As college football's regular season draws to a close, it's time for this year's round of kvetching about everybody's favorite scapegoat: the BCS.
Michigan fans are appalled that Southern Cal is a win over UCLA away from cementing its spot opposite Ohio State on Jan. 8. Meanwhile, the BCS is currently about as popular in the state of Florida as Borat is at the rodeo.
This outcry raises a good question: Why shouldn't Florida or Michigan have a chance to play for the national title?
Michigan: After watching a preposterous amount of college football, to the detriment of my grades and social life, it's my opinion that the Wolverines are the second-best team in the nation. If you factor in that odds-makers typically give the team with home-field advantage a three-point cushion in the spread, the Maize and Blue played the Buckeyes to a dead heat in their 42-39 loss in Columbus. On a neutral field, Michigan-Ohio State II could be a toss-up.
But a rematch isn't fair, to Ohio State or to the rest of the national championship contenders. Michigan had a shot to earn a berth in the big game and it lost - no replay controversy, just a defeat to a better team. I'd rather see somebody else take a crack at the Buckeyes, another team that's played excellent football all year long, instead ushering the Wolverines into Phoenix for round two.
Florida: There is no more consistently overrated conference in college football than the SEC, ignoring Lee Corso's blusterings to the contrary. In the last two years, the demigods of the Southeast have appeared pretty darn mortal in postseason play, going 6-7 in bowl games.
The SEC has four teams in the AP poll's top 11. I'm sorry, but I'm just not impressed, because three of them - Florida, Auburn, and LSU - all started the season ranked in the top 11 (Arkansas, the fourth, was unranked). Florida lost to Auburn, one of Auburn's two losses came against Arkansas, Arkansas was defeated by LSU, and LSU lost to ... Florida and Auburn.
We have absolutely no gauge of how good these teams actually are! They schedule marshmallows for their non-conference games, beat up on the crappy SEC teams like Vanderbilt and Mississippi State and then proceed to lose to each other - which somehow proves that they're the top teams in the nation. I cannot understand it. Perhaps the SEC's record in the postseason should make some good ol' boy analysts take a few deep breaths and reevaluate the cream of the SEC crop relative to the rest of the country.
And for those fans who whine about the league championship game making it that much harder to finish the season undefeated and play for the national title - blame your coaches. They instituted the game in for the 1991 season, allegedly so one clear champion could be crowned (and it just so happens that the two teams who appear bank millions in TV rights and ticket sales). It's not mandated in any way by the NCAA.
But, umm ... back to Florida. The Gators really haven't played that well for the last few weeks against mostly mediocre opposition, which makes me think that Arkansas beats them tomorrow and firmly knocks them out of the national title picture. Man, I hope that happens. Especially since Urban Meyer was throwing the ball up 55-0 with eight minutes to go in the game against Western Carolina. Classy, Urban.
USC: Yes, USC plays in the Pac-10. Yes, I realize that everybody else in the country thinks that the Pac-10 sucks. It's much better than people realize, but that aside, USC has clearly established itself as one of best teams in the nation. One can make the "weak conference" argument, but just look at the Trojans' non-conference schedule: 50-14 on the road against Arkansas (10-2), 28-10 over Nebraska (9-3), and my personal favorite: 44-24 over Notre Dame (10-2). That's three wins over two potential league champions and the BCS-bound Irish, and none of them were close.
Further, no team in the country played a tougher schedule to close the season and handled it in a more convincing fashion. After their 33-31 wake-up call loss to Oregon State, the Trojans stomped on Stanford, beat Oregon by 25 (ranked 21st at the time), beat then-No. 17 Cal by two touchdowns and had the forceful win over the sixth-ranked Irish.
Pete Carroll has done another superb coaching job during what was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Give the Trojans their due; when the dust settles, USC deserves to be - and will be - squaring off against Ohio State for the national title.
-Matthew Mertens is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
