College Football Championships with a Plus-One: 2005 Season

The Plus-One idea would have solved plenty of problems during the Bowl Championship Series years, but 2005 is an exception.

The 2005 campaign felt divinely tailored to a specific end, validating the BCS both as a means of determining a national champion in a modern fashion and in upholding the game’s traditions while creating new memories.

Undefeated teams on a season-long collision course, delivering with the greatest game in the history of the sport, played at the site of college football’s first and most illustrious bowl game? Serendipitous.

Given how much better USC and Texas were throughout that season, it’s fair to assume a plus-one would have led to the same championship. Still, the exercise feels like I’m desecrating the College Football Mona Lisa.

*sigh* Nevertheless, let’s examine a 2005 season with a Plus-One Championship.

ROSE BOWL: No. 1 USC vs. No. 3 Penn State

While the 2004 season needed a plus-one, adhering to historic bowl affiliations meant overwhelming No. 1 USC faced an underwhelming Big Ten in Michigan. To quote the philosophical genius of, uh, The D-Generation X Band, “That’s the breaks, little man.”

At least in this case, the Plus-One Rose Bowl functions as more than a stop-gap ahead of the National Championship Game. The stakes for this are pretty simple: Winner advances to play for the title.

Penn State experienced a resurgence after finishes of 3-9 and 4-7 the two previous seasons, beginning a run of four straight campaigns winning at least nine games. Remarkably, the Nittany Lions didn’t even break into the Top 25 until October, after blowing out Minnesota.

A win over Ohio State the following week positioned Penn State to be the beneficiary should USC or Texas have fallen — even despite losing a quintessential trap game to Michigan one week after the Ohio State win.

While I suspect USC would have rolled in this hypothetical matchup, seeing one of college football’s best linebackers of the 2000s, Paul Posluszny, against the Trojans backfield of LenDale White and Reggie Bush could have been entertaining.

SUGAR BOWL: No. 8 Georgia vs. No. 11 West Virginia

Another prospective beneficiary late in the 2005 regular season of a potential USC or Texas loss was LSU. Playing for a state ravaged in the days before the season kicked off, the Tigers went 10-1 en route to the SEC Championship Game.

There, LSU lost to a Georgia team not ranked in the top 10, 34-14.

The SEC Championship Game upset renders this version of the Sugar Bowl of little consequence to the national title — but then, so was the actual Sugar Bowl at the 2005 season’s conclusion. And with these same two teams, it produced an all-timer.

Hurricane Katrina, the same tragedy that provided the backdrop of LSU’s title pursuit, forced the Sugar Bowl to move to Atlanta.

Georgia playing a de facto home game and representing the SEC against a champion from a Big East that took a major hit to perception after conference realignment made the Bulldogs favorites. So, when a freshman quarterback named Pat White took the field and ran circles around the Georgia defense en route to a 21-0 lead, I think it’s safe to say the national audience was stunned.

This game ignited my fandom for White, which lasted throughout his West Virginia tenure, and made me a devotee of Rich Rodriguez’s offensive system. And although it would be a tough climb, the Mountaineers could have made an interesting argument for the Plus-One Championship Game with the right (and numerous) breaks.

One of either Texas or USC dropping its bowl game is a necessity for any of the one-loss hopefuls. West Virginia would then need help from opponents of other one-loss bowl teams — which, even then, may not be enough.

ORANGE BOWL: No. 2 Texas vs. No. 5 Notre Dame

2005 was a fascinating time for Notre Dame football. A Week 2 upset of preseason No. 3-ranked Michigan barely had time to start the hype machine in earnest, as the Fighting Irish lost to John L. Smith-coached Sparty the very next week.

Probably should have been a red flag for Notre Dame.

Nevertheless, Charlie Weis was rewarded with a massive extension on the strength of the Irish’s loss to USC; the infamous “Bush Push” contest that remains among the most iconic moments in the history of a premier rivalry.

But hey, after nearly derailing USC’s national-championship pursuit, why not give the Irish a crack at doing so against Texas? I can’t imagine Notre Dame would have stood toe-to-toe with the Longhorns, but the pairing of historically rich programs in the venerable old Orange Bowl would have been a fun prelude to the Plus-One Championship.

As for Charlie Weis, it’s remarkable how quickly he went from being touted as the savior of Notre Dame football to appearing on TheOnion.com’s homepage under the headline “Fired Charlie Weis Cleans Out His Desk.”

COTTON BOWL: No. 7 Auburn vs. No. 14 TCU

The offseason preceding the 2005 campaign came with no shortage of consternation over Auburn’s exclusion from the 2004 season’s BCS Championship Game. I chalk up much of the aggressive pro-SEC sentiment that bubbled in the later BCS years as a direct response to the slight.

Then, after months of complaints, the Tigers opened ‘05 with a quizzical loss to Georgia Tech.

Credit Auburn, it recovered effectively thereafter, losing just once more in a nail-biter at LSU. The Tigers closed the regular season with a pair of top 10 wins against Georgia and rival Alabama (although the latter was a bit of a tiger of the paper variety that season).

While a shot at the title game with a bowl win might be far-fetched, Auburn’s resume could have been among the strongest to at least sneak into the conversation. One-loss TCU would have had a more difficult argument winning the Cotton Bowl — other outsider conference champions in past (and future) editions of the Plus-One exercise finished with more impressive resumes, despite the Horned Frogs’ Week 1 win at Oklahoma.

Still, TCU’s feisty defense, a hallmark of Gary Patterson’s teams, would give plenty of opponents fits. Drawing an SEC opponent ranked in the top 10 at the nearby Cotton Bowl, a game the Horned Frogs hadn’t played in since 1959, would have been a huge milestone for a program on the rise.

Almost as huge as producing the Heisman Trophy winner, which TCU should have in 2000. But that’s a topic for a future newsletter.

FIESTA BOWL: No. 4 Ohio State vs. No. 9 Miami

The 2003 Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State began Miami’s descent from the college-football mountaintop. Considering the 2005 season concluded with the unofficially official end of the 2000s Hurricanes’ reign, why not retool history to let the Buckeyes finish what they started?

The last top 10-ranked Miami team until 2017 concluded its season a 40-3 loss in the Peach Bowl against LSU. That functioned as a fitting prelude to 2006, a season most notable for a brawl against winless FIU.

Revisiting this clip and hearing Reece Davis’ reaction to a player bowing after a touchdown is a good reminder that this was less than two years after Joe Buck lost his mind about Randy Moss fake-mooning Packers fans.

As for 2005 Miami, the Hurricanes won some meaningful games — chief among them a rout of then-No. 3-ranked Virginia Tech — but were most noteworthy for the infamous Seventh Floor Crew song.

Unfamiliar with the Seventh Floor Crew? Well…I present the following with an all-caps, bold-typed CONTENT WARNING.

HOLIDAY BOWL: No. 6 Oregon vs. No. 18 Texas Tech

While not as devastating as the misfortune that doomed Oregon’s national title aspirations two years later, Dennis Dixon’s torn ACL in 2007 wasn’t the only time a late-season quarterback injury derailed the Ducks.

Oregon finished the 2005 regular season at 10-1, the sole loss coming to USC in September. However, Kellen Clemens went down in the final weeks and the Ducks didn’t exactly match their top 10 billing. A loss to unranked Oklahoma in the Holiday Bowl confirmed as much.

And while this exercise is based entirely on hypotheticals, I’m not rewriting injury history. Chances are that the Holiday Bowl against a quietly strong Texas Tech team that finished the regular season 9-2 would not have gone well without Clemens. However, a Ducks win and Texas losing (or, more realistically, Texas and USC) could have sent Oregon to the Plus-One Championship.