By By Chandler Myers
What is perfection? How do you know when you have obtained perfection?
In sports, perfection is based on the record or stats that are obtained over the course of a season.
As of now, the Alabama Crimson Tide, Boise State Broncos, Utah Utes and Ball State Cardinals are all 12-0 and are perceived as perfect based on their record or they should be anyway.
The reality is that all of these teams are not seen as perfect because of several different factors.
Alabama is seen as imperfect because they have not crushed every opponent they have played unlike their opponent this weekend that has lost a game, and is still the favorite to win.
Why does a team need to annihilate every one they play to be a perfect team? If you are winning by getting the job done right and have a zero in the loss column shouldn’t the right to say you’re perfect be earned?
The fact of the matter for Alabama is that at this point in time they are the best team in college football. That might change as of Saturday night, but right now they are.
Anyone who thinks different needs to check the box scores for Alabama and Florida’s games against Ole Miss. I think you will see one difference in the fact that the Crimson Tide won and the Gators lost.
At this point, it’s going to be thrown out there that Alabama is the best team until proven differently.
Boise State, Utah and Ball State are all seen as imperfect because they play in “weak” conferences, according to the majority of the media. Only one of those teams will probably be awarded a BCS berth, which really isn’t fair.
Do these teams really play in a weaker conference than other conference and likely conference champions such as Cincinnati and Southern Cal?
If you put Boise or Utah up against the majority of the teams USC faced in conference play, they would run over them just as easily as USC did.
They each beat Pac 10 opponents this season, and Utah defeated Oregon State, which upset Southern Cal.
Ball State might have a little tougher time with BCS conference competition, but proves they can keep up with anyone by scoring a lot of points.
They have earned the right to be in the BCS talk by beating all of their opponents and beating several of them soundly.
So in going back to my question, what is perfection?
The truth is that perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Nothing can ever truly be perfect because there will always be someone that goes against the grain and says its imperfect.
All fan bases at some point believe that there team is perfect. The bickering begins when teams start to fall off and others are left standing tall.
The teams left standing are criticized from that point on because they do so well. It has to be pointed out that they do have flaws, but do those flaws matter when they are winning? Not really because teams like Alabama and Ball State are winning. So one team might pass the ball a lot or score 50 points a game, and the other might not play the toughest competition. It’s already been proven that on any given day any team can beat its opponent with the right determination.
So really in the end, the question really that should be posed is what is perfection to you?
Chandler Myers is sports editor of the Atmore Advance. He can be reached at 368-2123.