There is a new show on ESPN called “Numbers Never Lie.” If you don’t like sports or numbers, you might want to skip this column. On the other hand, if you do like sports, and you’re not afraid of numbers – and above all, if you hate the college BCS system – then please read on.

Here’s my case for why Oklahoma State deserved to be in the championship game instead of Alabama. (Painful as it is for us Beavers fans, we’ll abbreviate Oklahoma State as OSU.) Let’s take it as a given that LSU earned their spot in the big game. LSU went undefeated, 13-0, in a tough conference, the SEC, and they won their conference championship game against Georgia. Moreover, they played two very tough games out of conference, against Oregon and West Virginia. Based on BCS rankings on the final day of the season, LSU beat five of the top 25 teams. Kudos to them.

Let’s also concede that Alabama played great all year, and that if the only question people should consider when rating one-loss teams is: How good was the team who beat them, then Alabama, at 11-1, would deserve the second spot. Indeed, judging by that same standard, OSU, whose only loss came to a 6-6 Iowa State team, would then fall even below other one-loss teams such as Stanford and Boise State, who lost to ranked opponents.

But other factors belong in this discussion as well. There is also the strength of schedule to weigh, which is why great teams like Boise State are perennially downgraded by the so-called experts. And here’s where OSU really wins in the competition against Alabama, at least if you stick strictly with the numbers.

The overall record of all teams that Alabama played was almost identical to the record of OSU’s opponents. That record was 84-61 for Alabama, as opposed to 83-62 for OSU, which is a statistically insignificant difference. But if we look at the record of the teams that Alabama and OSU actually beat, Alabama’s opponents drop to 71-61, as compared with a stronger 77-56 for OSU. Moreover, if we compare only wins against Division I opponents, OSU’s numbers remain the same, but Alabama’s opponents’ record drops to an unimpressive 61-59, because Alabama played a Division II school, Georgia Southern, while OSU played only the big boys.

If we go to a comparison of records against top 25 teams, measured again by their final BCS rankings, Alabama’s record is a modest 2-1, compared to OSU at 5-0. Does that surprise you? After all, we keep hearing that Alabama plays in what is supposedly the toughest conference in the country, the SEC. So why did they play only 3 top 25 teams all year?

The reason for that statistical oddity is that within the SEC, Alabama actually had an easy schedule this year. The SEC teams Alabama beat had an overall record of 42-42. The Big 12 teams that OSU beat had a record of 57-40, which is 9% higher. The comparison gets even worse for Alabama if we look only at conference games. The SEC record of the SEC teams that Alabama beat was 18-38, which is a miserable winning percentage of 32%. By comparison, the Big 12 record of the teams OSU beat within their conference was 34-38, which is a 47% winning percentage. That comparison goes, hands-down, to OSU. In other words, Alabama played a lot of games against weak SEC teams like Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee, while OSU played a much tougher conference schedule.

If the numbers don’t convince you, here are several other considerations. OSU won their conference championship by annihilating 10th ranked Oklahoma, while Alabama didn’t even make it into their conference championship game. And Alabama’s one loss came at home, whereas OSU’s came on the road, on a day when the entire OSU family was reeling immediately after a tragic plane crash claimed the lives of two of their women’s basketball coaches. Other OSU sporting events were canceled that weekend, but the football team did their best to play anyway, and they came up short in overtime.

If you’re still unconvinced by my arguments, then look at this strictly as a fan who wants to see an entertaining championship game. LSU and Alabama already played once this year, and it was a low-scoring, grind-it-out game that was decided by a field goal in overtime. As fans, we’ve been there, done that. Wouldn’t it have been more exciting to have seen what the high-flying offense of OSU could have done against the relentless defense of LSU? For my money, the better match-up in the final game would have been LSU against Oklahoma State.

John McColgan is an armchair quarterback and a resident of Joseph.