Excerpt from Forbes: (click for entire article)
Last year about this time, I wrote a Forbes post stating that before Michigan State even played its bowl game it had already lost the BCS sweepstakes. To avoid antitrust lawsuits, the BCS established a rule that “No more than two teams from a conference may be selected [to a BCS game], regardless of whether they are automatic qualifiers or at-large selections, unless two non-champions from the same conference are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the final BCS Standings.” Last year, the Big Ten had three teams tied for the conference championship, all with one loss for the entire season. Those teams were Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan State. Wisconsin and Ohio State were ranked higher than MSU in the BCS standings. They both deserved to be there – if you ignore tattoo-gate. So MSU was left out of the BCS mix. But MSU was a top 10 BCS team. As I lamented, “they were bowled over by the same regulator that ranks them so highly.” There was at least one conference champion, U Conn for the Big East, which lost three more games than MSU, played a weaker schedule, did not finish in the Top 25 that nonetheless played in a BCS game (Tostitos Fiesta Bowl) with all the resultant financial and recruiting benefits.
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