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Much of the country is in the midst of the first real cold snap of
the season. But you’d never know it from the hot air coming out of
Michigan. Lots of upset people blowing a lot of steam over nothing. The
final computer and human rankings were thrown into the Bowl
Championship Series (BCS) cauldron and low and behold a live Gator was
pulled out. By the way, it was the human voters who saved the day
because the BCS computers had the Gators and Wolverines dead even. I
don’t know what the computers were thinking, but anyone who saw Florida
come from behind to beat Arkansas 38-28 Saturday night to win the SEC
Championship knows what I’m talking about. What a thrilling game?
Florida showed its tremendous team speed, talent, and ability to make
big plays when it needed to. Talk about going for it? How about that
4th and 10 fake punt -- from its own 15 yard line while trailing in the
3rd quarter? That takes guts! That was the play that earned the Gators
a trip to the National Championship game to face the Buckeyes on
January 8th in Glendale, Arizona. Florida is a conference
champion with a 12-1 record. Michigan is the runner-up in its
conference with an 11-1 record. It’s difficult to understand how anyone
could possibly think a second place team (with one less victory) should
go to the National Championship game over all the other conference
champions. And we are not talking about a dominating conference
in the Big-10. I mean, nothing against the Big 10, it’s a fine
conference. But it is clearly no SEC. Just take a gander at the BCS
final top 20. 5 teams from the SEC; 3 from the Big-10. How about bowl
bids? SEC – 9 bowl bids (most of any conference). Big-10 – 7 bowl bids. How
about non-conference schedule? The SEC was an amazing 41-7 versus
non-conference opponents in 2006. This .854 winning percentage blows
away any other conference. (Check out
www.secsportsfan.com/sec-football.html for more information on SEC
football). So, Florida is the Champion of the toughest conference in
the nation. Florida had the toughest schedule in the nation
(opponents winning percentage of .643). The gators had 4 quality wins
over Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, and Arkansas. Michigan only had 2 quality
wins – Notre Dame and Wisconsin. How boring it would have been to
see Ohio State and Michigan for a second time this season (104th time
overall). Instead we have two great conference champions from different
regions of the country. Florida and Ohio State will be playing against
each other for the first time in history. I can hardly wait. Certainly
the BCS system is flawed. College football needs a playoff. No doubt.
With the current system there are always more than two teams at the end
of the year that can make a strong case they should be in the National
Championship game. Someone always feels jilted. But, if you have
to pick only two teams to play for the National Championship – this
year those teams have to be Ohio State and Florida. The only thing I
don’t understand is why there is even a controversy. It would have been
a disgrace to pick Michigan over Florida. So, at least for this year,
the BCS got it right. It was easy choice.
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