Though this is a jaded view, I do not believe it is absurd to think we should be included in the top two schools in the nation. I’m sure everyone felt a little ripped-off at the conclusion of Fox’s over-produced hour-long jaunt through the season’s many upsets culminating in an announcement that LSU would be playing idle Ohio State in the BCS Championship game in New Orleans. Don’t get me wrong, I am damn proud of Virginia Tech’s performance this year and on Beamer’s fourth consecutive 10 or more win season but when the house of cards falls as sloppily as it did this year in the BCS I think that anyone (except Georgia) had the right to pick up the pocket aces and a trip to New Orleans.

1. But what about that crushing loss to LSU?

First of all, lets start by remembering that the majority voice behind how the BCS determines who should fight for the National Championship are humans - and humans are flawed in their reasoning and sometimes act irrationally. Now try to make humans process that in only one week of the season, after the BCS was being calculated, did we have the first and second place team remain unbeaten (remember when South Florida was number two? me either.) What does this mean? It means that each week there was fresh meat in the top team grinder… and other ranked teams could fly safely under the radar and out of the limelight that is ESPN’s “Upset Watch.” With only one week left in the season, LSU allowed Arkansas to score 50 points on them (and upset them at home). In any other season this loss would have meant a dead end in the road for a BCS title bid for Louisiana State – but in a season chock full of high seeds dropping off like flies, the loss was mitigated by a next-week win over a Tennessee team that couldn’t beat three teams in the SEC. In seasons past what mattered first was if you lost… but what mattered almost as much was when you lost. Just ask Florida State, they are the poster child of a team that early in the season would drop off the top 10 and build up wins against underpowered ACC shitbarns and eventually find their way in to the AP#1 or #2 slot by season’s end. The Hokies lost the SECOND week of the season to LSU. Back then Louisville was still a national title contender. That Virginia Tech team was facing its first road opponent (and though its not a great excuse - it was the first trip away since the tragedy, and our team carried a big burden of support for many people) and also in week two we had not even brushed off the dust from Tyrod Taylor’s red shirt to know what he could do. Admittedly, the game was a sixty-minute meltdown on national television but it also became the wake up call that we needed. From that game forward (and with the exception of Boston College’s vomit-filled comeback with 2 minutes to go) we played (and won) solidly. In contrast LSU was constantly one Les Miles go-for-broke play away from losing games the entire season.

2. Tech won out.

So that again goes back to the importance of WHEN you lose the big game, and LSU was certainly big, but we didn’t fold to any non-top ten or unranked teams the way Ohio State and LSU did. If consistency isn’t worth something in a sport that they call “every week a playoff week” or otherwise in a sport where one single loss can ruin a season, then why don’t we just let the most impressive inconsistency go to the BCS title game? Cool - Navy plays North Texas. Seasons in college football can’t be measured from week one to week 16 (or week 14 if you are Ohio State), you have to constantly reassess the best teams in the nation based upon what they are able to do at that exact moment in time. After we had our set back against Matt Ryan, we went on to beat some great teams and played great football. In that same time period, Ohio State beat the perennial #25 Penn State and lost to unranked Illinois… at home. LSU beat up the whopping #17 Alabama and lost to unranked Arkansas… at home. Now, I do believe in the benefit-of-the-doubt for college teams and so if a school like Hawaii went to the National Championship instead of VT so be it – I have no idea how the Warriors would do against a team like Missouri or Virginia Tech but at least I know that Hawaii could beat Ohio State or LSU as both of those schools have lost to much worse teams this year, and much more recently than Virginia Tech’s two #2 ranked opponent losses (one of which we avenged and showed our improvement.)

3. Numbers don’t worship Pete Carroll lie.

Granted a lot of miracles happened the final week of the season that provided me even an opportunity to make a case that Virginia Tech belongs in the title game, predominantly that WVU (and their bullshit refs) would lose to un-bowl-bound Pittsburgh. But after Saturday, I had actually predicted we would come out first-place in the computer rankings with a win over Boston College (since the computers loved BC so much) but I was worried of how we would stack in the human voting.

I was crushed by Sunday morning when they announced the human poll results. Somehow the Harris Poll planted us number 6. I don’t know who the fuck is voting over at the Harris house but whoever gave all those second and third-place votes to USC should lose their votes… seriously. USC lost to Standford… Stanford lost to Notre Dame. If USC is to get any number two votes then that can only mean you are judging them based on their current performance (as I have argued here) and if so — fine — but then you can’t go vote VT number 6. Why the hell is Harris even used? The voters openly admit they don’t have time to watch many games each week (some watch none.) If that’s the case then cut out the humans. I say we rely on the numbers from a source that CAN watch every single second of every single I-A game in the nation… the computers. According to big blue and friends we’re not number 3, were not even number 2 — which is all I’m arguing for. No, its even better than that.

In sum, we are one onside-kick from being the best team in the nation – so am I really that fucking crazy? I guess I am after all just one flawed human mind.