Oklahoma State Cowboys Make Case For National Championship Game

Mike Gundy and the Cowboys did their part, now the voters decide who deserves a title shot.

Sunday, December 4th 2011, 12:34 am

By: News 9


Also See: The Case For The Cowboys - Oklahoma State University sent out a press release to hundreds of media outlets and voters nationwide declaring why OSU should be in the national title game.

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Grant Belcher, News9.com

STILLWATER, Oklahoma – Everyone made a big deal out of Mike Gundy's quote last week about Alabama deserving to be No. 2 in the BCS standings.

But they will probably make an even bigger deal about what he had to say after his team's dominant 44-10 Bedlam victory.

"Last week I said Alabama should be there," he told an ABC reporter on national television. "There is no question Oklahoma State should be No. 2 right now."

Gundy threw down the gauntlet in a complete 180 from last week, stating that OSU playing in the national title game would be "the opportunity for people to find out how good the defense is in the SEC."

"I think people have to decide if they want to see a 9-6 game or a 39-36 game."

Gundy did his part by lobbying for his team on national television.

Oklahoma State did its part by dominating in every facet of the game – exactly what everyone said needed to happen in order for the Cowboys to even be considered.

In all likelihood, OSU will re-jump Alabama back to unanimous No. 2 in the computer rankings, which make up 1/3 of the BCS. The computers loved Oklahoma State, and moved them only slightly behind the Tide after the Iowa State loss.

The missing ingredient in that is the voters – it is in their hands now.

There have been plenty of numbers floating around over the past week about how many voters Oklahoma State would need to sway its way in order to flip-flop Alabama in the BCS standings.

Though there has been much deliberation over the exact numbers, the general consensus appears to be that OSU would need 44 of the combined 174 Harris and Coaches Poll voters to vote the Cowboys No. 2, with no voters voting the Cowboys any lower than No. 3.

Virginia Tech, the previous No. 3 in the Coaches' Poll and No. 4 in the Harris Poll (the two human polls that count toward the BCS) was blown out by Clemson in the ACC Championship. The Hokies are out of the equation and likely won't steal any votes from OSU.

Stanford (also ahead of Oklahoma State in both human polls) was off this week. This means there is always a chance some voters might choose to keep the Cardinal ahead of the Cowboys, despite the off week/Bedlam win comparison.

Finally, there is the issue of the outliers. There is always a chance that a Harris Poll voter or a coach votes "unethically," moving a team much further up or down a ballot than it should be to cancel out those voting the opposite.

SEC supporters, for example, could vote Oklahoma State further down the list than third or fourth in order to sway the overall vote.

Big 12 supporters might move Alabama further down the list to attempt to cancel that out.

There is no way to know who will do that until the results come out. All individual votes for the final human polls are revealed to the public so that the outliers can have people speak their minds on their ballots.

In last week's BCS poll, Alabama was up .9551 to .8712 on the Cowboys. Mere decimal places, but an absolute world of difference in the world of BCS standings.

The harsh truth for OSU fans is that the odds are still tough, and that large BCS gap would most likely mean that Alabama will still get its rematch in the title game.

There will be a large following of fans somewhere extremely upset with the BCS results Sunday evening.

And no matter which following that is, those fans absolutely have a legitimate argument as to why their team also deserved a shot at the championship.

But if worse comes to worst for Oklahoma State fans, they should take comfort in the fact that their team will be playing in its first BCS bowl after winning its first Big 12 Championship.

Which would not be a bad consolation prize.

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