WildWest Football Board

Going by your criteria of "Who deserves a shot at the NC"

In order of the most problematic to the least:

2007

You claim that 'nobody deserved it' but that's just what you get by looking at records alone.  Look at the games those teams lost.  Look at their performance against high quality teams.  Some of these guys actually challenged themselves over the course of the year and their records suffered for it. 

If you take the best team in the nation and make them play the 2nd best, 3rd best, 4th best, etc as a schedule, they're going to come out something like 8-4.  They're still the best, they just challenged themselves in a way no team ever has (or ever will).  Counting losses is the easiest trap to fall into because all it takes is being lazy.

The reality is this is how the year went.  Pick 4 teams from that list and tell me they're more deserving than any other set.  I dare you.

2008

Absolute Mess.  7 1 loss teams, 2 undefateds.  You conceeded this one so I won't belabor the point.

2009:

5 undefeated teams and a 12-1 florida who played a tougher schedule than 3 of them (Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State).  In fact, 2 of those undefeated teams lost their bowl games, (Cincinnati and TCU) and Cincinnati lost theirs to Florida badly.  How can you leave an undefeated team from a BCS conference out?  How can you say that a team that never lost doesn't deserve a title chance?  And yet, history shows us that if you were picking teams you absolutely SHOULD have left the bearcats home in favor of Florida.

2010:  You've got 3 undefeateds, and 3 1 loss teams whose 1 loss came to excellent teams.  
Oregon, Auburn, and TCU are all undefeated.  Stanford's one loss came to #2 Oregon at Oregon.   Ohio State's 1 loss came to #5 Wisconsin at Wisconsin, and Wisconsin's 1 loss came on a fluke at another 11-1 Team Michigan State.

It's far too easy to say "only 3 were undefeated, so only 3 were deserving" when that's simply not true.  A close loss at a top level opponent's home field on a fluke is pretty difficult to split away from trouncing mother mary's school for the blind. 

In other words, until they played against each other, how can you tell me with a straight face that TCU is better than Wisconsin, Stanford, or Ohio State?  

2006:

1 loss Florida, Ohio State, and Wisconsin, also a 1 loss Louisville but they didn't play anybody and an undefeated Boise State.  There's your 4 deserving but let's be honest they aren't the ones getting picked.  LSU and USC are going to go with 2 losses before Boise or Wisconsin.  Now you have deserving teams being held at home because undeserving ones are going.  That's not a problem?

Notes

Some patterns arive:  Things got quite a bit less certain once a 12th game was added.  This is because most teams use that 12th game to load up on extra wins by playing against DIAA schools.  Also other teams started catching on to the formula around 2007:  That your Strength of Schedule will forgive crappy OOC scheduling provided everyone in your conference does it.  The number of low loss teams skyrockets from 2007 on.  This is just going to make the line of deciding who is 'deserving' of playing for a title more and more blurry.