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Reflections on college football's postseason

Submitted by administrator on Tue, 01/08/2008 - 16:59

After 32 games covering 17 days ended with LSU's 38-24 victory over Ohio State in the Bowl Championship Series title game Monday night in New Orleans, the marathon college bowl season is finally over.So what did we learn from the postseason that followed the season for the ages? Consider these nuggets:-- ACC BEATDOWN GOES ON: How long has it been since an ACC team won a BCS bowl game? Try Florida State's 46-29 win over Virginia Tech (then of the Big East) in the Sugar Bowl in January 2000, which clinched the national title for the Seminoles. Remember when Bill Clinton was president? Lance Armstrong had just won his first Tour de France? The first installments of "The Matrix'' and "Austin Powers'' movies were released? As those franchises have soared, the ACC has crumbled with its champion dropping eight straight BCS contests, the latest Va. Tech's 24-21 loss to underdog Kansas in the Orange Bowl.Overall, ACC teams went 2-6 in bowls, but are still a respectable 19-17 in the postseason since 2003. Not coincidentally, the ACC's woes at the top can be traced to the decline of the Florida schools. Florida State, which won 11 straight bowls from 1985-95, is 3-5 in the postseason since 2000 and Miami (5-7) missed the postseason entirely for the first time since 1997.Meanwhile the Big East, given up for dead after FSU, Miami and Boston College deserted them for the ACC, now owns the longest BCS bowl winning streak of any conference at three in row thanks to West Virginia's rout of Oklahoma in the Fiesta.-- SEC DOMINANCE?: The SEC's 7-2 postseason marked topped the BCS leagues for the second straight year (it went 6-3 last year) and now has four of the 10 championships of the BCS era. So there's no denying the greatness of the Kings of Dixie, now 28-16 in the postseason since 2001 (best mark in the nation). But before over-the-top SEC fans begin their annual chest pounding, it's important to remember three things:a.) Bowl success can be a fleeting thing. Just ask Oklahoma and Ohio State.b.) It's much easier for SEC teams to play with strength in warm weather bowl climates than it is for Big Ten teams to match the SEC's speed.c.) The SEC was real close to going 4-5 this year. In the Outback Bowl, Tennessee staggered past Wisconsin, 21-17, going scoreless in the second half. Auburn nipped Clemson, 23-20 in overtime, in the Chick-fil-A Bowl while Alabama nearly blew a 27-0 lead, holding off lowly Colorado, 30-24, in the Independence Bowl.-- SEVEN DEGREES OF INSANITY: It's always fun to play the "who beat who'' game. But this one is hilarious. Let's start well down the food chain with Rhode Island, which finished 3-8 in the Division I-AA Colonial Athletic Association. But you can trace the Rams right up to nearly the top of the BCS standings.Follow along. Rhode Island beat Massachusetts, which beat New Hampshire, which beat Delaware, which beat Navy, which beat Pitt, which beat West Virginia, which beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. So there you have it. Rhode Island, which averaged 3,436 fans per home game, is on par with the mighty Sooners.-- WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES: This time last year, Boise State was the toast of college football, its bag of tricks having just toppled Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. It looked like more of the same this year when the Broncos ripped off nine straight wins and carried a 10-1 mark into their WAC title showdown at Hawaii Nov. 23. But the Warriors blew past BSU, 39-27. And in Boise's return trip to the Islands Dec. 23 for the Hawaii Bowl, East Carolina edged the 13-point favorite Broncos, 41-38. That made the Pirates (8-5) the biggest underdog to win this bowl season.-- NO LONGER GIANT-KILLERS: Just a few years ago, the Mid-American Conference proudly flew the flag for non-BCS schools. Behind talented quarterbacks such as Miami of Ohio's Ben Roethlisberger and Marshall's Byron Leftwich, the MAC was the fly in the ointment for college football's elite. But in three bowl losses this year, MAC representatives Central Michigan, Ball State and Bowling Green were outscored 166-75, including Tulsa's 63-7 drubbing of BGSU Sunday night in the GMAC Bowl, the most lopsided postseason game ever.-- TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN: The Mountain West wound up with the best bowl mark of any conference going 4-1. Now beating the likes of Nevada, Navy, Houston and coach-less UCLA isn't exactly like winning the SEC East. But consider that the combined bowl mark of the other four non-BCS-conferences (Conference USA, WAC, MAC and Sun Belt) was a dismal 4-10.BYE-BYE BIG TEN: At 3-5 in bowls, the Big Ten now has a 14-22 postseason mark the last five years (worst among BCS conferences) and hasn't had a winning bowl season since 2002. Defense was the reason this year as Big Ten teams gave up an average of 32.6 points per game in bowls.(E-mail John Lindsay at lindsayj(at)shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)