Who's #2*?
Just a short little post before I get to bed... project to work on.
At this point, we all have naught left to us, aside from waiting until tomorrow afternoon, at which point we all actually have to watch this silly BCS Selection Show of theirs.
And I'm feeling reasonably well about it.
There are approximately two ways for the important parts of tomorrow to pan out - Florida #2, Michigan #3 or Michigan #2, Florida #3.
One way we get UF-OSU in Glendale, and UM-USC in Pasadena (as it was meant to be, except, you know, OSU actually won the Big Ten. And such.). I'll be jealous, and I'll kindly advise any Florida fans to avoid being dickbags about the whole process, but I'll be happy that two very important matchups are occurring - Big Ten vs. SEC, Big Ten vs. Pac-10 - and I'll be very happy that a good UM team gets another crack at a (worse) USC team... like I said, the last Rose Bowl I attended has left some sort of undesirable taste in my mouth.
The other way, we get UM-OSU in Glendale, in the Super Double Extra Game of the Century. I get a chance for extreme vindication (or extreme crow-eating), My Team is in the big game. Hard for me to be upset. The other matchups mean less since they're all about 2-loss teams, but SEC vs. Pac-10 (LSU in the Rose, right?) is a good deal; Florida vs. Notre Dame or Florida vs.... Rutgers (?) could both be revealing games. Might be fun.
Update: just before press time (right before I hit "Publish Post"), Rutgers lost. Pity, that. What does that leave us with, joker Louisville? Whatever.
I didn't let myself really start to think about it until today, so I didn't consider many angles aside from Michigan's worthiness to hold the "#2" position until January (and I obviously think Michigan's claim is legitimate, if not ironclad. I won't fight you, unless you insist Michigan couldn't possibly be better than Florida and, uh, Boise State.). The other issues include... hype. We had a hypetastic week/month for UM-OSU I. Could the universe handle Hype II? It'd get rough. I'd eat it up, of course, but Florida fans might boycott ESPN. Also: Split Championship. It doesn't make any sense, but I believe that the poll machine that has had OSU at #1 all year might go ahead and leave them there if Michigan won a rematch. Everyone would yell at each other loudly, it would be a mess. Third: other conferences (well, just the SEC). I say that I haven't thought about this, and to a certain extent, it's true. I don't think I've really believed in (i.e. "expected") The Rematch all along, because I now think "Well, Florida did only lose one game. To a team that is in the Top 25 (sorry, Beavers). If they play Notre Dame and win pretty big (they would), it'd be hard to tell them they didn't deserve that chance they didn't get." Pac-10, Big XII, Boise State, and Big East get no such love, but Florida did accomplish a lot this year. And, here's the only reason this really strikes me all of a sudden: if OSU and UM are in the Big One, and LSU and Florida are both in BCS games... how do we compare the upper echelon of the Big Ten with that of the SEC? The best options available become transitive matchups (if that), and we all know those are BS.
Don't get me wrong, I really think Michigan and OSU are the two best teams in the country this year (especially after catching half of that SEC Championship. Isn't this conference supposed to be good/play good defense/not be so sloppy?), but I see a big point of contention due to lack of head-to-head Big Ten-SEC play. But, again, I wouldn't complain for my part.
One thing I'm noticing - right after today's relevant games ended, ESPN.com's SportsNation Poll on the front page was giving Michigan a 65-35 edge in voting. The gap has steadily narrowed, although the state of Florida is being much kinder to Michigan than the state of Michigan is to Florida. We sit at 55-45 right now, with 140,000 votes reporting. I'm guessing that people have gotten around to thinking about the Hype Monster and other issues, eschewing the initial gut feeling that Michigan was just a better team. Which is fine; everybody knows what we're really voting for here. Obviously, the voters in this particular poll are very unimportant; I do think they're indicative of the real polls, which will be biased in many of the same ways.
Eesh, "short little post" apparently means nothing in my language. Goodnight.
* - "#2" refers to the ranking assigned to the team which most of the poll-takers in the relevant BCS polls would prefer to see play in the National Championship Game; not to the talent or perceived talent of any team.
At this point, we all have naught left to us, aside from waiting until tomorrow afternoon, at which point we all actually have to watch this silly BCS Selection Show of theirs.
And I'm feeling reasonably well about it.
There are approximately two ways for the important parts of tomorrow to pan out - Florida #2, Michigan #3 or Michigan #2, Florida #3.
One way we get UF-OSU in Glendale, and UM-USC in Pasadena (as it was meant to be, except, you know, OSU actually won the Big Ten. And such.). I'll be jealous, and I'll kindly advise any Florida fans to avoid being dickbags about the whole process, but I'll be happy that two very important matchups are occurring - Big Ten vs. SEC, Big Ten vs. Pac-10 - and I'll be very happy that a good UM team gets another crack at a (worse) USC team... like I said, the last Rose Bowl I attended has left some sort of undesirable taste in my mouth.
The other way, we get UM-OSU in Glendale, in the Super Double Extra Game of the Century. I get a chance for extreme vindication (or extreme crow-eating), My Team is in the big game. Hard for me to be upset. The other matchups mean less since they're all about 2-loss teams, but SEC vs. Pac-10 (LSU in the Rose, right?) is a good deal; Florida vs. Notre Dame or Florida vs.... Rutgers (?) could both be revealing games. Might be fun.
Update: just before press time (right before I hit "Publish Post"), Rutgers lost. Pity, that. What does that leave us with, joker Louisville? Whatever.
I didn't let myself really start to think about it until today, so I didn't consider many angles aside from Michigan's worthiness to hold the "#2" position until January (and I obviously think Michigan's claim is legitimate, if not ironclad. I won't fight you, unless you insist Michigan couldn't possibly be better than Florida and, uh, Boise State.). The other issues include... hype. We had a hypetastic week/month for UM-OSU I. Could the universe handle Hype II? It'd get rough. I'd eat it up, of course, but Florida fans might boycott ESPN. Also: Split Championship. It doesn't make any sense, but I believe that the poll machine that has had OSU at #1 all year might go ahead and leave them there if Michigan won a rematch. Everyone would yell at each other loudly, it would be a mess. Third: other conferences (well, just the SEC). I say that I haven't thought about this, and to a certain extent, it's true. I don't think I've really believed in (i.e. "expected") The Rematch all along, because I now think "Well, Florida did only lose one game. To a team that is in the Top 25 (sorry, Beavers). If they play Notre Dame and win pretty big (they would), it'd be hard to tell them they didn't deserve that chance they didn't get." Pac-10, Big XII, Boise State, and Big East get no such love, but Florida did accomplish a lot this year. And, here's the only reason this really strikes me all of a sudden: if OSU and UM are in the Big One, and LSU and Florida are both in BCS games... how do we compare the upper echelon of the Big Ten with that of the SEC? The best options available become transitive matchups (if that), and we all know those are BS.
Don't get me wrong, I really think Michigan and OSU are the two best teams in the country this year (especially after catching half of that SEC Championship. Isn't this conference supposed to be good/play good defense/not be so sloppy?), but I see a big point of contention due to lack of head-to-head Big Ten-SEC play. But, again, I wouldn't complain for my part.
One thing I'm noticing - right after today's relevant games ended, ESPN.com's SportsNation Poll on the front page was giving Michigan a 65-35 edge in voting. The gap has steadily narrowed, although the state of Florida is being much kinder to Michigan than the state of Michigan is to Florida. We sit at 55-45 right now, with 140,000 votes reporting. I'm guessing that people have gotten around to thinking about the Hype Monster and other issues, eschewing the initial gut feeling that Michigan was just a better team. Which is fine; everybody knows what we're really voting for here. Obviously, the voters in this particular poll are very unimportant; I do think they're indicative of the real polls, which will be biased in many of the same ways.
Eesh, "short little post" apparently means nothing in my language. Goodnight.
* - "#2" refers to the ranking assigned to the team which most of the poll-takers in the relevant BCS polls would prefer to see play in the National Championship Game; not to the talent or perceived talent of any team.
posted by john (east lansing, mi) at 11:03 PM
2 Comments:
The SportsNation poll margin grows ever slimmer. With 267,824 votes - 51-49.
This is why I'm not necessarily unprepared to hear that Michigan is going back to Pasadena.
Coaches' poll is in; Florida got the edge, by 26 points. USC had Michigan by 16 points two weeks ago when the computer ranking kept Michigan on top.
SportsNation poll has been 50-50 for about 3 hours. My guess is that it will soon swing to 49-51.
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