7 posts tagged “college football”

Way to reward those Heisman voters, Troy Smith. A performance for the ages.

It was just a few days ago everyone gloated over Notre Dame's blowout loss in the Sugar Bowl, calling them the most overrated team in college football. What will now be said of Ohio State? I'm not comparing their season with ND's, but how else can you categorize a team that went wire-to-wire in the regular season as No. 1 without really playing anybody (outside of Michigan), and then is completely dominated and outplayed by a team that underperformed for most of the regular season?

I would like to enjoy this because I hate OSU, but I hate Urban Meyer and Florida just as much. It's just annoying and irritating all the way around.

This is just another reason the bowl system sucks. Is March Madness here yet?

• Norm Chow as the new head coach at North Carolina State.

Sports Illustrated is running an interesting piece this morning on the rationale (a term I use loosely) used by voters in both the coaches' and media polls to push Florida past Michigan and into the BCS title game. A few of my favorite nuggets:

• Ray Melick of The Birmingham News: "At the end of the day, Florida won its conference championship. Michigan did not. Because there's not a playoff, I think a conference champion ought to carry more weight than a conference runner-up at the BCS conference level." This is the biggest traveshamockery of a reason to vote for Florida, and anyone who admits to using such reasoning should have their voting privileges revoked. Ray, even for someone from Alabama, you're a fucking moron. If Michigan were still far and away the second-best team in the country, Ray, would you still punish them? If Michigan is the second-best team in the country, how can you punish them for being in the same conference as the first-best team?
• "If you beat a team one time, why do they get the national championship if they win the second time?," said Earle Bruce, the former Ohio State coach who votes in the Harris Interactive poll and moved Florida ahead of Michigan. "I mean, they've already played one time and lost." I don't know, Earle, you fuckface, why don't you ask Florida themselves, since that's exactly what they did in '96. They lost to Florida State in the last game of the year, then beat the 'Noles in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship. Perhaps the fact Michigan beating Ohio State on a neutral field would trump their close loss in Columbus. Or maybe they get the national championship because they are victorious in the fucking national championship game. I think that's how it's supposed to work, you turd.
• "Michigan had its shot," said Harris voter Joe Biddle of The Tennessean. "If you replayed that game it would be nothing more than a Big Ten championship -- and I don't think you get mulligans in college football." Oh you don't, huh? Even though Florida lost a game this season? And even though they underperformed against inferior competition on several occasions, something that voters punished Notre Dame for more than once this year? But Florida's not getting a mulligan? Even though Texas lost a game last year, they still won the national championship. Would that count as a mulligan, dick? Or are those example inconvenient to your assface explanation?

The most important thing to consider is simply the fact these voters are offering these candy-ass theories about why they voted the way they did. The only thing they should be voting for is the ranking of the best teams in the country. It's that simple. (Something along the lines of this: "Did I want to see a rematch? No," he said. "But my job was to vote for the top 25 teams, not who should play who, and after watching as much college football as anybody, I believed Michigan was the second-best team.")

I don't want to hear some chode from Birmingham or Nashville espousing his conference-champion theorem; as a fan, what I want is the two best teams playing for the national championship. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is.

Oh, and I think Urban Meyer is still bitching and moaning. Somebody tell him to shut the fuck up already; he's got to get busy devising some more triple-reverse left-tackle passes and statue-of-liberty bullshit plays to try and keep the game close.

Harumph.

Schiano will end up at Miami. And very soon, too, I think. I just don't see how he doesn't take that chance with that program.

UPDATE: Or, you know, not so much. That didn't take long at all. I honestly thought he'd draw the process out for a while but would eventually cave and head to Miami. Congrats to Rutgers for holding on to him.

Florida vs. Ohio State in the BCS title game. What the fuck ever. Florida and Michigan were even in the BCS computer polls, but pollsters moved the Gators up to No. 2 in both human polls after USC lost. That pushed Florida ahead of the Wolverines and into the title game. Someone tell Urban Meyer he can quit all his fucking crying and bitching now. Otherwise, he may never stop.

It's obvious at this point that poll voters voted for the matchup that they wanted to see, instead of voting for the outright best teams. Because I don't see how people can see Florida as the second-best team in the country ahead of Michigan. I just don't. I'm well aware that the Gators have only one loss against the toughest schedule in the country, but they have woefully underperformed over the past two months against inferior competition. Way-too-close wins over Vanderbilt, Georgia, South Carolina (which should have been a loss) and Florida State haven't done anything to show anybody that the Gators are the second-best team in the country. And don't forget they played a 1-AA team in fucking November, which is beyond ridiculous.

People may not want to see a Michigan-Ohio State rematch, but if you don't, then you also don't want to see the top two teams in the country play. It's that simple. Florida-OSU may have the freshness factor that a rematch with Michigan obviously would not, but that's not the point. The point is to crown a true national champion, the victor in a game pitting the two best teams. That's not what we're getting.

For all its many wonderful benefits, college football is fucked in the head if they think this is a legitimate way to crown a champion. It's a joke. If Urban Meyer wants to cry and moan about something, how about getting a fucking playoff implemented, Urbie?

UPDATE: The instant analysis is already flying around, and ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski agrees that Michigan got bent over. Maybe he's just as annoyed by Urban Meyer's bitching and crying as I was. Or maybe he knows that Michigan is still the second-best team in the country. It's probably a little bit of both.

Bo Schembechler is dead. The longtime Michigan football coach was 77. He stopped coaching in 1989, so I only barely remember his stalking the sidelines during UM-ND games. I do remember him being revered as a legend in Ann Arbor.

And what are the odds it would happen on the eve of the biggest OSU-Michigan game every to be played in the history of the rivalry? It will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do to mark his passing tomorrow, especially since the game is in Columbus.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is Columbus and Ohio State Fan we're talking about. They'll mark his passing by burning effigies of him at the 50-yard line. And then they'll throw couches on the fire. It's what they know.

Why, Louisville, why? Why did you let those greaser Guineas from Piscataway back in the game? You're up 25-7 in the second quarter, cruising to a convincing victory in the national spotlight for the second week in a row. You're making travel plans to Phoenix for the BCS championship game.

Instead, you take a dump on the field. Specifically, your revered and unstoppable offense takes a dump on the field for the next two-and-a-half quarters. Rutgers steadily chips away at your lead, until a last-second field goal gives them the victory and leads to what may very well have been the first Mob mob on the field.

Give credit to Schiano and Rutgers. They should write a coaching textbook about the defensive adjustments he made at halftime. Louisville's offense was befuddled the entire time.

But, Kevin, you say, how can you not love Rutgers winning the biggest game in its history last night? How can you not get all warm and tingly inside thinking about this scrappy group of players taking college football by surprise this year? How can you have such black, cold hatred in your heart? Do you even have a heart? And what do you use in your hair? It looks fantastic!

And you know what? All those points have merit. And there is a part of me that loves the fairytale story Rutgers is writing this year. But it's the bigger picture that means something, people. Had Louisville seen this potential blowout all the way through last night, they were all but destined to jump to No. 2 in the BCS following OSU-Mich.

This, of course, would have lead to all sorts of righteous indignation from any number of one-loss teams (Florida, Auburn, Texas) who would have been on the outside looking in. All of which would go a long way to get people to scream and howl about what a croc the BCS is in the first place. It would have given us controversy. Controversy, at least when it comes to college football and the sham that is the BCS, is good.

Instead, one of those one-loss teams will now get exactly what they wanted. The fact that a Florida or Texas come from the SEC or Big 12 is more important than the fact they have one loss, and so the BCS championship game will be viewed as "legitimate." And college football's "system" for determining a champion falls further and further into farcical territory. It's a joke.

Harumph.