Now that Ohio State has pulled ahead of USC in the official BCS standings by a whopping 0.19 points, it is more important than ever for Trojan fans to unite and rally around our new favorite team, Michigan. In that spirit, and with apologies to Andrew “I want USC to lose” Long and Chris “I secretly like Baylor better than USC” Fahrenthold :), I give you… the second daily BrendanLoy.com tribute to the great state of Michigan.
Today’s Michigan statistic: Michigan ranks 8th among the 50 states in population, with 9,938,444 residents, according to the 2000 Census.
Today’s Michigan symbol: The state flower of Michigan is the apple blossom.
Today’s fabulous fact about Michigan: Michigan has the only floating post office in the world. The J.W. Westcott II delivers mail to ships still underway.
Today’s famous Michiganian: 19th century politician Lewis Cass, a general in the War of 1812, was Michigan’s second territorial governor and steered the territory to statehood. Cass won the Democratic nomination for president in 1848, but lost to Zachary Taylor in the general election. He is also renowned in story and song (well, mostly song) by the quirky band They Might Be Giants in their James K. Polk song (”…Lewis Cass, a general and expansionist…”)
Today’s pretty Michigan picture:
Point Betsie Lighthouse near Frankfort, Michigan.
Today’s great moment in Michigan-Ohio State football history: In 1995, Michigan spoiled previously undefeated Ohio State’s Rose Bowl and national championship hopes with a 31-23 upset that handed Northwestern the Big Ten championship. (Northwestern eventually lost the Rose Bowl to — who else? — USC.) The Wolverines were led by a alphabet-soup running back named Tshimanga Biakabutuka, who had 313 yards and a touchdown.
Today’s Michigan joke of the day:
A man walks into a store and says, “I would like a red hat, red pants, gray sweater, and black shoes.”
The clerk says, “Are you a Buckeye fan?”
“Yes,” replies the man, “How did you guess–by the color combination?”
“No,” answers the clerk, “This is a hardware store.”
Har har. Hee hee. So yeah… once again… Gooooo Wolverines! Gooooo Trojans! F**k the Bucks and f**k the Bruins! :)
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Categories: College Football
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November 17th, 2003 at 11:24:32 pm
#$*%!
I hate USC? Imma so gonna kick yo’ azz when you git out here, Brendan “I lick Wolverine testicles” Loy!
November 18th, 2003 at 7:52:52 am
No no, he just said you wanted them to lose. Haha. At least I earned my USC merit badge in the TMB, so I’m almost above reproach. Almost, apparently, but not absolutely. There is that wistful longing for the place of my birth… :)
Of course, if there’s a USC-UConn meeting in a regional final this March, I wonder where Brendan “Husky Webmaster General” Loy’s loyalty would be. :)
November 18th, 2003 at 8:09:21 am
LOL, Andrew.
I suppose, having so brutally made fun of you for it, that I should actually respond to your comment about rooting for Ohio State over Michigan. Look, I respect that you hate Michigan. But like I said in urging people to root for UCLA over Oregon last week, “C’mon, this is important.” :) Sometimes, no matter how reluctant you are, you have to root for whatever it takes to make your #1 team successful, even if that means voting for Wesley Clark instead of Joe Lieberman… er, ahem, sorry, wrong topic :)… even if that means temporarily supporting a team that you hate.
But, you say, even if Ohio State beats Michigan and thus gets the #2 spot in the BCS, USC can still win a split championship, and maybe it will destroy the BCS along the way! Yeah well, your eff-the-BCS scenario would be wonderful, it really would, but for that entire sequence of events to actually transpire is so unlikely on so many levels, it is hardly a viable alternative to the one scenario that would almost guarantee USC a spot in the national championship game, namely, a Michigan win over OSU.
Did I say “almost guarantee”? Well, not quite… I’m worried that if OSU loses by LSU wins out (including the SEC title game), they might then pass us in the BCS. But hey, then at least you’d get your traditional Rose Bowl, and we could shut these Ohio State fans up with a thorough trouncing of their beloved Buckeyes. How does 31-6 sound? Or perhaps 26-3? Anyway…
The point is, I believe the only valid reason to root for Ohio State over Michigan is if you believe USC simply has no chance of beating Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, in which case you might as well root for them to make it into the Rose Bowl instead, where they can lock up the #2 spot in the nation by winning (hopefully against LSU), instead of getting creamed and falling to #4 or #5. But that’s not having very much faith in your team, is it? Hence my making fun of you and Chris. :)
Chris, I would definitely root for USC in a March Madness showdown with UConn, men or women. Rooting against UConn is easy, because the Huskies have won several national championships in recent years (the men in ‘99, the women in pretty much every other year since the fall of the Roman Empire), so a Trojan/Women of Troy title would be much more exciting. But you’re asking the wrong question. The real question is, who would I root for in a USC-Gonzaga regional final? Now that would be tough. :)
Let’s not even discuss the USC-Notre Dame games when I’m in law school…
November 18th, 2003 at 10:46:44 am
Correction, Brendan: If OSU lost and LSU passed us for the Sugar Bowl, we’d play Michigan in the Rose Bowl. *yawn*
Brendan, I would love to play Oklahoma. If I listed the teams I’d most want to play, it would look like this: 1. Oklahoma, 2. Miami, 3. Ohio State, 4. Florida State, 5. Texas. Those are five teams I’d love to shut up. On the other hand, LSU has a very, very good team this year, and if we beat them in the Rose Bowl while Oklahoma lost to Ohio St. unconvincingly in the Sugar Bowl, I don’t see that as a lesser scenario than going to the Sugar Bowl. For one, the Rose Bowl is the better event, and two, what if LSU clobbers its opponent, or TCU gets in and wins and stays undefeated? Even if we were the team beating Oklahoma in my scenario, there’d still be questions. You seem to take it for granted that if we go to the Sugar Bowl and beat Oklahoma that we will be undisputed champs, but I’m saying a great performance by LSU or TCU could still sway the Coaches to vote a split national championship. I just think there’s a better chance of that happening and thus bird-crapping on the BCS parade if USC goes to the Rose Bowl.
November 18th, 2003 at 1:54:45 pm
Oops, you’re right… hmm… I guess the only way to produce a USC-Ohio State matchup is for both teams to win out, and Oklahoma to lose twice. :)
I realize it is possible that a USC win over Oklahoma could produce a split championship, but I believe it is far less likely than an Ohio State win over Oklahoma producing a split championship, because the poll consensus is that USC is the #2 team in the country, whereas OSU is #4 and would be much lower if only there were a few more one-loss teams still lurking around. Recall that OSU was #7 or #8 until the most recent wave of upsets. In other words, the poll voters do not respect OSU; they do respect USC. So a Trojan victory over Oklahoma would be more than enough, I think, to give us an undisputed championship… at least over LSU. I suppose the TCU-clobbers-Texas scenario would make things more unpredictable. But let’s face it, that ain’t gonna happen, my friend.
My point is simply that I believe a USC national championship of any kind is more likely if we reach the Sugar Bowl, and certainly an undisputed USC national championship is infintely more likely if so, and thus I root for us to reach the Sugar Bowl, and thus I root for Ohio State to lose, and thus, yes, I lick Wolverine testicles, and I’m proud of it. :) (Jeez, I hope that quote doesn’t get taken out of context someday if I ever run for political office…) I love the idea of a colossal BCS embarrassment, but I care more about a USC championship than I do about a BCS embarrassment.
Oh, and one minor point: I’m fairly certain it’s the AP, not the coaches poll, that has the ability to create split championships; it is the coaches who are contractually obligated to follow the BCS result.
November 18th, 2003 at 2:29:40 pm
You’re right about the AP poll; I knew I had them ass-backwards after I posted my last couple of messages and meant to correct that in my next (read: this) post.
Before I go on to argue again, I want to point out that Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated agrees with me about getting rid of the computer polls completely. In addition, he also agrees about setting up a national championship game two weeks after the end of the regular bowl schedule, just as I proposed. I’m glad I’m not the only idiot savant out there who believes we can retain the beauty of the traditional bowl system and still produce a legitimate national champion.
Now, back to the argument. Assuming we go to the Sugar Bowl and beat OU, who is to say the nefarious AP people wouldn’t rightly and justly drive the dagger into the BCS by mischeviously leapfrogging Ohio State over USC and Oklahoma after back-to-back-to-back wins over Purdue, Michigan, and then LSU in the Rose Bowl? Do you really think that if USC beats Oklahoma and Ohio State beats LSU, that the writers won’t give Ohio State a lot more respect and allow the defending national champions the dignity of being co-national champions? That is a very real possibility, just as real as USC becoming co-champs of OSU pulls off a squeaker over OU. Not to mention, somebody will eventually have to atone for the egregious error of not awarding Penn State the honor of being co-national champs with Nebraska back in 1994. This season has karma written all over it.
The real difference between me and you, Brendan, is not which bowl we prefer USC to go to, or whether we should root for Ohio State or Michigan, but rather the degree of our cynicism: I believe the chances are very good that the BCS will be a colossal embarrassment whether we go to the Sugar Bowl or not, whereas you seem to accept the legitimacy of the process more than I do, even if you still prefer a playoff system. I simply cannot respect a system that forces USC to root for UCLA, Notre Dame, and other hated teams, in addition to all my aforementioned grudges.
November 18th, 2003 at 3:28:45 pm
I love the Mandel article. Love it. Will definitely link to it and excerpt from it on the blog at some point.
As for your argument… I have to admit, you’re right: the AP is pretty nefarious. :)
I still don’t think the Buckeyes or Tigers get a split championship with USC, though… but I acknowledge it’s perhaps a more serious possibility than I was previously suggesting. (As a matter of fact, I don’t really think that even USC would get it, if Ohio State beats Oklahoma. Assuming Oklahoma continues to look invincible through its final two regular season games, I think any one-loss team that manages to beat the Sooners in the Sugar Bowl is probably going to be the national champ in both polls, barring your TCU scenario, simply because they beat Oklahoma. But that’s just a hunch.)
As for cynicism with regard to the BCS, I have absolutely no respect for the process whatsoever, so I don’t know where you’re getting that. All my arguments over the computers and so forth are based on trying to make the process slightly less absurd, but everything I say is always tinged with the notion of, this system sucks and we should get rid of it…but as long as it’s here, let’s make it slightly less bad than it is now. Also, I’m being practical: whatever the system is, I want USC to be the national champ!!
However, I do have to say, you don’t need the BCS to make a Trojan root for UCLA. In fact, last year, if it weren’t for the BCS, a lot of Trojans would have been rooting for UCLA against Wazzu in the season finale even harder than they did, because the Orange Bowl would not have been an option. It would have been Rose Bowl or bust (well, Rose Bowl or Holiday Bowl), with USC’s hopes riding firmly on UCLA’s back. Similarly, in 1995, I’m sure Northwestern fans greatly enjoyed rooting for Michigan to beat Ohio State and put them in the Rose Bowl. And no doubt, Texas fans would be rooting for Texas Tech against Oklahoma this weekend, if it weren’t for the fact that Oklahoma has the Big 12 South wrapped up regardless of the outcome. Rivals root for their rivals when it suits their purposes. It happens, and personally I think it’s hilarious when it does. :) But of course you’re right, the BCS makes this sort of thing national instead of regional… which I personally find even more funny. Hence, the tributes to Michigan. :)
November 18th, 2003 at 3:32:18 pm
Er… UCLA’s shoulders, not its back. Sorry, mixed up my metaphors. “The ship of state does not come with training wheels.” :)
November 18th, 2003 at 4:21:21 pm
Okay, regarding rooting for rivals, point conceded. However, you’re still avoiding my other main argument, which is why not just drop the computer polls completely? First, what’s their purpose? Other than being an interesting exercise in mathematics, how can crunching numbers really give us any more of a correct result than human eyes? Ranking teams is more an art and not nearly the exact science that a computer chess program is, so how would adding margin of victory to the computer polls be more effective and legitimate than scrapping the computer polls altogether? If you want to make the BCS process “slightly less absurd,” why not just go whole-hog and make them much less absurd, and way more simple and legitimate? All we need are the human polls, strength of schedule, quality wins, and the loss column.