"Early, early morning, in the middle of the night
Rational discourse and reason got up to fight
Back to back, they faced each other
Drew their swords and fought each other
And if you don't think my lie is true,
Ask the blind policeman, he saw it too."
- 19th Century childhood rhyme, altered slightly

This rhyme, that my grandfather taught me (more or less), came to mind during the recent displays of Carrollian logic being offered while discussing the controversy atop the Big 12 South standings. The most-often repeated complaint is this: "Texas beat Oklahoma head-to-head! They should win the tiebreaker."

Texas did, in fact, beat Oklahoma head-to-head, 45-35. On a neutral field, to boot.

There is one small problem with this statement, which I discussed "here.":http://sportsnation.espn.go.com/fans/newwardorder2003/blog/posts/73112

Apparently, the point, and it's not originally mine by any stretch, has been ignored. So, I'm reduced to doing what all of the talking heads around the country are doing.

YOU CAN'T BREAK A THREE-WAY TIE, WHEN EACH TEAM HAS BEATEN ONE OTHER AND LOST TO ANOTHER, WITH A HEAD-TO-HEAD COMPARISON!

The Big 12 South has a three-way tie. There has to be a tiebreaker, and the powers-to-be, before the season, wrote out a tiebreaking procedure for this very scenario. It it a bad one? I'm trying to think of one that is inherently better.

The SEC tiebreaker, which would eliminate Texas Tech because it had the gall to slide to seventh in the BCS standings, seems convoluted. Why? Because it says that any difference within five spots of the BCS should be resolved by the head-to-head-results between two teams. So why should the third team, also within five slots of the top team, be tossed? Seems unfair to say that two teams that are within five slots of each other are essentially equal, but not three teams in that scenario. The real reason Mack Brown wants that tiebreaker? Because it favors his team. He'd have the same reaction to a proposed tiebreaker that favored the team whose primary jersey color is closest to violet in the rainbow, as well.

Perhaps the Big 12 could use point differential among the three teams, or among common conference opponents. That tie breaker is patently unfair to defensive-minded teams and Texas would finish third in both of those tiebreakers.

I know the real argument here. It's that Texas Tech has been exposed as a fraud, and unworthy of national championship consideration, while neither Texas or Oklahoma have. Therefore, Texas beat OU head-to-head and should get the chance to control its own destiny. For the moment I'll concede that point without arguing it.

It just leads me to these questions: Who was it that exposed Tech as a fraud? And, if Tech is a fraud, what does that say about a team that lost to them?