College Football Championships with A Plus-One: The 2006 Season
Welcome back to The Press Break’s Plus-One series. If you are new, or need a refresher, last year we examined Bowl Championship Series seasons 1998 through 2005 with a restructured postseason.
In lieu of the BCS format, I reimagined the championship landscape using traditional bowl-game pairings with the top two winners at the end meeting in a National Championship Game.
The purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate the feasibility of both maintaining one of the sport’s oldest traditions while satisfying public demand for a “true” champion. Admittedly, the first eight years weren’t perfect in achieving the latter goal: Most notably, the 2005 BCS produced a dream finale and the Plus-One would have been not only unnecessary, but borderline annoying in reaching the same destination.
However, seasons like 2000, 2003 and 2004 were perfect for such a system. More often than not, the Plus-One is an improvement from the BCS as well as the College Football Playoff. Let’s see if that trend continues over the latter-half of the BCS era, beginning with 2006.
While the ‘06 campaign concluded with a clear champion and no real controversy, it was hardly as cut-and-dry as the previous season. The controversy-free nature of Florida’s title only became apparent after the bowls were played.
Ohio State and Michigan capped their regular seasons in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup that actually deserved the “Game of the Century” label applied to other such contests, and thus generated some pretty substantial arguments for a title-game rematch1.
However, one could argue with the benefit of hindsight that both Ohio State and Michigan had there credentials inflated playing a weak Big Ten. Yes, the Buckeyes did actually win two 1 vs. 2 matchups that season, but the Texas team Ohio State beat in September, while good, was a clear step down from both the previous year and the 2006 championship-contender class.
Meanwhile, the SEC was loaded.
2006 marked the beginning of the Southeastern Conference’s Reign of Terror. Florida’s rout of Ohio State in the BCS Championship Game kicked off a run of seven consecutive titles that came a single Florida State drive away from lasting the complete duration of the latter half of the BCS era.
SEC football really began to suck the oxygen out of room during this stretch, but not yet in ‘06. For one thing — while in subsequent seasons, the SEC’s collective dominance outside of plainly superior Alabama teams was sometimes grossly overstated — the SEC of 2006 was excellent.
I don’t think it’s unrealistic to suggest the Plus-One could have, and maybe would have, produced an all-SEC championship game — and, unlike the later all-SEC BCS Championship that led directly to the current abomination that is the Playoff, such a matchup would have been earned.
Rose Bowl Game: No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 8 USC
Ohio State goes into this postseason with the most to lose as college football’s sole power-conference unbeaten. The Buckeyes boasted wins over Texas and Michigan, and in many ways, were the last slam-dunk BCS Championship Game choice outside of the SEC until Oregon four years later.
But Ohio State’s ‘90s Super Bowl-style loss to Florida dealt the Big Ten a blow that lingered for almost a decade, and in some ways, began the push for a Playoff in earnest. If that team, which was so thoroughly outclassed, was considered a shoo-in for the championship, maybe the championship process is flawed?
The Plus-One may have remedied that. USC was out of the title hunt for the first time since 2001, but still managed to come out on top of a strong Pac-10. An utterly vexing regular-season finale loss to a mediocre team rightfully removed the Trojans from the national championship conversation, but USC had the talent and played a style that could have just as likely removed Ohio State from the title picture.
The Trojans defense in ‘06 was loaded, most notably in the linebacker corps with Keith Rivers, Rey Maualuga, Brian Cushing and Clay Matthews. That D opposite Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith may have led to a Rose Bowl Game classic.
Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Florida vs. No. 3 Michigan
This stands out as the gem of the Plus-One postseason, the only bowl matchup that functions as a true national semifinal: Win and you’re in, it’s that simple for both teams.
The 2006 Gators arguably reflected Urban Meyer at his strategic peak. Yes, he oversaw better Florida teams in his abbreviated tenure, but maximizing the offense (No. 24 in the nation in scoring) with Chris Leak at quarterback was a masterclass.
Michigan averaged an almost identical scoring output that season, rolling with a big three of Chad Henne at quarterback, Mike Hart at running back and Mario Manningham at receiver. While the Wolverines could put up points, the sometimes stodgy performance of an offense that had clear talent advantages led to Lloyd Carr’s exit just a season later.
Orange Bowl: No. 7 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Louisville
The most disappointing layer to drawing up the Plus-One for 2006 is that a historical Orange Bowl matchup — Big 12 (8) champion vs. Big East — means we’re deprived of one of the greatest college football games ever played.
That said, an Orange Bowl pitting Oklahoma against Louisville could have resulted in similar high drama.
Louisville was a program on death’s door before College Football Mary Poppins Howard Schnellenberger umbrella’d in to save it. On the foundation Schnelly laid, UL steadily grew through the first half of the 2000s and parlayed both football and basketball success as a member of Conference USA into a Big East invite.
The Cardinals emerged atop a wildly fun and competitive Big East in ‘062, their only loss coming in the closing seconds of a personal favorite all-time game vs. Rutgers.
Even after losing erstwhile Heisman contender Michael Bush to injury in Week 1, the Louisville offense was among the nation’s best. I suspect a bowl matchup with Oklahoma would have been as high-scoring and exciting as that year’s Fiesta Bowl — and with the Plus-One, the Cardinals would have had an outside shot at playing for the national championship.
UL would have needed plenty of help: A USC win over Ohio State, possibly Notre Dame knocking off LSU. Not likely, not impossible either.
Fiesta Bowl: No. 9 Boise State vs. No. 6 Wisconsin
Although the 2006 Boise State Broncos were not the first non-BCS program invited to a BCS bowl, they stand out as the most fascinating case.
While Utah two years earlier was relegated to a meaningless matchup with a Pitt team barely ranked in the Top 25, BSU drew a traditional juggernaut in Oklahoma. The Broncos were overwhelming underdogs and thus created an aura akin to March Madness Cinderellas around the football postseason.
What’s more, Utah was a program that boasted plenty of historic success at or near the game’s upper echelon; Boise State was less than two decades removed from playing Div. I-AA competition as a member of the Big Sky Conference, and not long before that, Boise State was a junior college.
The 2007 Fiesta Bowl was a true Cinderella story in every conceivable way — and it added to the rich history of the game itself, which was launched to give a national platform for the champion of the Western Athletic Conference back when Arizona State boasted title-worthy but neglected teams in the 1970s.
A Boise State matchup against Wisconsin in the Fiesta Bowl simply would not have been as fun as the Oklahoma game we got, in part because OU’s uptempo style made for an entertaining back-and-forth. However, Wisconsin at 11-1 was both higher ranked than Oklahoma, and a potential outside candidate for a Plus-One title game in this exercise.
With even greater stakes in Glendale, the 2007 Fiesta Bowl of a Plus-One postseason would not have lost any of its March Madness opening-round mystique.
Cotton Bowl: No. 4 LSU vs. No. 11 Notre Dame
As mentioned above, a 2006 Plus-One championship could very well have produced an all-SEC matchup. And, indeed, I personally think the two best teams in the nation that year were Florida and LSU.
It’s possible — likely, even — that a rematch would have caused backlash akin to the atrocious Alabama-LSU game from the 2011 season’s championship. The Gators cruised to a 23-10 win on Oct. 7 that effectively removed LSU from title contention (the Tigers lost a few weeks earlier to Auburn, 7-3).
However, the LSU offense was markedly better as the 2006 season progressed, averaging 34 points per game over the final seven. That includes a 41-14 pasting in the Sugar Bowl of a Notre Dame that frankly didn’t deserve a BCS invitation.
So with that noted, why pit the Fighting Irish against the Tigers in this exercise knowing how lopsided the matchup turned out? It would be easy to swap Wisconsin in for Notre Dame and set up a potential semifinal.
Well, consider the lesser opponent LSU’s demerit for the two-touchdown loss to Florida.
While the Plus-One would force LSU to earn a rematch, it shouldn’t happen without an abundance of scenarios also going into it. There still has to be some consideration paid to regular-season results.
Peach Bowl: No. 15 Wake Forest vs. No. 10 Auburn
This matchup has no bearing on the National Championship landscape; I mostly wanted to remind readers that Wake Forest won the ACC in 2006.
We’d have to wait five years to get an awful rematch that most of the country didn’t want, and that short-changed the sport in irreparable ways.
I’ve mentioned in the past here at The Press Break that I’ve been compiling research for a deep-dive on the death of the Big East. It’s one of the more infuriating chapters in modern college football history, most strongly underscored by the incredible 2006 season and what’s happened to the primary players in the years since conference realignment shake-ups. Look for that some time this summer.