Let me first state that I don't really care who will face Ohio State for the BCS championship in January. I don't care if it's Florida or Oklahoma or any other arbitrary opponent. As you know, I support a playoff. Stuff like this just demonstrates why.
The one thing I do care about is that it not be an Ohio State-Michigan rematch. Not because I think Michigan isn't one of the top teams this year, or because I think it would be unfair to any of OSU's other potential potential opponents. No, it's because I think it would be unfair to Ohio State. I look at it this way: A rematch means that OSU has to beat Michigan twice in order to be national champs. Michigan would only have to achieve a split for the same end. To my way of thinking, that ain't right. It effectively renders the original OSU-Michigan game moot. If this was going to happen, the Big Ten would have done the world a favor by un-scheduling OSU-Michigan once it became clear they were #s 1 and 2, and letting it all happen in January instead. At least then it could have legitimately been a winner-take-all affair.
Now I know that in any meaningful playoff setup, OSU and Michigan might have met again, including possibly in a title game. But in that scenario, Michigan would have had to beat other teams to get there, and if the system gave emphasis to conference champions they would have had to overcome a low seed as well. None of that would be the case here, and I can't abide the idea that going one-and-one against a team is good enough to determine who deserves a better ranking. If we want to talk about making this a best two-of-three, with OSU leading one to zero, then I'll listen. Otherwise, forget it. I say anybody-but-Michigan, or else the BCS will have found a new way to be meaningless.
UPDATE: It's Florida. Fine by me. Let the whining and recriminations begin!
Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 03, 2006 to Other sports | TrackBackI'm still rooting for Boise State.
Posted by: Michael Hurta on December 3, 2006 3:32 PMYou make a good point that I hadn't considered. Although Michigan was certainly at a disadvantage playing in Columbus for their fist game and still they almost stole it.
Frankly this is all just a bunch of jacking off like most every other year (last year being the exception when there were only two obvious undefeated candidates). Hell, why not Wisconsin, another 11-1 Big-10 team?
The silliness that is the BCS is just beyond words anymore. Not only have the fucked up the national championship game, but they have destroyed the rest of the traditional bowl games as well, where the matchups just seem random anymore. The Central Texas 3A playoffs that I've been watching holds more interest to me than the bowl games and I'm not even from Texas having only recently moved here. I find myself going into the final weeks of every season just rooting for all the wrong teams to win so that the BCS is messed up worse than before. But they seem to be beyond embarrasment.
Pretty much every other sport practiced at every other level from High School to the Olympics has managed to figure out how to create a true championship earned on the field of play rather than awarded by polls. In fact, every other level of football at the college level has figured out how to do a championship.
Imagine a 16 team tournament in which the first round games are played as home games for the top 8 seeds and then the final quarterfinals on are played at neutral warm weather bowl sites. Using the final BCS standings, we would have a tourney that looks like this:
#16 Rutgers at #1 Ohio State
#15 Virginia Tech at #2 Florida
#14 Wake Forest at #3 Michigan
#13 West Virginia at #4 LSU
#12 Arkansas at #5 USC
#11 Notre Dame at #6 Louisville
#10 Oklahoma at #7 Wisconsin
#9 Auburn at #8 Boise St.
If the seeds win out the quarters would be
#1 Ohio St. vs #8 Boise St
#2 Florida vs #7 Wisconsin
#3 Michigan vs #6 Louisville
#4 LSU vs #5 USC
semis would be
#1 Ohio St vs #4 LSU
#2 Florida vs #3 Michigan
Those would be some seriously intense playoff games. I'd love to see overrated Notre Dame have to travel to Louisville and get spanked. Boise St would quickly find out how much further they have to go to reach the real big time with games against Auburn and Ohio State. And it just so works out that no same-conference teams would end up playing in the first round and there would be only one regular season rematch that I can see (USC vs Arkansas).
I'm in quandry. I don't really want to see either of these teams win. But I think my animosity towards the Gators is greater than mine for the Buckeyes.
I guess since my Brother-In-Law is an OSU grad, I should root for them.
Posted by: David (Austin Tx) on December 6, 2006 11:57 AM