College Football Championships with a Plus-One: 2002
When we last left on this project chronicling each of the BCS seasons with a plus-one postseason format, we dove into the train wreck 2001 season. A Nebraska team that failed to win its conference went on to get absolutely pummeled in the national championship matchup with Miami — which, in fairness to the Huskers, would have likely been the case for any opponent the BCS put before the Hurricanes that season.
Results aside, 2001 exposed some truly glaring flaws in the system. 2002? Not so much.
The ‘02 campaign ended nice and neatly with two and only two undefeated teams in Div. I-A. Those unbeatens — Miami and Ohio State — delivered on one of the most memorable championship games of the BCS era, too1!
As noted at the beginning of this exercise, the Plus-One would not have been perfect every season — and in rare instances, not necessary. Having an undefeated Ohio State play a Rose Bowl in order to get to Miami might be punitive, but them’s the breaks.
ROSE BOWL: No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 7 Washington State
Interesting note, this Granddaddy is a rematch! In another sad reminder that non-conference scheduling in the early days of the BCS was considerably more ambitious and interesting, Washington State visited the Horseshoe in Week 3. Ohio State won, 25-7.
I like to avoid pitting teams against one another twice for this exercise if I can help it, but here…I can’t help it. Iowa could theoretically occupy the Big Ten’s place, having finished 8-0 in conference, but the Hawkeyes’ non-conference loss to Iowa State gives the Buckeyes the tiebreaker.
By virtue of its head-to-head win over USC, Washington State won the Pac-10 championship in 2002 and earned the conference’s Rose Bowl bid. The Cougars’ victory on the Palouse played out as a prequel to the matchup 15 years later, with Wazzu in each instance ostensibly keeping the Trojans out of the national championship picture.
It’s likely the Rose Bowl plays out like the mid-September meeting of these teams — but, as this Ohio State team proved in Tempe, likely isn’t definitely. And a Cougars win in Pasadena would have changed the title landscape.
SUGAR BOWL: No. 4 Georgia vs. No. 6 Kansas State
Two teams enter the plus-one postseason with the most direct paths to jump into the National Championship Game: One of them is SEC champion Georgia. Behind David Greene and Musa Smith on offense and — sigh — David Pollack on defense, the Bulldogs won the conference with impressive wins at Alabama and Auburn, a hard-fought defeat of Tennessee, and an SEC Championship Game blowout of Arkansas.
The lone blemish was a one-score loss to Florida in Jacksonville. With one of the two undefeated teams losing their bowl game and Georgia winning the Sugar Bowl, the Bulldogs would have a strong case for the National Championship Game.
Kansas State did not win the Big 12 in 2002, or even its division. An early-season loss to Colorado gave the Buffs the tiebreaker, and CU went on to lose to the conference title game to Oklahoma. But K-State closed the regular season with the best ranking by virtue of blowout wins over Iowa State — which, as noted, beat Iowa — and Nebraska, and a key non-conference victory: 27-20 on Sept. 21 vs. USC.
Yet ANOTHER example of the early years of BCS scheduling fostering ambitious schedules. And, in a plus-one scenario, that scheduling could have propelled K-State to the title game.
It’s a multilayered process getting there, but the Wildcats winning the Sugar Bowl; one of either Ohio State or Miami losing their bowl game; and a USC win in the Fiesta Bowl advances K-State.
Considering the Wildcats were playing some of the best football of any team in college football for the final month of the regular season, just maybe the Plus-One ends with a championship in Manhattan.
ORANGE BOWL: No. 1 Miami vs. No. 8 Oklahoma
Top-ranked and unbeaten for 28 months, Miami’s reward is yet another home bowl game serving as an ostensible national semifinal. While not as stacked as the 2001 team, The U remained overwhelmingly dominant throughout much of the 2002 regular season, including a blowout of the Florida2 team that handed Georgia its only loss.
2002 Oklahoma wasn’t as defensively dominant as the Sooner teams immediately preceding it, nor was the offense — while explosive — commanding the same attention as the subsequent years with Jason White and Adrian Peterson emerging as Heisman contenders. For his part, Quentin Griffin put up numbers that would have garnered at least some Heisman buzz in less saturated years…but that’s a matter for another time.
Oklahoma scored some impressive wins, including a two-game sweep of North division champ Colorado, a Red River defeat of Texas, and a 49-3 stomping of Iowa State shortly after the Cyclones’ win over Iowa. But OU also dropped heart-scratchers to Texas A&M and Oklahoma State.
Depending on which version of the Sooners showed up in Miami, the Orange Bowl could have been a championship-altering shootout for the ages, or a miserable experience two years earlier than another disappointment in South Florida.
At least Ashlee Simpson wasn’t yet in the zeitgeist in 2002.
FIESTA BOWL: No. 3 Iowa vs. No. 5 USC
This matchup actually happened, albeit in the Orange Bowl instead of the Fiesta. For weeks leading up to the meeting, I remember modest but not-insignificant kvetching that Carson Palmer beat out Brad Banks for the Heisman; the argument being that Banks splitting regional votes with Penn State running back3 Larry Johnson put the Iowa quarterback at an unfair disadvantage.
While I agree Palmer should have had some Pac-10 competition for the award, I don’t necessarily believe it should have resulted in Banks winning the Heisman. Really, I’m expending a whole lot of words on a controversy that was very short-lived.
USC went into the Orange Bowl and performed the most brutal operation Miami had seen since an opposing crew took a chainsaw to one of Tony Montana’s sidekicks.
Maybe moving the matchup West changes the outcome — Arizona, especially in the ‘90s to early ‘00s, was like 50 percent Iowa transplants — but I doubt it.
The 38-17 Trojans win provided an unofficial launching pad for USC into the next three half-decade of its mini-dynasty. Even in a plus-one format, however, it’s a starting place for the near-future. The head-to-head losses to Washington State and K-State make a path for USC into the National Championship Game impossible.
It wasn’t pass interference.
That’s ANOTHER marquee non-conference matchup.
…turned libelous social-media conspiracy theorist.