What if there'd been a four-team playoff in 2008?
One of the most contentious years in recent college football history, the 2008 season had a number of qualified applicants for the National Championship ultimately won by Tim Tebow's Florida Gators.
I was a student at the University of Texas in 2008 and can remember that season as vividly as any other in college football history. The Longhorns came within a few big plays in Lubbock of finishing the season undefeated and proceeding to the National Championship where they would have faced off against Florida.
Instead Mike Leach’s best Texas Tech team beat them on a long touchdown pass in the final seconds before themselves getting ROLLED by Oklahoma in the “jump around” game, which now very amusingly began with a pregame spot by Donald J. Trump praising his friend Leach and predicting a Red Raider victory. Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech finished in a 3-way tie for the Big 12 South lead, each with a victory and loss against the other two.
The league’s tiebreaker dictated that the team with the highest BCS ranking would be advanced to the Big 12 Championship to play the DOA Big 12 North winner in order to increase the chances of the league getting their champion into the final. I recall tuning in for the announcement and noting that Fox Sports had invited Barry Switzer into the booth for the big reveal. “Oh no…”
Sure enough, Oklahoma’s run of 60-point outbursts and victories since their loss in the Red River Shootout combined with some helpful boosts from other coaches (Baylor’s Art Briles had OU no. 1 and Texas no. 5 but then passed the buck when called out in a foreshadowing circumstance), lead to them securing the highest BCS ranking of the Big 12 South teams and advancing.
So we got the Urban Meyer Florida Gators against the last elite Bob Stoops Oklahoma team. Florida won fairly convincingly (24-14) and that was that.
It was a fascinating season with a number of big what-ifs. What if Texas had made the title game, would the results have been the same? What about one of the other teams ranked near the top? What if USC hadn’t lost that fateful road game against Oregon State? What if one of the undefeated G5s had been given a nod?
The final BCS standings before the postseason went:
Alabama (12-0)
Oklahoma (11-1)
Texas (11-1)
Florida (11-1)
USC (10-1)
Utah (12-0)
Texas Tech (11-1)
Penn State (11-1)
Boise State (12-0)
Ohio State (10-2)
Oklahoma was picked to go to the Big 12 Championship, mauled Missouri, and advanced to the BCS Championship where Florida was waiting for them after taking down Alabama in the SEC Championship and jumping over Texas.
But what if there’d been a modern playoff? Could Ian, the guy who couldn’t foresee TCU beating Michigan in the playoffs last year, predict the winner? I’ll try.
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