It's 1997 all over again. You remember 1997, when the coaches gave Tom Osborne and his band of criminals at Nebraska a retirement gift by jumping them over Michigan for a share of the national championship, despite the fact that Nebraska needed an overtime game (which had just been instituted that season), and needed to cheat to win that game (dude kicked a ball into the air that was then caught for a touchdown).
Well, the voters are at it again, ignoring the fact that Michigan is more deserving than Florida simply because they'd prefer not to see a rematch. The basic argument says Michigan had their shot at Ohio State, and they lost, so they shouldn't get another shot. Mind you, these are generally intelligent people making this argument. Do you ever think they'd be in favor of cancelling a super bowl if the teams had met in the regular season? How about if two teams were meeting in the NCAA basketball championship after a regular season match-up? Should we just decide who the winner is based on the previous result?
See, there's this thing called home field/court advantage. The theory is that the team playing on its home field, in front of its home fans, using its own locker rooms, etc, has the advantage over the team that had to travel and play in a hostile environment. It's not a very difficult concept to grasp. For example, noted sports rater Jeff Sagarin pins the home field advantage at somewhere around three points. And guess how many points OSU beat Michigan by in Columbus?
There are also a bunch of revisionists out there who would like to believe that the OSU-UM game was never all that close until the end. Don't buy their bullshit. Until a personal foul was called with about 6 minutes to go, Michigan was going to get the ball back down by four points with a chance to take the lead. On a neutral field, I think each team wins about half the time. And if you think OSU is the country's best team, logic dictates that Michigan has to be number two.
Just another reason the BCS is a joke.
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4 comments:
While I agree that the BCS is a crock, I have to disagree with you about Michigan getting the #2 spot.
A) The UM-OSU game was NOT as close as the scoreboard indicated. The only lead Michigan held was when they scored on the game's first series. There was only one time in the game where OSU let Michigan score twice in a row (2 FG) without answering with a TD themselves. Michigan was aided by a phantom P.I. call to keep the game close.
B) Why would you not want to look at a team's overall resume for deciding who gets to play in the championship game?
Florida beat teams currently ranked fifth (LSU), ninth (Arkansas) and 16th (Tennessee) in the BCS standings.
Michigan beat No. 7 Wisconsin, No. 10 Notre Dame and ... and ... ??
If you take a step back and ask yourself "Who would win on a neutral field between Mich and FL", I think most people would agree that Florida would be a slight favorite. Thus, FL is a more deserving opponent in the title game.
Why don't you cry about it, guy? Jeez.
Why don't you cry about it, guy? Jeez.
Well, that's certainly a convincing argument.
a) As mentioned above, Michigan was personal foul away from getting the ball back with a chance to take the lead late in the game. A play very similar to the call missed in the UCLA-U$C game. I'm not sure why people think that the game wasn't close at that point.
b) Michigan beat everyone lined up in front of them except one. Florida did the same. Both teams played pathetic non-conference schedules, although Michigan did play ND, while Florida's toughest non-conference opponent was 6-6 Florida State. If I take into account their entire resumes, Michigan still wins. But for me it comes down to who had the worse loss. Losing by three at the home of the #1 team is better than losing by 10 at the home of the 10th best team.
On a neutral field, I think Michigan beats Florida by at least 10 points. I think Ohio State will absolutely destroy Florida.
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