1979 McMNC: USC Trojans

AP Top 10: Final Record -- Key Bowl Results

1. Alabama: 12-0-0 -- W, Sugar, 24-9
2. USC: 11-0-1 -- W, Rose, 17-16
3. Oklahoma: 11-1-0 -- W, Orange, 24-7
4. Ohio State: 11-1-0 -- L, Rose, 16-17
5. Houston: 11-1-0 -- W, Cotton, 17-14
6. Florida State: 11-1-0 -- L, Orange, 7-24
7. Pittsburgh: 11-1-0 -- W, Fiesta, 16-10
8. Arkansas: 10-2-0 -- L, Sugar, 9-24
9. Nebraska: 10-2-0 -- L, Cotton, 14-17
10. Purdue: 10-2-0 -- W, Bluebonnet, 27-22

Side note: BYU went 11-1 with a 50% SOS, losing on their Holiday Bowl game to #19 Indiana by a point. Pretty good season, and the start of their ascent to 1984 and beyond.

Five teams here to consider: Alabama, USC, Oklahoma, Houston and Pittsburgh. Two teams that choked away their bowl games? Ohio State and Florida State ... insert your own BCS joke here. And Nebraska, which started out 10-0 only to lose its last two games by three points each. No wonder Dr. Tom was so beleaguered in the 1980s.

Pittsburgh: With a 53% SOS rating, the Panthers are in this. Their only loss was on the road to AP #15 North Carolina (8-3-1 with Lawrence Taylor?) on September 22. They beat AP #17 Temple (9-2) on the road, they beat AP #11 Washington (9-3) on the road, they beat unranked 7-4 Navy at home, they beat unranked 7-5 Syracuse at home, they beat AP #20 Penn State (8-4) at home, and they beat unranked 6-5-1 Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl. They faced seven teams with winning records, losing only the first one on the road. A great season for Pitt, but can it hold up?

Houston: Is this the NFL or the NCAAs? Pittsburgh, Houston, 1979 ... anyway, like Pitt, Houston's only loss was to a ranked team: they lost to AP #12 Texas (9-3) at home. But their SOS rating was 50%, and they beat unranked 6-4-1 West Texas A&M at home, they beat AP #14 Baylor (8-4) at home, they beat unranked 6-5 Texas A&M on the road, they beat #8 Arkansas on the road, and they beat #9 Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl. If it wasn't for some really bad teams on the schedule (0-10-1 Florida, 2-8-1 TCU and 1-10 Rice), the SOS would be much higher. As it is, Earl Campbell cannot beat Terry Bradshaw, so Houston falls just a notch below Pitt in this analysis.

Oklahoma: #12 Texas also ruined the Sooners' season, beating Oklahoma in October. The Sooners also have a 50% SOS rating, tying them with Houston in this analysis. Oklahoma's list of victims includes unranked 6-5 Tulsa (coached by John Cooper) at home, unranked 7-4 Oklahoma State (coached by Jimmy Johnson) on the road, UPI #20 Missouri (7-5) on the road, #9 Nebraska at home and previously-unbeaten #6 Florida State in the Orange Bowl. A good season, with some wins over some soon-to-be-famous coaches, but overall, the SOS isn't strong enough to pass Pitt, either.

USC: They have a potentially-hurtful tie, a 21-21 draw to 5-5-1 Stanford in Los Angeles. But they also have a 51% SOS rating with no losses. That puts them a bit above Pittsburgh, simply because they didn't lose. They beat unranked 7-5 LSU on the road, they beat unranked 7-4 Notre Dame on the road, they beat unranked 6-5-1 Arizona at home, they beat AP #11 Washington on the road, and they knicked previously-unbeaten and then-#1 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. They had three road wins in very tough places, and they knocked off the Buckeyes. The SOS would have been higher if not for 1-10 Oregon State. Not an overwhelming resume, but enough to take the lead from Pittsburgh at this stage of the analysis.

Alabama: Now, this is only open for debate because the Tide has a mediocre SOS rating of 44%. They were the only unblemished team in the country, but who did they play to get there? They shutout #14 Baylor by 45 points at home, they beat unranked 7-5 Tennessee at home, they shutout 7-5 LSU on the road by three points, they beat AP #16 Auburn (8-3) on the road, and they beat #8 Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl. A schedule very similar to USC's, actually, minus the tie, of course. Why was 'Bama's SOS so low? In their first five games, they faced 1-10 Vanderbilt, 1-10 Wichita State and 0-10-1 Florida.

Common opponents? LSU, which USC beat by five points in Baton Rouge (17-12) and the Tide beat 3-0 in Baton Rouge. Can that tell us anything? Barely. USC does have the tie to .500 Stanford, but they also have the better SOS and perhaps the better bowl win (beating the previous #1 team in the country). The Tide have no ties and dominated their bowl game more thoroughly (albeit against #6 Arkansas).

So who gets the call? The Trojans or the Tide?

In the end, it comes down to that tie. Is the Trojans' superior SOS rating enough to compensate for the tie to a .500 team? In the past analyses, I have generally considering a double-digit edge in SOS to be enough to compensate for an extra loss (or a single loss, as it were). The examples precede this analysis, of course. Therefore, is the requisite for erasing a tie going to be half the double-digit SOS margin required to erase a loss? That would be five points in the SOS, and USC clearly has that covered in 1979 when considering their case over Alabama.

Both teams beat five winnings teams; Alabama beat three ranked teams (rough average in the final polls: 13th), while USC only beat two ranked teams (rough average in the final polls: 8th). Alabama played three pathetic teams on their way to 12-0, while USC only played one pathetic team on their way to 11-0-1. But you can't repeat the SOS argument in different languages, for that just compounds what we already know.

USC played a better schedule, and their seven-point edge in SOS rating is enough to overcome that tie to a .500 team. In addition, USC played an extra road game in 1979 while traveling to Texas, Indiana and Louisiana to take on OOC opponents. Alabama? They never left the comfy confines of the South.

USC played a better schedule, and that's good enough for the McMNC. They become just the third team to win back-to-back McMNCs, joining 1940s Michigan and 1970s Nebraska.

McMNC Revisions
1. USC
2. Alabama
3. Pittsburgh
4. Oklahoma
5. Houston

RUNNING SCORECARD:
USC: -1962, =1967, +1969, =1972, +1978, +1979
Tennessee: +1938, +1942, +1950, -1951
Penn State: +1977
UCLA: +1965
Arkansas: +1964
Mississippi: +1962
Washington: +1960
Iowa: +1956
Georgia Tech: +1952
Illinois: +1951
Michigan: +1947, =1948
Georgia: +1946
Purdue: +1943
Stanford: +1940
California: +1937
Pittsburgh: +1936, -1937, =1976
Nebraska: =1970, =1971
Syracuse: =1959
LSU: =1958
Texas A&M: =1939
Michigan State: -1952, +1953
Ohio State: -1942, +1944, =1954, =1968
Oklahoma: +1949, -1950, =1955, -1956, +1957, =1975
TCU: -1938
Maryland: -1953
Auburn: -1957
Texas: =1963, -1969
Army: -1944, -1945
Minnesota: -1936, -1940, =1941, -1960
Alabama: +1945, =1961, -1964, -1965, -1978, -1979
Notre Dame: -1943, -1946, -1947, -1949, =1966, =1973, -1977