Oh fuck yes

2007 was a famously chaotic season, maybe the craziest the sport has ever seen. I do not have the time nor the ability to share every fun little anecdote about a season where Cal, USF, Boston College, Kansas, and West Virginia all ranked #2 at some point. If you’re curious, you can learn more here, since SB Nation covered it back when they had the best CFB coverage in the nation, before the death of digital media (combined with Vox leadership that didn’t think any city besides New York or DC actually existed) scattered them to the winds.

But for all the season’s wild plot twists, the BCS championship looked almost normal. Big 10 champ vs SEC champ, both normal blue bloods. Really the only sign anything was amiss was the “-2” in LSU’s record. The thing about 2007 was, so many teams got upset that we basically looped around and wound up back at normal. SEC champs LSU, behind a PR campaign emphasizing that both losses came in triple overtime (“unbeaten in regulation”, they called themselves) managed to snag that #2 spot. Virginia Tech might feel a way about that, having ranked above LSU the week prior, and beating a higher-ranked opponent than LSU during championship Saturday1#11 Boston College, vs #14 Tennessee only to see the Tigers leap them at the buzzer. Maybe a 48-7 loss head-to-head back in September made voters think twice about ranking the Hokies over the Tigers. Oklahoma appears to have a case too, from where I’m standing. Same record, conference champs after beating the #1 ranked Missouri Tigers. (Yes, Mizzou were #1 in December, 2007 was buck wild) In my reality, we don’t have to choose. We get a 4-team spread that is, also, disappointingly ordinary.

Down at #5 is another team that felt like they should have been BCS #2, your Georgia Bulldogs. In this year’s edition of “what game did Mark Richt lose that he really couldn’t afford to” it was a loss to Tennessee that kept Georgia out of the SEC title game and out of contention for the BCS title. In real life they were AP #2 after beating Hawai’i in the Sugar Bowl, and even got a couple first-place votes, but they’ll always have to wonder what might have been. Here, they don’t have to wonder.

At #6 is where the real evidence of 2007’s insanity shows up. Missouri, fresh off a Big XII title game upset, falls from #1 (which, again, is what they ranked in December, the final week of the regular season, what the fuck) but remains in our hearts and our bracket. #7 gets back to normal, with Pac-10 champs USC, but their season hides some funkiness. One of their two losses was to Stanford, a terrible team under a new head coach. The Trojans were favored by 41 points, but wound up losing by 1, in what was at the time the biggest upset in the history of the sport,2Quantifying the magnitude of a fun upset is the one and only valid use of betting odds. Do not mention a game’s line to me if it has yet to be played, I’m not that kind of degenerate. kicking off a massive rivalry between Pete Carol and Jim Harbaugh that would extend to the NFL years later.

Our #8 is 11-1 Kansas, even more wild. Now, some will say that Kansas were fraudulent, having an inflated record thanks to dodging Oklahoma and Texas in conference play. I would counter that they’re fucking Kansas, they aren’t supposed to win 11 games against the Sisters of the Poor. Kansas met Missouri, #2 vs #3, in their final conference game, the Border War to end all Border Wars, and if the Jayhawks had won they would have had the inside track to the BCS championship, maybe even with a loss to Oklahoma the next week. Instead, Kansas blew it, their weak schedule kept them out, and even after an Orange Bowl win voters disrespected them with a final AP #7. Well, we shall right this wrong. Kansas is in, and they host…

Oh shit, it’s West Virginia! Yet another unusual suspect who blew the inside track to the playoff. West Virginia were #2 heading into that last week3Yes, the top 2 teams in the nation were Missouri and West Virginia. If they had both simply won we would have had a Mizzou/West Virginia BCS championship game. 2007, man., a seeming foregone conclusion against 4-7 Pitt in the Backyard Brawl. But, fate had other plans. Pitt did that thing they sometimes do and absolutely skunked a far superior opponent, as West Virginia lost an agonizing 13-9 game against, and I quote, “the shittiest fucking team in the fucking world“. In my world, their agonizing rivalry loss doesn’t have to be the end.4And also in my world, they make a deep playoff run, keeping head coach Rich Rodriguez from answering his agent’s calls and prompting Michigan to select Literally Anyone Else as their new head coach to replace the retiring Lloyd Carr. You know, while we’re dreaming.

Hawai’i are the only undefeated team in the nation, and yet rest all the way down at #10. Voters didn’t take them seriously due to an incredibly weak schedule, and for once the undefeated mid major nobody took seriously actually lived down to expectations, as the Rainbow Warriors got blown out by Georgia in that year’s Sugar Bowl. They were the first BCS buster to lose their bowl game, and one of only two during the entire BCS era5Not counting 2009 TCU’s loss to fellow buster Boise State in the Separate But Equal Fiesta Bowl., which is just one of those fun things to keep in mind the next time some ESPN talking head is blathering about an upstart clearly not deserving a spot over some 3 loss SEC team with a famous name.

At #11 we consider Arizona State, Pac-10 runners up and technically conference co-champs. They fumbled their shot in early November, rather than waiting until after Thanksgiving like the cool kids, so they often get lost in the shuffle of 2007’s grand narrative. But any year where Arizona State makes the playoff is a good year.6Oh hey, guess who was in today’s Peach Bowl! 2024 was a pretty good season too, maybe the most chaotic since 2007 Our final participant are the Florida Gators, and you could argue for lots of other teams over them. 9-3 Illinois just miss out, as does 10-3 Boston College, knocked out of the top 12 after losing the ACC championship game to Virginia Tech. You know how I feel about punishing title game underdogs for losing like that. Plus, come on. It’s Boston College. When will they ever have this chance again? Florida won the title last year, their QB won the Heisman this year, they would win the title again next year. They can sit this one out. It’s 2007.