the likes of Oregon, Alabama and Kansas St and often did so in impressive fashion.  While you can pick apart their resume and do so quite intelligently, this team has earned its shot at the National Championship especially in a format that favors undefeated team’s like the BCS does.