re: College Football Playoff using top 4 Conference winners: BCS era

I wanted to this year separately for a lot of reasons.

2011: LSU, #3 Ok St, #5 Oregon, #10 Wisconsin: This is the year with the lowest ranked conference winner getting in. Given the result of the BCS CG that season and this being an LSU MB, it is the most controversial. I said earlier IMO 2003 OU is the worst omission but 2011 Alabama given the way they dominated the BCS CG has a strong argument. The pass the eyeball test for sure and were the first team in 25 years to finish #1 in all defensive categories. Though their schedule was one of the weaker ones of any BCS Champ. At 11-1 they beat 1 FCS team and of their 10 FBS wins, only 3 Ark 10-2, Penn State 9-3 (PSU’s only loss was to Bama before Sandusky scandal broke) and 7-5 Auburn. 5 of their 7 conference wins were against teams that finished 6-6 or worse and their 6th was Auburn. Other teams left out 11-1 #4 Stanford, #7 11-1 Boise, 2 loss Arkansas, South Carolina and K-State.

Leaving out Bama would have been a huge controversy for the month or so leading up to the playoff. If LSU had won, the controversy would have died out over time just like 2000, 2003 and other BCS controversies. 2011 LSU had one of the better resumes in the BCS era.