It’s looking as though it will be Southern California, not Michigan, as Ohio State’s opponent in the BCS National Championship game slated for the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on January 8.

By virtue of their 44-24 win over Notre Dame, last Saturday, the Trojans leapfrogged past the idle Wolverines in the Associated Press poll, climbing one spot from third to second.

The Wolverines led the Trojans by just 0.0075 points before the new BCS standings were released Sunday. Now, USC has a 0.244 point lead.

USC plays crosstown-rival UCLA on Saturday and a victory would likely lock up the Trojans third consecutive appearance in the BCS title game.

But is USC that good, or is Notre Dame that bad?

I have always felt that Notre Dame has been overrated during the past two years. This season, the Irish have played three teams that are currently ranked, Georgia Tech, Michigan and USC, with only one win. In the two defeats, Notre Dame has lost by an average margin of 23 points.

It’s pretty easy to get as many wins as Notre Dame has by playing teams like Stanford, North Carolina, and the Pentagon (Army, Navy, & Air Force).

To me, it’s extremely difficult to determine who is the second-best team in the nation, but Gerry Ahern, a senior editor for Yahoo! Sports, seems to think he can. But I think he is way off the mark.

In his column entitled, “The Point After”, Ahern states that both Michigan and USC have a common opponent, which is Notre Dame. But then he basically just compares stats from both games side-by-side.
 

A simple study of the boxscores shows the Wolverines were even more demonstrative in dismantling Notre Dame, and by a fairly significant margin.

Michigan had the edge over USC against Notre Dame in the following categories:

Points for: 47-44 (3).

Points against: 21-24 (3).

Total yards allowed: 273-404 (131).

Rushing yards allowed: 32-130 (98).

Passing yards allowed: 241-274 (33).

Turnovers forced: 5-1 (4).

Rushing yards: 148-139 (9)

The evidence seems pretty empirical, especially when you factor in that the Wolverines’ lone loss came by three points at top-ranked Ohio State (12-0), while the Trojans lost at unranked Oregon State (8-4) by two.

Strength of schedule? USC faced 10 teams that will play in bowls, Michigan seven.

As you do the math, it seems clear that the Maize and Blue should be making their way to the desert for a date with the Buckeyes, not the Cardinal and Gold.

First of all, I don’t think it’s fair to look at one game that was played in September, to one that is played two months later.

Secondly, I question as to whether or not he watched both games.

Michigan scored two defensive touchdowns on “gifts” by Notre Dame. The final score was not really indicative of how the game really went.

Erick Smith gave us a different take in his USA Today column, last week.

For everyone talking about what a “classic” game it was and how a rematch would be the best matchup in the national title game, here comes the cold water. The game wasn’t that close. The Wolverines had a strong opening drive before the Buckeyes showed they were the far superior team.

As much as a rematch might be unfair to the Buckeyes, don’t think for a second that Jim Tressel would be worried about it. He might actually welcome another chance, knowing that by cleaning up a few mistakes, the game would be in the bag by halftime.

With Smith’s assertion, it would appear that USC is the logical choice, since Michgan had their chance and lost.

As for the polls, it seems that most voters just check the boxscores from the previous day and they don’t watch many games.

Two weeks ago, a voter for The Associated Press college football poll was removed from the board because he mistakenly thought Oklahoma had lost to Texas Tech and voted the Sooners lower in the rankings.

Jim Kleinpeter of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans said he tried to find the score of the Oklahoma game but was unable to.

“It was my fault. I probably had other avenues I could have gone to get the score, but I usually rely on the morning paper here in Baton Rouge. And for some reason, they didn’t have the score. I looked all through it,” Kleinpeter said.

AP sports editor Terry Taylor said: “We understand mistakes can happen, but we thought this one could have been prevented. The heart of the matter here is the credibility of the poll.”

Obviously, not only do these voters not watch the games, but they can’t even keep up with the final scores.

It’s time the college presidents and athletic directors got together to come up with a better plan to crown a national champion.

Tags: Buckeye Football //