I don't think it would be an artificial rematch. Team play the schedule they have, and if they do well they go to a bowl game. The top teams play in the BCS bowls. #1 and #2 gets matched up. I don't think it would have been fair to OSU or UM to automatically eliminate the loser of that game from the possibility of playing for the BCS NC because it would be a rematch.
You really don't think it will be a major anticlimax? I confess, my attitudes may be contaminated by the emotional exhaustion of watching my fellow Columbusites go through
one horrible bout of pins-and-needles fretting (I don't get so wired about it, I could have gone on living happily if UM had won, but... well, you probably have some idea what people are like around here); if they have to play UM again, I can't see any outcomes that will make either set of fans happy. If UM wins, it kind of muddies the `great-classic-rivalry' game outcome; if they lose, it's a double kick in the teeth for them and for OSU, a kind of hollow victory---kind of like digging up and then reburying someone who was quite satisfactorily dead and buried the
first time. But I admit, living in Columbus tends to cloud one's mind on this particular topic...
I don't think Michigan will end up #2, Fat Fulmer still upset about Woodson getting the Heisman over Manning will put Michigan at number 4 in the coaches poll again like he did to the undefeated Michigan team in '97.
And the Spartans seem to be on a genuine roll at the moment. It must be rough in Ann Arbor now---they actually don't know for sure if they'll even get the Rose Bowl invite, right? It's, what, kind of discretionary with the RB ownership? But the situation you mention is yet another problem---the coaches' poll is a whole network of old resentments and scores to settle and whatnot, at least to hear the various stories that the sportswriters love to tell.
Anyway, one of the biggest bugs I see is the fact that they start ranking the teams in the preseason before they even play. I don't think they should start ranking them until 3 or so weeks in. But, they rankings do help the networks create some hype in the matchups. Another problem is that a loss late in the season hurts a lot more than a loss early in the season when teams are allowed to make up for it. I was suprised to see Michigan still at #2 after losing the last game of the season.
Well, but that may turn out to be really temporary. I guess it was the closeness of the game that did it. Apparently, it wasn't a
total loss, at least in terms of the total calculation---they came in close enough to keep that ultra-thin lead, though like you I'd be surprised if they kept it, but for me the main thing there was the feeling that USC has the hex on them. Again, though, maybe I've just been absorbing attitude from people around here who want UM to stay nicely dead and buried at this point.
It's true, though, abouit the preseason---what do they base it all on? Just the recruitment profiles? I mean, even if a team has kept most of its players from last year, that's not going to be true in general, and how do you know how to do the comparisons? It seems like there are a lot of acts of faith you'd have to commit yourself to for those rankings to have much credibility foryou... still, they got OSU right...
It has been a very interesting season in the polls and as the teams position for the BCS. A Rutgers win would have made it even more interesting.
All around, one of the liveliest seasons in the college football world that I can remember. But from where I sit, the best thing about it was that no one tried very hard to set the University District on fire this year... :wink1:
