For Michigan, no rematch and no recourse
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By Bob Wojnowski
Columnist
The Detroit News
December 3, 2006
No rematch and no recourse. For Michigan, there was only heavy, hollow disappointment on Sunday, as if a gift was given, then snatched away.
The unrelenting controversy that makes college football so compelling, and also so confounding, visited the Wolverines and left them crushed, their hopes of a rematch against Ohio State wiped out. Florida was chosen for the BCS title game instead, tabbed by computers and human voters and the sport's standard inexplicable vagaries.
U-M fell in the rankings two straight weeks without playing a game, so let's cut through the double-talk and admit what this was about. This was about too many people -- especially voting coaches -- getting squeamish about a rematch, figuring the Wolverines already had their shot. I'm sorry, but that's a gigantically dumb rationale for installing Florida, and if there's an injustice here, that's it.
For all the lauding of both teams after OSU beat U-M 42-39, voters spent the next two weeks looking for reasons and opponents to avoid the rematch. It's silly to suggest Florida was picked totally on its own merit, and that's too bad. This was like an election that turned on late, gaudy advertising, as voters leaped from U-M (11-1) to Florida (12-1) for the Jan. 8 championship game against the Buckeyes (12-0).
The shame of the system is that the Wolverines can't even feel great about heading to the hallowed Rose Bowl to play USC on Jan. 1, a matchup that would top most marquees in most seasons.
This was the strangest, wildest season, so naturally, there had to be a controversial twist at the end. It was a turn you could see coming, or at least hear coming, as CBS commentators campaigned shamelessly while Florida was beating Arkansas 38-28 in the SEC title game Saturday night.
UCLA seemingly had handed the No. 3 Wolverines a gift by stunning No. 2 USC 13-9 earlier in the day. Instead, the prize went to the previously fourth-ranked Gators, and the wailing will carry from Ann Arbor to college football's highest offices.
Maybe Lloyd Carr should have stated U-M's case stronger, to counter Florida coach Urban Meyer's high-pitched lobbying. Carr declined to join the argument when interviewed on ESPN Saturday night. Likely, it wouldn't have mattered, as voters were hunting for an alternative to an all-Big Ten matchup.
Did the Wolverines get shafted? To a degree, they did, and so did the Big Ten. Observers ranked them higher than Florida much of the season, and by most neutral accounts, U-M is considered slightly better than the Gators. In a hypothetical Michigan-Florida matchup, Las Vegas betting lines named U-M a six-point favorite.
U-M's only loss was by three points on the road against the undefeated No. 1 team. Florida's loss was by 10 points at Auburn, which finished with two losses.
So yes, if the point of the BCS title game is to match the two best teams, regardless of conference affiliation or previous meetings, there's a decent chance the voters got it wrong.
But if the unspoken point of the BCS title game is to match the two most deserving teams, it's hard to argue too vigorously against Florida.
Florida did beat nine bowl-eligible teams, to U-M's six. The SEC is rated higher than the Big Ten. The Gators did play an extra game, beating Arkansas. By the way, how bizarre is this? The Wolverines' national-title fortunes turned Saturday night when a Hog named Fish fumbled a punt. It was that miscue by the Razorbacks' Reggie Fish in the third quarter that gave Florida a touchdown and a 24-21 lead, an edge it never relinquished.
These are the slender margins in which college football operates, and for all the reasons to love it, you can bet U-M fans hate it today. Predictably, it will lead to more calls for a playoff system, calls that will go unheeded for at least four more years (the length of the current BCS contract). It's the annual emotional knee-jerk, but really, with so many teams from so many conferences, college football never will find a system to suit everyone.
That said, this system is flawed if, as you might suspect, coaches voted based on agendas. Trust me, it enters their minds. It's the reason OSU Coach Jim Tressel abstained from voting, not wanting to indicate which team he'd put second (ostensibly, which team he'd prefer to play).
Tressel also was one of the first to plant the no-rematch seed, saying two weeks ago that a team should have to win its conference to play for the national title. It didn't take much for similar sentiments to build, capped by Meyer's pleas Saturday night.
"Florida belongs," Meyer said. "The other team (Michigan) had a shot. We went 12-1 and I think the country wants to see the Southeast Conference champion against a Big Ten champion. I think that's what this is all about."
It's about a lot of things, most of them difficult to quantify. It's about timing, as images of the U-M-OSU clash two weeks ago had faded.
It's about politics and hypotheticals and conference agendas. It's about the things college football is always about, good and bad.
It has been this way for a while, and it hasn't hurt college football's popularity.
This was just Michigan's turn to be the "other team," and the Wolverines have to hate the feeling. But the truth is, as much as they abhor the result, they probably understand it. |
