Michigan State Beats OSU, Saves Us From One Final BCS Controversy

Michigan State beat Ohio State 34-24 in the Big Ten championship and will go to the Rose Bowl. Above all else, this saves us the grief of having to listen to an aggrieved SEC or BIG Ten fan base had it come down to an unbeaten Ohio State or Auburn against Florida State. It's going to be Auburn and everyone understands. Somehow the BCS dodged a final bullet.

With all that squared away, everyone can stop pretending Ohio State's schedule wasn't soft just because they hadn't yet lost and we can go back to not feeling sorry for Alabama, who, if you were hellbent on one final BCS controversy, you could argue for including in the game. Auburn won two ridiculous and fluky games to get into the SEC championship and Alabama never lost to Missouri. But that's ridiculous straw-grasping. Of all the teams with a claim to the title game, Alabama's the only one that didn't even play in its own conference championship. Auburn won the SEC, Florida State the ACC and at least Ohio State could say it played in the Big Ten title game. Even losing a title game has to count more than not making it to one.

But this is what college football is: a series of increasingly absurd arguments and the BCS was given the impossible task of trying to settle those arguments definitively. In the final year of its existence the BCS will give us exactly what it's capable of: a pretty defensible title game.