Weekend Aftermath

Well, here we are. Another crooked-ass weekend of college football has passed us by, and the picture of what the hell is going on has never been less clear. The Mountaineers sat this one out, and hopefully installed some sort of creative offensive gameplan to use against the Fightin' Crooms of Mississippi State.

We somehow managed to drop in the AP poll, though I thought we might as UK jumped us. More surprisingly, however, we actually moved up several spots in the Coaches' Poll. Honestly, there is just so much chaos at this point, who the hell knows where to put anyone. We are ranked 9 in the BCS, which is about where I would put us as well. There are several teams in front of us that will lose, so I think we have a pretty good shot at getting back into the top 5 before it's all said and done.

So I'm listening to the Mike Tirico show at work today, and Kirky Herbstreit is on the air. He proceeds to go through and devalue all teams not named OSU or LSU in the top 10, but especially USF. He masks his own opinion by claiming "it's not what I think should happen, but it's what I think WILL happen". He feels very strongly that USF doesn't have the strength of schedule to play for the Mythical National Championship, at least in the eyes of the voters. He finally proceeded to point out (after being goaded by an email) that OSU does not deserve the #1 spot based on who they've played. He did say, however, that the Browneyes will have the opportunity to prove they do belong, with games at Penn State and Michigan.

So let me get this straight...USF's schedule is too weak because they only win AT #17 Auburn, and beat #9 WVU in Tampa, yet OSU can prove they are legit by winning at unranked PSU and #25 Michigan. Anybody else see something a bit off?

Unfortunately, it's all going to come down to name recognition. OSU is a perennial power, albeit in a two team conference. They will always be in the discussion, because each year they only have to win one real game...Michigan. Frankly, I'm not sure how viable a test that is anymore either. I guess if you can sprinkle 2 teams ranked between 20 and 30 into your schedule, and are named Ohio State, it doesn't matter if you have only beaten Youngstown State (I-AA), Akron (3-4 MAC), Washington (2-4), Northwestern (4-3, but arguably in the worst 10 teams in college football), Minnesota (1-6), Purdue (5-2, has lost 2 in a row now that Indiana State and Central Michigan are off the schedule), and Kent State (3-4 MAC). I understand that many teams have played a crappy schedule at this point, but not many have been THIS crappy, nor will continue to be THIS crappy. So here's your season tOSU fans. Beat unranked PSU and #25 Michigan, and your berth in the title game is apparently legitimate. Thank you, Kirk Herbstreit for the wonderful, insightful commentary. In fairness to Kirky, who I used to like until this season, OSU is #1 by default, because at least they haven't lost to one of these crap teams, which is more than you can say for virtually anybody else, outside of LSU and WVU.

On a side note, Kirk took back all the criticism of OSU's schedule when he appeared later on Columbus radio, letting it be known that he doesn't see anyone in the country scoring against that defense. He also claimed that getting blown out by Florida in last year's title game is unfairly influencing the opinion of OSU this season. Well, Kirk, they didn't play anybody last year (again, Michigan only, who was absolutely massacred by USC in the Rose Bowl) until they were hammered by the Gators. What in God's name makes anyone think it will be different this time around?