College Football 2011

[Doc_Brown]

To reinforce the point that Alabama was just that good, it's worth looking at how LSU's other defeated opponents fared in the bowl season:
#5 Oregon (lost to LSU 40-27) - won Rose Bowl 45-38 over #10 Wisconsin
Miss. State (lost to LSU 19-6) - won Music City Bowl 23-17 over Wake Forest
#23 West Virginia (lost to LSU 47-21) - won Orange Bowl 70-33 over #15 Clemson
Florida (lost to LSU 41-11) - won Gator Bowl 24-17 over Ohio State
#25 Auburn (lost to LSU 45-10) - won Chik-fil-a Bowl 43-24 over Virginia
#6 Arkansas (lost to LSU 41-17) - won Cotton Bowl 29-16 over #8 Kansas State
#16 Georgia (lost to LSU 42-10) - lost Outback Bowl 33-30 (in triple over time) to #17 Michigan State
#2 Alabama (lost to LSU 9-6) - won National Championship Game 21-0 over #1 LSU

LSU's offense put up a lot of points against almost all of those teams. The main exception was Alabama, who ended up beating them in the second matchup. LSU absolutely deserved to play in that game. LSU has wins against 3 of the other 4 top-5 teams. They beat 6 top-25 teams during the course of the season. But Alabama clearly demonstrated that they were the better team. And I say that as an Auburn fan that has to grit his teeth to give Alabama any credit. There was never a question about whether LSU would play in the NCG. I think Alabama quieted any questions about whether Oklahoma State should have been there instead. I figured going into the game that if Alabama won, LSU was likely to only drop to #2 in the final polls. If LSU had won, OkSt. probably would have ended up in the #2 spot with Alabama falling at least to #3.

Still, it sounds like there's momentum for a 4 team playoff. From what I'm reading, it sounds like it's just the Big10 really standing in the way now.