College Football Championships with a Plus-One: 2003 Season
Ahead of this installment in the Plus-One series, indulge me in a plug. Today I expressed some thoughts on college football media’s initial handling of the Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher spat for Patreon subscribers.
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With that out of the way, let’s fix a football season!
Following a 2002 season when the plus-one format was largely unnecessary, 2003 served as the first and, for years, cornerstone example of why the Bowl Championship Series was flawed.
Upon its launch a half-decade earlier, the BCS was touted as a solution to split national championships, of which there were three in the ‘90s. In 2003, however, the LSU Tigers claimed the BCS Championship for the first of Nick Saban’s seven national titles but USC was awarded the Associated Press crown.
While this was the only time in the BCS era that the AP voted for a national champion other than the BCS winner, it could have happened more frequently1 and it was impactful enough to begin the groundswell against the system in earnest.
A Plus-One champion could have quite easily been a two-game endeavor: Winners of the Sugar and Rose Bowls, USC and LSU, advance to determine an undisputed champion.
Hindsight allows us to make that very easy determination, but the games still had to be played. What if Michigan won the Rose Bowl? And does it not quite sit right with anyone else to allow Oklahoma an unfettered crack at the national championship after getting its ass handed to it in the Big 12 Championship?
Also, for the first time since Marshall in 1999, we have an outsider that could have factored into the conversation. There’s a whole lot of intrigue to 2003 beyond simply the split championship history provided.
ROSE BOWL: No. 1 USC vs. No. 4 Michigan
USC’s exclusion from the 2003 season’s Championship Game ranks among the more confounding happenings of the BCS era. Although the Trojans took an ostensibly “worse” loss than either LSU or Oklahoma — USC dropped a three-point decision to a Cal team on the cusp of being great, but it wouldn’t get over the hump until the next season; LSU fell to Florida and Oklahoma to K-State in the Big 12 Championship — they were absolutely dominant against top-flight competition.
To wit, USC’s AP championship season was bookended with a road blowout of Auburn and a 28-14 Rose Bowl defeat of Michigan that wasn’t as close as the final score indicates. The Trojans built three-touchdown leads in the third and fourth quarters and didn’t give up a point until after halftime.
Despite the regular-season blemish, this was the best overall USC team of the 2002-to-2005 run and arguably the top Trojans squad throughout the Pete Carroll era (2008, which also lost a regular-season game, makes a strong argument). The Trojans had LenDale White, Reggie Bush and Hershel Dennis2 in the running-back rotation, and Mike Williams at wide receiver.
Had I had a Heisman vote back then, Williams would have been in my top 3 — making 2003 a remarkable year with two wide receivers among the most deserving of the award.
SUGAR BOWL: No. 2 LSU vs. No. 3 Oklahoma
A quick but necessary refresher: The Press Break’s Plus-One exercise relies on traditional bowl tie-ins, with a title round following based on the top two teams at bowl season’s conclusion. Traditionally, the Orange Bowl had first dibs on the Big 12 champion — but Oklahoma wasn’t the Big 12 champion. That ends up working to the benefit of this exercise insomuch as we’re guaranteed to avoid having three, one-loss power-conference teams at bowl season’s end.
However, the actual matter is more complex.
That the national title game featured teams that failed to win their leagues twice in three years really damaged the credibility of the BCS. Oklahoma’s case was especially bad PR, given some naively believed after Nebraska put up zero resistance against Miami in 2001 that there would be corrections to the process.
Anyway, the 2004 Sugar Bowl was a dull slog with LSU winning and Nick Saban claiming his first championship. Had the same result played out in our hypothetical scenario, the plus-one title game is USC vs. LSU. Simple enough.
However, I’m not quite as prepared to just usher Oklahoma in with a Sugar Bowl victory. I have no issue with a team that didn’t win its conference claiming the college basketball championship; had North Carolina held off Kansas at this year’s Final Four, the Tar Heels would have done so by defeating half of the 2021 Final Four including the reigning national champion; besting Duke twice; and knocking off the champs of the Big 12.
What’s more, the NCAA Tournament features approximately 20 percent of the entire Div. I membership, still a pretty sizable field to navigate in comparison to the current College Football Playoff setup where three percent is all the makes it. In the BCS era, I don’t understand who a team could be determined one of the two best when it wasn’t the best in its own conference, by the parameters the conference set forth.
That’s not to say Oklahoma doesn’t advance with a win, but it’s not so cut-and-dry. Oh, also: Jason White beating Larry Fitzgerald for the Heisman was preposterous.
ORANGE BOWL: No. 8 Kansas State vs. No. 10 Miami
So the actual Big 12 champion, Kansas State, gets the Orange Bowl bid and faces the game’s fixture in this plus-one exercise, Miami. The Hurricanes dynasty was winding down by this point, with the 2003 squad losing twice. However, The U boasted wins over Florida (the team responsible for LSU’s sole defeat); at Florida State, which was inexplicably ranked ahead of Miami in the final AP poll of the regular season; and a defensive clinic against Fitzgerald and Pitt.
The ‘Canes losses came midway through the regular season in consecutive weeks to Tennessee and at Big East rival Virginia Tech. While the latter was shockingly lopsided, Miami’s combined margin of defeat was the same as Oklahoma’s in just the Big 12 Championship Game.
That, coupled with an Orange Bowl win over K-State, would have given Miami a decent case to leap Oklahoma and play in the Plus-One. Kansas State’s case for the title game at three losses is perhaps a bit more tenuous, though the three all came early in the season and in consecutive weeks to good teams.
What’s more, the grand total of those defeats to Marshall, at Texas and at Oklahoma State were by a combined 15 points — just over half the margin by which K-State but OU. Further, a win over Miami wouldn’t just give K-State back-to-back top 10 wins to close out the campaign, but also a rare road victory against a top 10 team in the postseason.
Is that alone enough reason for the Wildcats to jump the Sooners? Maybe not, but Darren Sproles would have finished ahead of Jason White on my Heisman ballot.
COTTON BOWL: No. 5 Texas vs. No. 6 Tennessee
The BCS Championship Game marked the conclusion of a brutal bowl season for the Big 12. Conference champion Kansas State lost to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, Oklahoma State dropped the Cotton Bowl to Ole Miss, and Texas fell in the Holiday Bowl to Washington State.
By virtue of its ranking, Texas remains in-state rather than going to San Diego in the plus-one scenario, but draws an arguably stronger opponent (at least, in terms of record and ranking) in Tennessee.
Neither team factors into the plus-one conversation directly by virtue of neither winning even its division, say nothing of the conference. Texas took an absolute thrashing in the Red River Shootout, while Tennessee dropped a blowout decision to Georgia.
Because of the consequential games each played in the regular season, however, they provide some residual context to other title-game arguments. For example, Tennessee’s win at Miami earlier in the season becomes more worthwhile with a Vols defeat of the team that provided Oklahoma its signature win.
FIESTA BOWL: No. 7 Ohio State vs. No. 14 Miami (OH)
I noted in a previous installment of the Plus-One series that while other bowl games boast historical ties to specific conferences — the Rose to the Pac-10/12 and Big Ten, Orange to the Big East and Big 12, Sugar to the SEC — the Fiesta Bowl’s historic background is as the showcase for the underdog.
The game launched to give Arizona State specifically but in general the Western Athletic Conference, which was growing into quite a strong league in the 1970s, a high-profile postseason opportunity. Keeping in that tradition, I have tried to place outsiders in the Fiesta Bowl where applicable throughout the Plus-One series.
In 2003 is one of the most overlooked such opportunities missed in real-time.
The precedent for BCS inclusion was, until 2012, that a non-BCS conference team needed to go undefeated in the regular season to even have a chance — and as the exclusions of Tulane and Marshall in preceding years prove, it’s still only a chance.
One-loss Miami University was never seriously considered for a BCS bid in 2003, but the RedHawks really should have been. Their one defeat was to a top 15-ranked Iowa team, and it was in Week 1, meaning Miami U. had the nation’s longest streak by season’s end.
What’s more, the Mid-American Conference was really damn good in 2003.
As previously noted, Marshall scored a win over eventual Big 12 champion Kansas State during non-conference play. That was just one in a variety of high-profile victories for the league against power-conference competition in 2003.
Northern Illinois kicked off the season with a dramatic win over a Maryland team that finished the previous season 11-3. The Huskies later beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Bowling Green notched what’s become sort of the forgotten but most important win of that MAC season when it clipped Purdue, 27-26. The Boilers finished the regular season ranked in the top 15 with one of my all-time favs, Kyle Orton, at quarterback.
BGSU scored a second win over a ranked opponent when it handed Northern Illinois its first loss, given the Falcons the tiebreaker for the MAC West spot in the conference championship game. Before the meeting with NIU, Bowling Green had just one loss: a 24-17 decision at Ohio State, which went into the postseason ranked in the top 10 nationally.
Bowling Green proved its worth and rocketed into the polls by the time it faced Miami U. in one of the first instances of a truly high-profile edition of midweek #MACtion.
The RedHawks did what nationally ranked Big Ten opponents Purdue and Ohio State couldn’t and absolutely dominated BGSU. The regular-season win was the first of two for Miami U., which routed the Falcons a second time in the MAC Championship.
Miami U. also dismantled Marshall, giving the RedHawks a transitive argument over the Big 12 champion. This team deserved a shot on the game’s most prominent stage instead of playing a pre-New Year’s Bowl against unranked Louisville, which was itself still an outsider at this juncture.
A Fiesta Bowl matchup against a top 10-ranked Ohio State keeps the initial spirit of the bowl as a platform for underdogs alive, and creates an interesting dynamic in the plus-one picture. With a handful of end-of-season Top 25 wins and the transitive argument over the Big 12 champion, one could make the case that Miami U. and its nation-leading winning streak should jump Oklahoma in a title-game argument.
Just wait until this exercise reaches 2008 and your boy loses his ever-loving mind.
Expect a commentary some time this summer on Hershel Dennis, who rushed for almost 700 yards and scored four touchdowns in 2003. As Bush’s star rose in 2004 and 2005, there were some who contended Dennis was better suited to being an every-down back — and those arguing so would have had a damn good case.