College football has never been a perfect science. With countless teams across the country, it feels like there’s always a strong case for at least one team left out of the championship series to compete for it all—whether it’s in the current College Football Playoff or the Bowl Championship Series era.
Snubs are a part of the college football culture, so just hours before what is expected to be the Playoff committee’s most difficult challenge yet, maybe it’s a good time to remember some of the worst in the sport’s history.
Here are the five worst snubs during the BCS (1998-2013) and four-team CFP (2014-present):
2001 Oregon
The Ducks had just one loss, a 49–42 nail-biter, and finished the season as the No. 2 team in the polls. However, the squad wasn’t invited to the BCS title game. Instead, that honor went to undefeated Miami and Nebraska. The Cornhuskers had one loss as well, but it came in a brutal 62–36 loss to Colorado. The Hurricanes went on to dominate Nebraska 37–14 to win it all.
2003 USC
One of the main reasons the BCS was created was to make sure there weren’t two national champions. The system failed to do that in ’03 when the one-loss Trojans were somehow left out of the national title game but beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, winning the AP national title.
Instead of USC, Oklahoma played LSU in the national championship game. Both teams also had one loss, but the Sooners failed to even win their own conference. USC’s lone defeat came in a 34–31 loss to Cal in September while Oklahoma’s loss was a 35–7 blowout to Kansas State in its conference title game. LSU, of course, went on beat Oklahoma 21–14.
2008 Texas
Buckle up. So the Longhorns finished in a three-way tie in the Big 12 South with Texas Tech and Oklahoma all having 7–1 records. During the season, Texas beat Oklahoma, who defeated Texas Tech, who had beaten the Longhorns. In a controversial tiebreaker, Oklahoma was selected to represent their half of the conference against Missouri in the title game and won handedly 62–21.
As a result, the Sooners jumped the Longhorns in the standings when it was all said and done and got to play for the national championship, eventually losing to Florida.
2014 TCU
The Horned Frogs were dominant the whole year, finishing the season 11–1 with their lone loss coming in a 61–58 defeat at the hands of a strong Baylor squad that finished as the No. 6 team in the country. But at the time, there was no Big 12 championship game, and it ended up costing TCU a chance to win it all.
Going into championship weekend, the Horned Frogs were the No. 3 team in the Playoff but dropped to No. 6 after not playing that weekend because Ohio State, Oregon, Florida State, and Alabama all won its conference title games. TCU went on to eviscerate Ole Miss 42–3 in the Peach Bowl.
2018 Ohio State
This Buckeyes squad finished their season with five ranked wins and the Big 10 title, but their one loss came in a shocking 49–7 loss to Purdue. Despite the near-perfect regular season and quality wins, Ohio State was left out of the CFP with the committee electing to go with Notre Dame instead.
Naturally, the Fighting Irish didn’t live up to their name and lost 30–3 to Clemson in the semifinal while the Buckeyes beat Washington 28–23 in the Rose Bowl.
