The 1998 12-Team Playoff Night Thread (12/02)

And so we begin!

In real life, the BCS national championship was 11-0 SEC champion Tennessee vs 11-1 ACC champion Florida State. The Volunteers beat the Seminoles1FSU has a monetary partnership with the Seminole tribe, and through this endorsement defends its use of the Seminoles nickname. They claim “The Florida Seminoles are our partners, not our mascots. The Seminole Tribe of Florida ensures that any display of its culture and symbols are consistent with both the Tribe’s and the university’s values.” So I guess 80,000 fans tomahawk copping and doing the “war chant” continuously throughout games is Fine, Actually. Indulgences: not just for Middle Ages Catholics! and became the first BCS national champions.

FSU were pretty lucky to have made it in at all; heading into the last week of the regular season, undefeated UCLA and Kansas State teams ranked ahead of them. Fortunately for them, UCLA dropped its game with Miami (rescheduled from the earlier in the season, thanks to Hurricane Georges) and Kansas State lost the Big XII championship game to Texas A&M, knocking both teams below Bobby Bowden’s dynasty.

In real life, Kansas State still ranked #3 in the BCS, but would up not making a BCS bowl at all. As a non-champion they did not receive an automatic bid (6 of 8 spots in the BCS were reserved for the AQ champs), and the at-large spots went to Big 10 runner-up Ohio State2Who actually ranked above Big 10 champion Wisconsin; the two didn’t play each other, and this was before the Big 10 had a championship game, so such things used to happen. Officially, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Michigan were co-champs (all having a 7-1 conference record) and Wisconsin was awarded the sole title because they had gone the longest without it, which yes, used to be the Big 10’s primary tiebreaker. Surprisingly egalitarian! and SEC also-ran Florida, both of whom had much larger fanbases for better TV ratings. KSU would get a nothing bowl against unranked Purdue, prompting the BCS to change its rules to force the highest ranked non-champ to be one of the at-large selections.

In my simulation we get to avoid all that mess. In addition to Tennessee and FSU, UCLA takes the #3 spot as Pac-10 champion, and 11-2 Texas A&M rides their upset victory in the Big XII championship to the final bye at #4. 11-1 Kansas State falls to #5 thanks to not being a champion, but their high ranking allows them to host #12 Syracuse, champions of the Big East. (It also allows them a quarterfinal rematch with the Aggies, provided they take care of business against the Orange) Ohio State is #6, the highest seeded Big 10 team despite not technically being the conference champ. They get #11 Nebraska, here at 9-3 as the most controversial selection. 9-2 Virginia, Arkansas, and Georgia Tech all ranked higher in both the AP and Coach’s polls, while the latter also ranked 11-1 Air Force (champions of the Western Athletic Conference, who low-key also have reason to be mad at 9-3 Big East champ Syracuse for leapfrogging them as the final champion auto-bid) and 9-3 Michigan (Big 10 co-champs, technically) above the Cornhuskers. But for whatever reason, the mix of human polls and computer rankings that made up the BCS formula liked Nebraska that year, so they sneak in.

Arizona, runners-up in the Pac-10 at 11-1, are in and hosting undefeated Tulane, champions of Conference USA. Tulane is ranked this low despite a perfect record due to their weak schedule, the sort of thing that both makes sense and is deeply unfair, since Tulane’s conference mates not being great at football isn’t really Tulane’s fault. In real life Tulane simply had to wonder what might have been, but in this simulation they’re in (and ranked above power-conference champ Syracuse!). Our final matchup sees #8 Florida, runners-up in the SEC East division with a 9-2 record, hosting 10-1 Wisconsin, official Big 10 champs who are a bit underseeded imo. I’m sure in this universe there is much gnashing of teeth about sheltered Florida (who famously didn’t schedule non-conference road games outside of the state of Florida) getting to host Wisconsin rather than being made to travel to Madison in December. It would have been below freezing that day in Madison, so the hypothetical Gators really dodge a bullet here.

What do you think? Any teams you’re happy to see get a shot? Any teams you feel got screwed over? Anyone you think is getting a benefit of the doubt they don’t deserve? Whatever you think, join us next time as we seed the 1999 playoffs.