College Football is Stupid. Throw Rocks at It.
The system stinks.
That’s the only conclusion we can agree upon. All else is chaos. Did Michigan get jobbed? Sure it did. 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.
Instead, it happened twice in the past two weeks. First, USC beat Notre Dame, and a wave of hype, forced logic and selective memory made voters forget that USC struggled often this season and blew a game to mediocre Oregon State — and instead they leapfrogged USC over Michigan for the No. 2 spot. The USC Trojans are the strongest contender! Look at them!
Then, over the weekend, USC was exposed, losing to unranked UCLA, and, oops, guess the hype was wrong. So instead of restoring No. 3 Michigan to where it belonged, a new wave of hype, forced logic and selective memory made voters leapfrog the Florida Gators over the Wolverines and into the national championship game next month. Hey, they’re the strongest contender! Just look at them!
You can spin this thing any way you want. It was strictly about fresh versus familiar. In the end, Ohio State will play Florida on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz., because people with votes want to see that game more than they want to see a rematch of Michigan-Ohio State. This was all about the line of thinking that says: “Give someone else a chance.”
But if the system were about giving everyone a chance, they wouldn’t call it a poll, they’d call it a donkey ride.
So Michigan’s only loss is a three point loss to the #1 team, and Florida’s only loss is by 10 points to a 10th place team… I wonder which team is better? The whole college football rankings are a joke. Just have a playoff like the NFL. Teams should prove themselves on the field, not with stupid votes by a few columnists.