Ranking the 30 Greatest National Championship Games
By Zach Bigalke
27. 2008 BCS National Championship
#2 LSU d. #1 Ohio State 38-24
BEFORE THE GAME
The 2008 BCS National Championship culminated the season of the upset. The game featured two teams that took advantage of chaos on the final weekend of the regular season. Top-ranked Missouri lost 38-17 to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship. Second-ranked West Virginia inexplicably collapsed 13-9 to 4-7 Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl. That was enough to move third-ranked Ohio State into the top spot of the BCS rankings. The question then became who the Buckeyes would play in the title game at the Superdome in New Orleans.
The debate came down to a slew of two-loss teams. There was 11-2 ACC champion Virginia Tech. West Virginia had been relegated to co-champion status with Connecticut after losing to Pitt, making their 10-2 look less formidable. 11-2 Oklahoma had a case to make after taking down Missouri. Then again, so did an 11-1 Kansas team that didn’t get a chance to play in the Big 12 championship. USC, the Pac-12 champions at 10-2, also factored in the discussion.
But Les Miles made the most ingenious move of his LSU coaching career, lobbying pollsters to move the Tigers back up to the #1 spot they had occupied two weeks earlier. Arguing that his Tigers hadn’t “lost a game in regulation” after both of their defeats came in triple overtime, Miles convinced the voters in the Harris and Coaches polls to bump LSU up above the other major-conference champions into the title game.
THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Ohio State actually took a 10-0 lead in the first quarter, but then LSU scored 31 unanswered points before the Buckeyes found the endzone again. The Bayou Bengals defense held Ohio State to 3-of-13 on third downs and forced three turnovers. Jim Tressel’s team could not maintain possession, as every scoring drive took less than three minutes. The three times that they did manage to keep the ball for more than three minutes, Ohio State punted twice and threw a pick the third time around.
A Buckeyes defense had held opponents to fewer than 11 points per game on average during the regular season also came up short. LSU’s offense had averaged just over 38 points per game to win the SEC and they hit that average in the 38-24 victory. Matt Flynn was an efficient 19-of-27 passing for 174 yards and four touchdowns for LSU, while Jacob Hester rushed for 86 yards and a score in the victory. The Tigers hit their season scoring average to run away with their second national title of the BCS era and the first two-loss national champion since Minnesota in 1960.