Chomp! Chomp!
The miracle has occurred and Florida is actually going to play for the Mythical National Championship (MNC), thanks to some hyper-rationality on the part of the poll voters, who knew the computer polls would punt and had to skew their results so as to end up with the matchup I do think most fans want to see.
Congratulations to Diana and Ben. How proud you must be.
Still, we at the Group are disappointed, because we lost out on the chance to have the worst possible matchup in the history of the BCS in Michigan-Ohio State II, the Game That Tells Us Nothing (MOSIIGTTUN). I had been licking my chops over that to the point that I seriously contemplated rooting for Arkansas to keep the SEC Championship game close (which they did, without my rooting, despite employing Venus de Milo at quarterback - you know, no arms?) so as to hurt Florida's chance to play for the MNC. The possibility of MOSIIGTTUN was simply too delicious to resist. Consider - OSU (Overrated State University) beats Michigan again. Then what? We know nothing about OSU that we didn't know before. We still have no idea if Florida, or for that matter Wisconsin or Louisville or Boise State, could beat them. All we know is that they can beat Michigan (and, in fairness, Texas).
But EVEN BETTER would be if MIGHIGAN won MOSIIGTTUN. Then we know EVEN LESS. We don't even have an undefeated team anymore. Is Michigan the MNC? Why? Because they beat OSU? But then why not OSU as the national champ, since they beat Michigan? Can you imagine the howling? The SEC would have an absolute (and perfectly justified) fit.
But no, we're not going to be treated to that. We have to have further pretense that the BCS is some sort of system designed to produce a consensus national champion. It isn't. It's a travesty of the worst sort and it is the worst thing about college football. Still. And, apparently, always.
Gators by 4.
UPDATE: The Sports Economist has a take on a tangent of the above, viz: who is better, Florida or Michigan? As we've posted here previously, nobody has any earthly idea how good the SEC is, since the conference has avoided playing anyone decent the entire season. As a conference the SEC played two out-of-conference bowl teams, Miami (Florida beat them) which finished 6-6, and USC (10-2), which beat Arkansas 50-14. Yes, THAT Arkansas. For purposes of comparison, USC scored 9 points on UCLA Saturday. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
posted by Cj at 9:59 AM
2 Comments:
Thank you for your congratulations. Let's just hope that come January 8th the Gators will remember that they are allowed to play in the third quarter.
A few corrections to your UPDATE:
Florida beat Florida State not Miami, although they rank nearly the same on the evil scale and both ended the season at 6-6 (the ACC is a sad thing, but GO DEMON DEACONS!)
Other NON SEC bowl teams that the SEC played (in painstakingly alphabetical order):
Cal (Tennessee beat them 35-18)
Clemson (South Carolina beat them 31-28)
Central Michigan (Kentucky beat them 45-36)
Florida State (Florida beat them 21-14)
Georgia Tech (Georgia beat them 15-12)
Hawaii (Alabama beat them 25-17)
Louisville (Kentucky lost 59-28)
Michigan (Vanderbilt lost 27-7)
Middle Tennessee State (South Carolina beat them 52-7)
Missouri (Ole Miss lost 34-7)
USC (Arkansas lost 50-14)
Wake Forest (Ole Miss lost 27-3)
West Virginia (Mississippi State lost 42-14)
I think I got them all. That is a 7-6 record, not too bad considering that 4 of the losses were by non bowl bound teams (Ole Miss x2, Vandy, Miss State). Not to mention that the SEC went 3-1 in out of conference rivalry games against bowl teams (only Kentucky couldn't pull out a win against Louisville, GO WILDCATS!) When it comes down to it though, the bowl games are the only thing that can declare conference dominance. Let's hope for a good showing from the SEC, or at least have the Bayou Bengals show the Irish how to play football. Oh and... GO GATORS!!!
Okay, well, I'm beat. It's really hard to compete with people that do actual research. I didn't think any of those people would bother reading this blog, and see, I was wrong. I've decided to be happy about it.
This is a pretty good list, and there are a couple of impressive games on it. I have said before that I admire Arkansas for playing USC, and I think the Cal/Tennessee game is a good one. The rivalry games are built into the regular schedule, but there's nothing to criticize about that.
It is absolutely ridiculous, however, to talk about bowl games as the identifier of superior conferences, though, unless you want to argue that Utah really is 40 points better than Georgia Tech. Bowl games are totally disconnected from football reality, separated by 4-5 weeks from the regular season, and let's face it, if you aren't from a small conference or you're not playing for the national title, you have a glorified, high-paying exhibition game. Some teams show for that kind of thing; some don't. I don't think much of bowl games for establishing relative strengths of conference. But, since it's all we have....
Florida by 5.
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