Image via WikipediaThe University of Alabama and Louisiana State football teams played another defensive-oriented snoozefest Monday night at the Superdome in New Orleans, but for much higher stakes this time. The Crimson Tide shut out the Southeastern Conference champion Tigers 21-0, claiming their second Bowl Championship Series title in three years. Tuesday, they were voted the top college football team by Associated Press for the eighth time, tying Notre Dame for that honor.Five field goals by Jeremy Shelly and one late touchdown by Trent Richardson were all that was required from coach Nick Saban's team this night. Alabama's defense yielded only one trip beyond the 50-yard line for LSU's offense.
If you had been watching some of the bowl games in the last week or so, you might be forgiven if you thought you were watching college basketball by mistake. The highest-scoring Rose Bowl in history? Seventy points by West Virginia at the Orange Bowl? Baylor 67, Washington 56 at the Alamo Bowl? Compared to those, Alabama and LSU's combined 36 points in two games harkened back to the days of leather helmets and H-shaped goalposts.
With all the scandals and reshuffling in college football, it's interesting to note that SEC schools have won the last six national championships. It seems that, in terms of quality football, there's the SEC and there's everybody else.
Everyone gripes about the BCS and its system of determining who gets to play in the championship game without messing with the existing bowls (this year's main gripees were Oklahoma State and Boise State), but no one does anything about it. As this is written, members of the BCS are meeting to see how they can tweak the format a little. Any changes won't take effect until after the current TV contract with ESPN concludes, which should be after the 2013 season. Even then, nobody will be truly happy with whatever they decide. But that's how it is in college sports. Everyone has to protect their little fiefdoms.
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