Still the whipping boy

Stewart Mandel:

The only team with a remote chance of passing Alabama at the 11th-hour is Oklahoma State should it beat 9-2 Oklahoma impressively this weekend, though it will take a near-universal about-face from the voters, who currently have the Cowboys fifth. (They’re third in the overall standings thanks to the computers.) Bring up this possibility to an Alabama fan, and he or she will of course laugh in your face, pointing out first and foremost that Mike Gundy’s team lost to Iowa State.

“Iowa State” is in italics in the original.

Oklahoma State lost on the road on a short week to a now-bowl-eligible team, and it’s not enough to stop a regular-season in-division rematch. We really did break the BCS.

I have not been against, if not explicitly for, the BCS. But that support is predicated on the idea that the season is the playoff. Rematches, especially one of a game that had zero touchdowns, do not figure into that. I wouldn’t mind a plus-one — in fact, I’d prefer it — but the temptation is too great to turn it into a plus-two or plus-three.

Iowa State is going to a bowl for the second time in three years, one failed two-point conversion in double overtime away from 3-for-3, and yet somehow I end up feeling guilty about that fact.

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