PLAYOFF

With all the people indignantly clamoring for a college football playoff its hard to remember that . . .well . . . actually . . . there already IS a college football playoff system.  The BCS is a a two team, one game system where the winner is settled on the field by agreement (the two BCS polls HAVE to place the game’s winner as number one no matter what controversy might mar the game).  What people REALLY want is an “expanded playoff” with MORE than two teams.  A BRILLIANTLY written editorial on the subject was recently posted on Get the Picture entitled Its So Easy.  It’s much better organized than my previous post (Why the BCS is better) and includes arguments I didn’t cover.  Its a must read that I recommend to everyone.

UF WINS OVER MICHIGAN

Computer simulations run by Accuscore’s supercomputer have UF beating Michigan in a theoretical head to head matchup.  According to the analysis, UF beats Michigan 54% of the time while OSU beats UF 76% of the time and beats Michigan 75% of the time.  Perhaps Wolverine and Gator fans can come together and just hand the Buckeyes the trophy now and spare ourselves the pain of a blowout (averaging 11 points against the Gators and 10 points against the Wolvies in the computer simulations).  Accuscore Simulations

MICHIGAN FANS 

It’s time for the Michigan fans and proponents to dry their tears and move on with their lives.  Enjoy the Rose Bowl.  Complaining that the process is unfair . . . doesn’t fly AFTER the election (see the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004).  Additionally, this wasn’t even a close vote.  For a myriad of reasons already noted a thousand times by pundits, the Gators landed ahead of Michigan in EVERY poll and by such large margins that even a 20 percent change in the votes wouldn’t have effected the result.  More than twice as many people voted Florida number two in the Harris (75-35) and Coaches (44-18) polls than Michigan.  The AP poll was also similar, yet AP voters didn’t have any reason to vote anything but their conscience since they couldn’t affect the BCS matchup so the national pundits and coaches clearly felt Florida was more worthy than Michigan.  OUCH!!!

FLORIDA FANS

Its also time for Florida fans to quit complaining every time they see an article or hear a rant about how Michigan was robbed.  WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!!!  (See above)  There won’t be a recount and as of yet there are not plans by Lloyd Carr to take this to the Supreme Court.  The regular season is over and they are manufacturing some news as well as venting.  The VAST majority of the voters have spoken (see the statistics above).  As I stated above the clear majority felt that Florida was more worthy than Michigan to play for the title but this does not mean that Michigan was NOT WORTHY!!!  Through a series of circumstance they fell short.  But the idea that they shouldn’t rematch Ohio State because they are in the same conference is ludicrous.  If Arkansas had beaten Florida then Michigan would have been CLEARLY the most deserving choice in the country to play for the title.  So let’s be consistent, the Wolverines deserve our sympathy and NOT our scorn.  If the situation were reversed Gator fans would react the same way.

BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP

Since their conference champion is playing for the National Championship the Big Ten has no valid complaint with the BCS .  Because intra-conference matchups are rare, how do we know how good the Big Ten is relative to the rest of the country?  Its too bad there isn’t a Big 10-ACC challenge in football or similar sets of games between other power conferences.  What the Big Ten COULD do however is add a 12th team and hold a conference championship game.  This might have created the beloved rematch that many Big Ten homers are clamoring for without forcing the rest of the country to have to watch.  Although it might have ended up pitting Wisconsin and Ohio State.  And if Wisconsin would have won . . . that would have been an interesting quandary deciding which Big Ten team (if any) should advance . . . a one loss Ohio State, Michigan or Wisconsin team.  Maybe THAT’s the real reason the Big Ten doesn’t play a title game.  There’s more to lose than gain for the traditional powers.  If the Big Ten wants to move into the 21st Century then go grab a team like the University of Pittsburgh and let their championship be settled on the field and they can eliminate all those ridiculous tie-breaking formulas they have in their bylaws (Big 10 teams only played 8 of the other 10 conference teams in a season).

Interesting factoid

The President of Ohio State, Karen Holbrook, served as UF’s vice president for research and the dean of Graduate school from 1993-1998.