In a landscape full of supposed “know it all” sports columists like Mike Lupica of New York, Bob Ryan of Boston, Dan LeBatard of Miami and Michael Wilbon of Washington DC perhaps the whiniest, crybabiest bitch of them all is Mitch Albom.  Granted, what do these guys have in common?  None of them know anything about college athletics: not college basketball, not college football, not college baseball, not anything college related.  They live in a pro sports world where they rarely travel to a college event unless it’s a “marquee event” that they are forced to cover. 

So when one of these reporters speaks out on a college issue it’s the intellectual equivalent of asking a wino which type of Chablis to serve with pork.  But in the BCS controversy Mitch Albom has an additional factor to consider.  Not only is he a clueless, elitist, self-righteous pseudo-intellectual but he also gathers one of his paychecks (and got his start) from a newspaper (the Detroit Free Press) located just an hour from Ann Arbor, Michigan (home of the University of Michigan).  So his impartiality on the BCS controversy was . . . well to put it mildly . . . questionable.  Several national writers have come out recently to admit they had it wrong but not Mitch . . . nooooooooooo . . . definitely not the self-important little ‘know nothing’ Mitch Albom.

This is Mitch in his Article “U-M wronged by BCS Voters”:

There is no way, in a logical world, that a big time, second-ranked team, whose only loss is by three points to the top-ranked team, should fall behind anyone with at least one defeat in a poll. Anyone. Southern Cal. Florida. Anyone.

In his post BCS Bowl article, ”College football: The ends junk the means“, Mitch, faced with all of his previous notions trampled by reality and laughed about by readers, goes ahead and states the following:

Before we close the book on the college football season, I wonder if you had the same feeling I did watching Florida trounce Ohio State for the national championship. It didn’t leave me cheering. It didn’t leave me satisfied.

It left me depressed.

Whoa!  NO WAY!!! (insert sarcasm here) Of COURSE it left you depressed you retard.  You looked like a complete MORON with your loud obnoxious and incessant clamoring that Michigan was deserving of the BCS game slot over Florida.  We are all TRULY shocked to hear how “depressed” you were (and probably embarrassed).

The Gators whooping the Buckeyes might have made Urban Meyer happy (and rich), but I’m not sure what it did for anyone not wearing Florida colors. One of my fellow columnists suggested it proved the BCS got it right, but I disagree. I still believe the Ohio State team that beat Michigan in mid-November would have beaten Florida the following Saturday.

If you chuckle when you read this it’s quite understandable.  Hmmmm . . . interesting thought.  The team that lost by almost 4 touchdowns on Monday night would have beaten Florida the Saturday after the Michigan game.  Well to be honest I can’t dispute this.  With Florida having to play Florida State at noon and then possibly getting the Buckeyes in for a night game it would have been a HUGE advantage for Ohio State.  Especially when you think that Florida still had the SEC Championship game to worry about the FOLLOWING week.

In a related thought, I will go so far to suggest that Michigan would have been able to beat USC had they been able to play the Trojans immediately after the UCLA game.  I mean not only would USC have to gameplan for two teams in one week but imagine how tired they would be playing their SECOND game on the same day.  Sheesh . . . exceptional point Mitch.  And that’s about the ONLY way that Michigan and Ohio State could have won their bowl games too. 

That’s the problem with this year’s bowl games.  These highly rated Big Ten schools were forced to play teams they hadn’t seen before with more team speed than they were used too.  Clearly the Big Ten was unfairly penalized by their own schedule.  There’s no way they could have put that big Michigan-Ohio State game off a week or so?  Does a week off between the game for both teams mean than neither undefeated team has momemtum?  I think that’s the belief of our boy Albom.

As a result, nobody knows nothing. Most of the “experts” (myself included) were proved wrong (allowing the Gators to use the most overused phrase in sports, “No one gave us any respect”). And yes, it’s fun when the experts look like idiots. But let’s be honest. If the experts are always wrong — and No. 2 has beaten No. 1 pretty often — maybe it’s not the experts.

Maybe it’s not the experts fault?  Huh?  Am I reading this correctly?  Is Mitch here BLAMING the system of polls for ranking Ohio State 1st and thereby alleivating any responsiblity of the experts to pick the winner?  And the justification here is that Ohio State was ranked ahead of Florida so of couse the experts should pick Ohio State and claim that Florida will be blown out and doesn’t deserve to be in the game.  At the same time this is a man wailing upon the polls for putting Michigan third. 

“My goodness folks, how am I supposed to know which team is better if no body tells me first!!!”  I see . . . that’s a very compelling argument Mr. Albom . . . for a 6 year old perhaps.  What a miracle for people like Bob Davie and Mark May to have picked Florida.  I guess they didn’t know OSU was ranked ahead in the polls.  Lucky bastards!

By the way, “nobody knows nothing”?  Nice prose Mitch my man, sounding smooth and very intellectual.

This speaks to another conflict in college football, one felt acutely in the Big Ten: going for a conference championship versus going for a national crown. A school like U-M has long prided itself on — first and foremost — winning the Big Ten. But doing that seems to require one approach, while winning a national championship requires another. The teams that survive the Big Ten grind usually pound the ball well, block well, defend well and use the momentum from week to week. Teams that win the national title seem to move like lightning, throw like crazy and get geeked up for one spotlight event.

Are you kidding me?  The BIG TEN is penalized by having to win the Big 10 rather than one spotlight event?  Holy moley, someone switch the meds Mitch is on because I think he’s lost it completely.  Let me get this straight . . . Ohio State (and Michigan too I suppose) was unfairly punished by having to play against a pathetic Big Ten schedule (does the 2-5 bowl record mean anything to you Mitch) and THEN having to face an actual “quality” team from either the SEC, Pac 10 or any other conference team in a bowl game? 

By gosh, actually, I think he’s got it right.  Mitch is saying that Ohio State and Michigan can’t be expected to compete against GOOD teams when they are misled into thinking they just need prepare for the overall mediocrity of the Big Ten.  I guess USC and Florida didn’t block well, defend well (isn’t that a basketball term Mitch, are you confusing sports again?) and use momentum.  They just “got geeked up”.

One team goes home happy — and sometimes surprised — while everyone else ranges from confused to confounded. And, thanks to big TV money, nothing will change for at least four years.

Which is the most depressing part of all.

This seems to be the biggest blunder of Albom’s article.  Wrong Mitch, it’s not college football or the BCS title game that is the most depressing thing of all.  The most depressing thing is reading the friggin’ dreck of an article you are trying to push down our throats.  But hey Mitch . . . how are those Red Wings doing?  Maybe you should stick to something like that and you won’t sound so mentally impaired in the future.