Invincible

Since hindsight is 20-20, I can now say that I saw this coming all along.

But I couldn't say that at 8:00 ET.

Although I did expect a close game, there's no way on earth that I could have expected this...a 41-14 thrashing (41-7 if you throw out the first fifteen seconds of the game) of the Buckeyes by a Florida team that half of the country thought didn't deserve to be there, yet all of a sudden finds itself as National Champions.

The Florida Gators proved some things on Monday night besides the obvious. They proved that this BCS system that everybody likes to assail on a regular basis might actually have some merit. I mean think about it, would a playoff system have really decided anything? You have a playoff system in college basketball, and don't get me wrong: it works and it works well. But even when the field of 64 is announced, there are arguments about which of the teams that are ranked in the high 30's and low 40's should have been included. You mean to tell me that there wouldn't be angst over why the ninth best team in the country would be unhappy?

I myself am very happy that teams like Boise State can get to experience the thrill of winning the Fiesta Bowl and not having to sully that with a loss to a powerhouse like Florida the following week in a playoff. Would you have remembered the "Statue of Liberty Game" as much as you will if it was a first round playoff game?

There used to be a great thing in this country regarding diversity. It used to be that you could go to any city in America and find stores and restaurants that reflected the culture of the city you were in. Now, you go down any mid-major street in America and you see a Starbucks, a Walmart, a Pizza Hut, a McDonald's. Everywhere! If there's a Blockbuster on that strip it's considered fancy. The last thing I want to see in my sports landscape is the same homogenization that I see on Main Street USA.

But I digress.

If there's something that doesn't work with the system that we've learned this year, it was the failure of the Big Ten to schedule games closer to the National Championship game. It hurt Michigan when being passed at the last minute by a Florida team that played Arkansas while Michigan was idle, and it probably wound up hurting Ohio State as the longer layoff hurt them (see: Tigers, Detroit). But like the song says: Don't hate the player, hate the game. If it means scheduling a Ball State, or heaven forbid a strong team, closer to the day of the SEC title game, then maybe it's something the Big Ten should think about.

Florida was the right choice to play in this game even if they would have gotten their doors blown off. Instead, they come in and use their athleticism to spank the Buckeyes. Teams that are fast and athletic like the Florida Gators always deserve a punchers chance in these games. And quite simply, they were more athletic than Ohio State. The telling comment came after the game when Reggie Nelson was talking about the Ted Ginn injury:

"He should have been playing in the SEC anyway."

To me, that says it all right there. Big 10 fans, when confronted with Florida crashing their Tostitos party, generally became Ohio State fans to prove who the better conference was. Heck, I'd go on Michigan blogs...Michigan blogs...and fans pledged allegiance to Ohio State for the championship game to crush Florida to prove that Michigan belonged. Isn't that kind of like making a deal with the devil?

For Reggie Nelson to believe that Ted Ginn should have been playing in the SEC proves that it's a more athletic conference. And in college football, let's face it, speed kills. You can cover up a lot of mistakes with speed, and you can also make a lot of good quarterbacks run for their life with speed on defense.

I certainly can't say that I blame Big Ten fans for feeling that way. But what wound up happening? USC crushes Michigan, and Florida blasts Ohio State...by a combined 41 points. Instead of Michigan carrying the torches of an undeserved snub, it's USC that's left to wonder what would have happened if that last J.D. Booty pass wouldn't have been tipped and picked by UCLA.

And now all that's left is the final vote to coronate the Gators as National Champs. With the beating that Ohio State took, expect that vote to be unanimous, but do not be surprised if one voter, whether by reasoning that there is only one undefeated team left standing or by making a political statement towards the birth of a playoff system, votes Boise State number one.

The People's Champ

I return from my long hiatus only to say this...

A hook and lateral to tie the game with seven seconds left?

A halfback option pass in the first overtime to come within a point of Oklahoma?

Then the statue of liberty play to win the game on a two-point conversion?

It was the best game I've ever seen.

Considering that we saw Texas defeat USC just 359 days ago, that's saying a lot.

It doesn't matter who wins next week...Boise State is my national champion.

Unbelievable.

Gotta Be Gators

The call me "The Mad Stork".

And I'm mad at myself.

I'm mad at myself because when I wrote this piece on why the Florida Gators should be considered serious contenders for the national title, I seriously considered taking the plunge and predicting that they and Ohio State would play for the title. And now that it's going to happen because of Florida's win and USC's unforgivable loss, I lost out on my chance to look like a genius to the three readers this site gets a week.

Did I say it's "going" to happen? Oh, well it's not a sure thing yet. But it sure as hell should be. Because to me, Glendale should be welcoming Ohio State and Florida to January 8th.

Michigan? Been there done that.

But there seems to be sentiment for the rematch...the easy storyline...the easy justification of "well, Michigan gave Ohio State an instant classic a couple of weeks ago...they deserve another shot."

More than Florida? I think no.

First off, nobody gave the Gators much of a chance to do much in the SEC because of their tough schedule. But if you almost run the table with a tough schedule, don't you deserve to gain points for that? Shouldn't the coaches and writers who vote in this thing take that into account? (Then again, what do you expect from the writers...one of which voted Oklahoma 24th because he thought they lost when they actually won...that writer was kicked off the voting process. And hey, why are coaches voting anyway? Aren't they too busy paying attention to their own team?)

My fear is that the voters are going to vote a little bit more with their hearts (Oh, wouldn't a rematch be just grand) than with their heads.

Second, should Michigan really win a national title after splitting two games with Ohio State?

Third, consider this about the two conferences that Florida and Michigan play in. The Big Ten went 33-12 in non-conference play, while the SEC went 41-7. The seven SEC losses were to: Missouri and Wake Forest (Mississippi) Tulane and West Virginia (Mississippi State), USC (Arkansas), Louisville (Kentucky), and Michigan (Vanderbilt). Outside of Tulane, all those teams were either first or second in their division or conference. Not bad.

Now look at the twelve non-conference losses for the Big Ten: Notre Dame (Penn State, Purdue, and Michigan State), Hawaii (Purdue), California (Minnesota), Ohio and Rutgers (Illinois) are all legitimate. But then...

Illinois lost to Syracuse, last in the Big East at 4-8.

Indiana lost to Connecticut (4-7 in the Big East, just a hair above Syracuse) and Southern Illinois (a 1-AA team).

Northwestern lost to Nevada (borderline, but they finished third in the WAC), and to New Hampshire (another 1-AA team).

Ironically, it's Florida's victory over Western Carolina that is probably going to haunt them...along with the lack of "style points" that they accrued due to the fact that they didn't blow out teams. But correct me if I'm wrong: wasn't the BCS designed to take all weight off of margin of victory...or "style points"?

And finally, Florida won their conference! Michigan finished second!!! Does it get more concrete than that?

There you have it...I've made my case. If you read nothing else that I've written (and judging from the site stats, you haven't), I hope you've read this. And I hope you're a voter.

Make the right choice.

Chaos Part Deux

So you thought that this weekend in college football was going to be just a couple of stale appetizers before the main course next week, right?

Well, there will still be a main course. But today's appetizers were anything but stale.

So I had two games on...side by side today. One game featured Steve Spurrier returning to the swamp to face the college football program that he put on the map.

The other, picked on a whim, was supposed to be merely an excuse to watch Marshawn Lynch play, a rare treat for an east coaster such as myself. California at Arizona.

So what was the difference between the one loss team that remained a one loss team, and the one loss team which is now a two loss team? Simple. It's all in the way they responded to pressure.

Yeah, the Florida Gators had the benefit of the home crowd behind them, while the Cal Bears were in hostile Tuscon to face the Wildcats. But the Gators had the very man who put the Florida Gators on the college football landscape on the visiting sideline. Imagine if...one year after he beat his former program at home...Steve Spurrier marched into the swamp in what is turning out to be a down year for the Gamecocks, and walked away with a victory? Holy cripes! You think the fact that they're making a Tony La Russa book into a movie is annoying, wait until you would have seen the size of Steve Spurrier's ego after winning a game in the swamp with QB Syvelle Newton playing safety? It would have been nothing less than IMAX. (Come to think of it, Spurrier could probably play La Russa in this movie or any movie.)

So when the Gamecocks went up 16-10 it was gut check time for the Gators. Not only do they block the extra point, but they come back with a great drive down the field highlighted by Chris Leak and DeShawn Wynn...and capped by a Tim Tebow TD), but they block the potential SC winning field goal at the buzzer (both blocks by Jarvis Moss). Sure they got lucky as a false start penalty negated a Blake Mitchell pass that put the GC's inside the ten yard line, but luck is the residue of design, and the Gators had one hell of a design.

Not so for California.

Cal didn't have the same kind of luck as Florida...Marshawn Lynch had a 79 yard TD run called back on a block in the back penalty by Lavelle Hawkins, and Cal had to settle for a field goal. Hawkins slipped and fell just short of the goal line on an easy touchdown bomb that turned another touchdown into a field goal. And Desean Jackson had a 63 yard touchdown called back as he stepped out of bounds at the 41 yard line, and that led to the final nail in the coffin, a Ronnie Palmer interception.

But the most blatent rip off came when corner Daymeion Hughes played perfect defense on Arizona's Bernard Hicks and picked off Willie Tuitama in the end zone, only to have the play called back for interference. Chris Henry scored two plays later.

It was a rip off of the highest proportion. It's amazing how referees, college and pros, consistently get this call wrong. It sucked to be Daymeion Hughes at that moment.

But instead of responding with a drive down the Wildcats throat, Nate Longshore threw an ill-advised out pattern that Antoine Cason picked off and escorted to the house for the deciding touchdown.

So call the Bears unlucky if you want...and by the same token you can call the Gators lucky. But both teams earned their fates. Florida has one loss and California has two.

Throw in Texas' and Auburn's second losses, and guaranteed second losses coming up for either USC or Notre Dame, and either Arkansas or Florida (SEC title game), things just got a lot more interesting for Rutgers, Boise State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wake Forest, and yes...even Louisville.

Chaos.

Chaos

I don't think you truly understand.

It's mass hysteria on the streets. The Jersey shore might set a new record for most vomit running down the streets...because even the amateurs are out there drinking their faces off after Rutgers' huge victory tonight.

But not only that, Pete Carroll is running around South Central in his underwear...that's how excited he is to potentially have a shot at the national title game.

Matthew McConaughey is tipping cows in Austin.

The men in Florida are making out with the girls at Auburn.

Even the students at Berkeley are skipping their weekly spelling bee social to party.

It's just pure freakin' insanity, and that's not even considering the most amazing aspect of this whole night:

This is Rutgers.

Rutgers!

They hadn't beaten a ranked team since 1988.

They hadn't been to a bowl in 27 seasons.

I mean...they're...Rutgers!

And...they're...on ESPN! Undefeated!!!

Greg Schiano? If you look to the sky tonight, you just might catch a glimpse of this man's stock. He's already the coach of the millennium for what he's done with this program. Thursday night, after his halftime adjustments on defense gave Brian Brohm fits, he will add "Coach of the Year" to his titles. On offense? We saw madness when Schiano put the unit in the hands of Mike Teel, when everyone was wondering why Rutgers wouldn't dance with who brung 'em? But in the second half, we all saw the method. Ray Rice gained 75 yards in the fourth quarter. And that was with eight or nine Louisville defenders in the box!

It was so brilliant, it was insane. And tonight at the Jersey shore (and on one loss campuses across America), insanity rules the night.

Un-freakin-believable.

The Schiano Shuffle

It's gotten so good at Rutgers, that Governor Corzine is begging for tickets to Thursday night's Big East battle royal against Louisville.

But has it gotten too good?

And I ask that because there seems to be speculation...well, maybe speculation is the wrong term. But rather a widespread assumption that Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano is merely making Rutgers a quick stop on his road to become the head coach at Miami university after this season. The evidence would seem to point in that direction.

In the pollyanic world of Rutgers fans, and those who want to see the little guy win out every once in a while, Schiano stays at Rutgers for the next twenty years and turns this formerly dormant program into the first true powerhouse of the Big East football conference. But when it comes down to a choice of being a big fish in a smaller pond, or a normal size fish in a bigger pond, history has proven that coaches in these positions go to the ocean digs rather than the babbling brook. Right now, with their record at 8-0 entering tonight, Schiano might have gotten too big for the small pond of the Big East.

When I see Schiano, I kind of see Urban Meyer in his final season in Utah. Meyer (along with Alex Smith) took the Utes to unprecedented college football success...but instead of staying and being Mr. Utah, Meyer took advantage of his wild "mid-major" success and was seduced by the SEC and the Florida Gators.

But there's some differences between Schiano and Meyer that gives hope to Rutgers fans. First off, Utah has never really been known as a hotbed of high school talent, at least not in the way that New Jersey is. Now you can say a lot of things about New Jersey...but one thing that few states have on Jersey is the abundance of high school talent that exists. Up until now, nobody has been able to entice Jersey boys to stay at home to play at Rutgers. But with the recent success of the state school, there's a fighting chance. (There's even more of a fighting chance if Schiano considers the plight of one John L. Smith, who left five straight bowl appearances behind at Louisville to underachieve at Michigan State...a Big Ten school, it should be noted.)

One thing we know about Greg Schiano is that he loves to recruit. He's got the Miami pipeline in place that he cultivated while he was an assistant at "The U". But while some would consider that fact a reason to return to Miami, one wonders why he would go to Miami with the pipeline already in place. Now, with the success that Rutgers is enjoying, Schiano has a golden opportunity to do what no other head coach at Rutgers has done, and keep the blue chip Jersey recruits home. And while argues that Jersey recruits might leave for the sun and sand of more glamorous schools like "The U" and "The USC", there are just as many Jersey recruits going to Boston College and Wisconsin. Just a few short years ago, BC had as many players on their roster from New Jersey as they had from their home state of Massachusetts. And my exclusive sources tell me that there aren't any beaches in Madison, WI.

Miami will probably open up the vault for Schiano, in salary and in recruiting budgets...but Rutgers, for a smaller Big East school, is doing quite well by Schiano, paying him over $1 million in base salary plus incentives. But what A.D. Robert Mulcahy should worry about isn't Miami. It's Penn State.

Many (not all) have forgotten about PSU, where Schiano was a DB's coach under Joe Paterno in the early 90's. Schiano remains close to Paterno, and called him for advice on whether to take the Rutgers job (Paterno said no...probably because Rutgers was a dead program, but maybe because he knew of Schiano's fervor for recruiting and wasn't interested in bringing a potential adversary closer to him). So one could wonder whether taking over for a legend at Penn State, and not the mess that is the Miami Hurricanes, could present Schiano's next challenge.

But again, a potential advantage for Rutgers would be this: Once Paterno retires (which could come sooner rather than later if a player were to break his other leg), would Penn State hold the same romance for a lot of recruits as it does with Paterno as head coach? And who better than Schiano to take advantage of that?

Also consider that Mulcahy has a lot riding on Schiano...six other varsity sports at Rutgers were eliminated completely...presumably to help fund the recruiting monster that is college football, and to have a comparable budget to bigger schools in the area, such as Penn State. I wouldn't expect Mulcahy to let Schiano leave without a significant pay raise, plus even more guarantees involving recruiting.

The ironic part to all of this is that these whispers will grow louder if Rutgers pulls off the home field upset against the third ranked team in the country. Too much success may expedite the departure of the man who could become the greatest head coach in Rutgers history. And it could force Greg Schiano to make a decision about whether or not he wants to be known as such, or whether he wants a new challenge...even bigger than reviving Rutgers football.

But don't consider him gone quite yet.

'Ville Bornes

The day started with a Lee Corso interview on WFAN where he said that Louisville's Hunter Cantwell was a significantly better quarterback than Brian Brohm.

Considering that Brohm was 19 of 26 for 353 yards, I'd like to see what better truly is.

The Louisville Cardinals vault themselves into championship game striking distance with their 44-34 victory over West Virginia which ended WVU's 14 game winning streak.

This game kicks off what will be an extremely interesting week for the conference that has been ridiculed up until West Virginia's upset of Georgia in last year's Peach Bowl. The week ends with another nationally televised matchup in Piscataway as Louisville faces the 8-0 Scarlet Knights of Rutgers.

Wait a second.

Rutgers? Undefeated? Now I know I've been away too long.

When Michael Bush broke his leg on opening night against Kentucky, nobody could have envisioned a Big East title for the Cardinals, much less a shot at the national title game. But here they are with one more ranked team on the schedule to help give them enough computer love to grab that other spot, along with Ohio State or Michigan.

For this to happen, Louisville not only has to win out, but they also have to be the biggest fans of none other than the "U". That's right, Miami. When you look at Louisville's schedule, it's not filled with a bunch of powerhouses. Three Louisville opponents are currently ranked, and two of them wind up playing each other. That leaves Miami, who the Cardinals crunched 31-7. Miami has a couple of ranked games left against Virginia Tech and Boston College, giving Miami a chance to gain so respect back after their multiple disasters this season, and it also gives Louisville a legitimate chance, and maybe their only chance, to gain enough computer points to reach that title game.

Otherwise, it's conceivable that a one loss team, whether it be Michigan, Florida, Auburn or even USC, could leapfrog Louisville and their weak conference schedule to reach the title game. You know I keep hearing that Mark Mangino rant in my head when I think of how the NCAA would love to have a title game featuring Ohio State and Michigan, but would settle for Ohio State and anyone else but Louisville. I can't help but imagine a Bobby Petrino rant coming to a press conference near you.