With a highly-anticipated Michigan/Ohio State football game quickly approaching, there is an amusing and perhaps somewhat revealing difference between the main pages of the schools’ websites: note the amount of game-related content on Michigan’s page and on OSU’s page.
That probably says more about Columbus than it says about Ann Arbor.
(Thanks to js for the tip.)
Who are you kidding Gouda Budah? We all know college football should be more important than a “dead zone” returning to Lake Erie. Or how about how a “stem cell transplant helps three blind mice”. Those are the things on the main page at http://www.umich.edu. I want Michigan to win this game but I would much rather read about football than “car-sharing” arriving on campus.
ND/USC is ND’s biggest rivalry, so I’ll check their websites next week to see how they compare.
js
Ok, it’s official (again): the BCS is a joke. No one respects it. I just watched the half-time show of USC/Cal. Both commentators shocked me with what they said about who should play OSU. They both said 1) Michigan is clearly the 2nd best team in the country, and 2) Michigan should not play OSU again.
I thought the purpose of the BCS was to put the top two teams in the country together. There’s nothing about “it’s bad for ratings”, or “they had their shot and don’t deserve a rematch” in the BCS formula. The announcers also tried to support their position by saying, “What if UM wins the rematch? That’s not fair to OSU.” But that’s the BCS: the top two teams play. The winner is the putative National Champion. That’s the system. Don’t like it? Too bad – you can’t change it just because “it’s not fair”, or “they had their shot”, etc.
So the announcers clearly feel free to ignore the BCS when they want to. What kind of a system is that? So now it’s bad and impotent?
I’m not saying this as a UM fan, who just wants UM to get another shot at a (joke BCS) “national championship.” If it were up to me, no one who doesn’t win his conference should even be considered for any national championship game (see Nebraska, a few years ago). So does Michigan “deserve” to play OSU again? No. But should they, under the BCS? Yes, if the announcers are indicative of voters’ opinion, that UM really is #2.
What’s the alternative? Put #3 against #1? How is that fair to #2?
If the BCS wants to make the “national championship” game something other than the top two teams, that’s certainly something it can do. But let’s have the criteria explicit. If it’s #1 v. #2, unless. . ., then let’s have those exceptions clear. Right now, there are no exceptions: it’s #1 v. #2, based on the various polls. And the polls are supposed to rank teams according to how good they are (whatever that means). That’s it. No room for personal predilections beyond that. No room to account for what feels unfair or bad for ratings or whatever.
Even granting their claim, I think it is fair to OSU: the “national championship” game is on neutral (and presumably well-maintained) turf. UM lost a very close game in Ohio. So it’s not a pure rematch. But that’s me talking as a UM fan. The “BCS is a joke” argument above can be made by anyone, UM fan or not.