College Football Championships with A Plus-One: The 2010 Season
Michael Dyer was down.
We got that out of the way? Alright, let’s get down to business. For the second time in its final three hosting the BCS Championship, the greater Phoenix area showcased a fiercely competitive title tilt decided at least in part on a controversial play.
In January 2003, it was the pivotal pass-interference call against Miami that helped Ohio State seal its monumental upset of the defending champion Hurricanes.
Eight years later, the Auburn running back Dyer — in what was his last game as a Tiger — broke off a 37-yard rush that set up the decisive field goal in a 22-19 final.
Would Oregon have won had Dyer been correctly called down?
But that the Ducks were robbed of the opportunity only exacerbates so much of what was wrong with the BCS era, especially as it pertains to the Southeastern Conference’s championship streak from 2006 through 2012.
Those seven years effectively reshaped the college football landscape, as I strongly doubt the conditions necessary to facilitate the present-day move toward a two-conference NFL-Lite gain traction without that run of titles. That the SEC seemingly caught every break and was given every benefit of the doubt to make it possible absolutely sucks.
And, like the tumultuous 2008 campaign, I believe Associated Press voters missed a gift-wrapped opportunity to highlight the absurdity of the system when they didn’t split the national championship with TCU after the undefeated Horned Frogs beat an excellent Wisconsin team in the Rose Bowl Game.
The Plus-One would have been perfect for the 2010 season because it would have given TCU the seat the table the BCS denied it. The No. 3-ranked Horned Frogs fit in perfectly with the three priority-conference champions Oregon, Auburn and Wisconsin.
And, sure, a four-team Playoff theoretically fulfills the same purpose — assuming you’re Pollyanna enough to believe an undefeated TCU would have been invited to the College Football Playoff before one-loss Ohio State.
Maybe running the regular-season table the year prior, as well, would have bought TCU enough cachet similar to Cincinnati in 2021. However, Cincinnati needed every potential power-conference at-large to two lose twice just to eek into the fourth spot1 in the four-team Playoff, so I can’t envision Ohio State or Stanford getting bypassed by a Mountain West team had the tournament existed in 2010.
What’s more, the 2010 season included enough plot twists that major bowl games outside of the purview of the BCS/Playoff formats would have benefited greatly from adopting models of previous eras. To that end, this installment of the Plus-One series looks at potential matchups without impact on the national championship chase, but of significance in other ways.
Rose Bowl: No. 2 Oregon vs. No. 4 Wisconsin
Wisconsin football has cultivated a reputation over the past, oh, quarter-century, that it wins ugly. And it’s an earned reputation.
Badgers teams typically play outstanding defense that feeds off a physical, not-often aesthetically pleasing offensive strategy of grinding the ball on the ground. And in 2010, Wisconsin pounded its way to the Big Ten championship and an 11-1 record with just such an approach.
However, the Badgers rolled up more than 41 points per game and it sure as hell wasn’t in a cloud of dust.
Wisconsin boasted three running backs who produced around 1,000 yards: James White at 1,052; John Clay at 1,012; and Montee Ball at 996. The trio combined for a ridiculous 42 rushing touchdowns. For my money, it rivals 2001 Miami (Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Frank Gore) and 2003 USC (Reggie Bush, LenDale White, pre-knee injury Hershel Dennis) as the best three-man running-back rotation of the BCS era.
Coupled with Scott Tolzien’s perfectly unspectacular-yet-competent quarterbacking, this was the rare Badgers offense that could score with the best in the nation. And Oregon’s offense was indeed the best in the nation at 47 points per game.
The 2010 season was Kelly’s best in his brief, albeit wildly successful tenure at Oregon, both in terms of results and showcasing the full capacity of his then-revolutionary offense. The Ducks lost quarterback Jeremiah Masoli just weeks before the campaign, but Darron Thomas slid right in and captained a unit that moved at break-neck speed.
The contrasting philosophies between this particular Wisconsin team, which had an outstanding coaching staff featuring Paul Chryst and Dave Doeren; and Kelly’s Oregon bunch would have made for a classic Rose Bowl Game. The winner would advance to the Plus-One National Championship Game.
Yep, this is effectively a national semifinal despite Wisconsin coming in with a loss, as the Badgers won their conference thanks to a blowout of then-No. 1 Ohio State — one of the other two remaining one-loss teams with a potential title-game claim.
The other, Stanford, dropped its sole defeat to Oregon — the opponent Wisconsin would need to beat in the Rose Bowl to advance to the Championship Game.
Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Auburn vs. No. 3 TCU
Also functioning effectively as a semifinal, TCU gets a crack at competing for the title against SEC champion Auburn. The Horned Frogs completed their second straight perfect regular season with a 40-point win over then-No. 5 Utah (the Utes were 10-2 and ranked No. 20 in the final poll of the regular season) and, in reality, closed out with a defeat of Wisconsin in an outstanding Rose Bowl.
It’s hard to say in light of the high-profile stage TCU had at the Granddaddy of ‘Em All, and lacking a resume quite as strong as fellow Mountain West title hopeful Utah two years earlier, that Gary Patterson’s Frogs were short-changed. Still, this team had the talent worthy of a real chance to compete for the national championship.
TCU’s defense in 2010 was best in the nation at 12 points allowed per game. The contrast of the Horned Frogs’ tenacious front seven against Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton should be enough to pique any college football fans’ interest.
Newton’s heroics in that year’s Iron Bowl, facing another loaded defense in Alabama, possibly getting a sequel in New Orleans? Yes, please.
Orange Bowl: No. 9 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Stanford
While having no bearing on the Plus-One Championship for reasons stated above, the Plus-One system has envisioned here right two misfires of the 2010 season’s BCS in a single contest.
Stanford closed out its best campaign since the ‘70s and the final year of the Jim Harbaugh era at the Orange Bowl, crushing an overmatched Virginia Tech bunch. The Hokies won 11 straight heading into the postseason, but opened with losses at home to Boise State and vs. a James Madison bunch that was hardly at the FCS Championship-contending level it reached a half-decade later.
Tech was good, but its dominance after the 0-2 start largely reflected an ACC that was collectively down at the time. Stanford, on the other hand, was excellent in 2010. The result was a 40-12 laugher in the least competitive Orange Bowl since the time Ashlee Simpson was booed off the field.
As poorly matched as Virginia Tech was to Stanford, however, that paled in comparison to an absolutely dismal Fiesta Bowl pitting Oklahoma against UConn.
UConn backed its way into the BCS through the Big East’s guaranteed berth, and as winner of the tiebreaker in a three-way stalemate at the top of the league. The butt-ugly pairing of a UConn team that had no business being in one of the premier postseason games against a listless Oklahoma team that deserved a better matchup provided a rallying cry for the anti-bowl crowd.
A simple fix? Pit 11-win opponents Stanford and Oklahoma head-to-head in what would have been an exciting showdown between talented teams with ballyhooed head coaches.
Fiesta Bowl: No. 6 Ohio State vs. No. 13 Nevada
Speaking of the Fiesta Bowl, let’s fix that game, while we’re at it.
A gong I’ve banged repeatedly throughout this Plus-One exercise is that, before it became the scandal-plagued avatar for college football corruption, the Fiesta Bowl existed as a stage for under-the-radar teams out West previously denied opportunities to face national heavyweights.
Honoring that tradition, we get Nevada facing Ohio State for an intriguing Fiesta Bowl matchup.
Nevada scored one of the most shocking upsets of the 2010 season when it eliminated Boise State from the national championship conversation during Thanksgiving weekend. The 34-31 Wolfpack win in overtime was the crown jewel of a 12-1 regular season for Nevada, and the apex of one of the most influential coaching careers of the 21st Century.
Longtime Nevada coach Chris Ault grew Pack football from Div. II, through a successful decade-plus in I-AA, to I-A/FBS. The 2010 season was the pinnacle of Ault’s second tour as Nevada head coach, and the ultimate showcase for his innovative Pistol offense.
When I deem Ault one of the 21st Century’s most influentional coaches, it’s because he’s almost certainly offered inspiration to your favorite football team with the introduction of the Pistol.
The Pistol’s become standard throughout the game, but Ault’s Nevada teams popularized the look that used pro-style principles with allowances for option playmaking at quarterback. Colin Kaepernick thrived in this system, and became one of only three players in college football history to both pass and rush for 20-plus touchdowns in the same season2.
The Kaepernick-led Wolfpack concluded their 2010 dream season in anticlimatic fashion, beating Boston College in the post-New Year’s Day Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. Nevada deserved better, and a matchup with 11-1 Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl is an ideal upgrade.
Ohio State concluded its 2010 with a loss to Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, which turned out to be Jim Tressel’s swan song. Tressel resigned the following May with a five-game suspension looming for his knowledge of players violating NCAA regulations on impermissible benefits.
With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been much more poetic for Tressel’s time as a head coach to end in the bowl game where he reached his crowning achievement, against a coach and program that played an instrumental role in Tressel’s star rising two decades prior.
Holiday Bowl: No. 10 Boise State vs. No. 16 Oklahoma State
Nevada’s defeat of Boise State sending the Pack to the Fiesta Bowl gives me reason to shine a light on a bowl game somewhat neglected in this Plus-One series, and badly altered through a combination of TV interests, the BCS/Playoff and NFL ownership issues3.
The Holiday Bowl organically became one of the highlights of the bowl season beginning in the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, showcasing thrilling matchups and unique matchups.
The Holiday Bowl’s rich legacy includes elevating LaVell Edwards’ innovative passing attack onto the national stage…
…and hosting Barry Sanders as he put a bow on the greatest individual season in college football history.
The Holiday may have been the best example, outside of the Rose, that college football’s bowl season was special and meaningful before becoming singularly focused on crowning a champion (or stockpiling content for ESPN).
And even then, the Holiday Bowl did in fact serve as a de facto national championship once — the last time an outsider staked claim to the title4, in fact, with BYU sealing its 1984 title there against Michigan.
In 2010, Boise State losing to Nevada dropped the Broncos out of the BCS Championship picture and into the pre-Christmas Day Las Vegas Bowl.
Using the Plus-One format allows BSU to instead play a showcase bowl game against 10-win Oklahoma State in a matchup of two of the nation’s most prolific offenses — one nod to the Holiday’s illustrious past — and a showdown of an outstanding Western Athletic Conference team against a member of the old Big 8 or Southwest Conferences in another nod to the Holiday Bowl’s history.
I cataloged a bevy of information on Cincinnati’s inclusion in the 2021 Playoff for an essay on it revealing flaws both in the Playoff process, as well as some straight-up gaslighting by college football media. I never finished the piece but plan to revisit it this summer as a supplementary piece to The Death of Big East Football, coming June 30 for paid subscribers.
Cam Newton also hit the 20-20 mark in 2010; Tim Tebow was the only prior, having done so in his Heisman-winning 2007 campaign.
Dean Spanos’ standoff with San Diego citizens over a stadium for the Chargers hadn’t yet kicked into high-gear in 2010, but the issue was casting the pall over the future of the Holiday Bowl nonetheless.
Maybe that’s why the Holiday Bowl was deemphasized in the BCS and Playoff eras (especially the latter): Retribution for a champion outside of the usual power players.