[NU Sports] too bad for Uncle Floyd (or not) (fwd)

[Mark Ament]

I'll just point out that Mr. Zeise is the only one who saw Louisville 
play in person so that he can honestly judge where the Cards deserved to 
be ranked.
Mark

Michael Vance wrote:
> Mike Nolan wrote:
>>> But again, some good comments all around and I think
>>> Michael made an excellent point about Michigan being
>>> "out of sight, out of mind" by finishing so early.
>>>     
>>
>> If, in another universe, three BCS conference teams had finished with 
>> undefeated seasons, would OSU have been left on the sidelines because
>> they finished in mid-November while the other two teams played one or 
>> two
>> games after Thanksgiving, possibly including conference championship 
>> games?
>>   
>
> I couldn't see #1 dropping two spots to get shut out, but I could 
> easily see #1 dropping to #2 if the late game(s) by the previous #2 
> were particularly impressive.  But if the situation were similar 
> enough to this year such that OSU was a near-unanimous #1, despite the 
> presence of two other major unbeatens, then no, I couldn't even see 
> them dropping to #2, much less all the way to #3.
>
> I'll go back to my defense of USC leapfrogging Michigan after 
> Thanksgiving week because you can't do a final comparison between two 
> teams until they've finished their regular seasons and played the same 
> number of games.  And I think that the pollsters didn't talk about 
> Florida and their schedule that week because no one really expected it 
> to be an issue; USC was supposed to be a lock to beat UCLA.
>
> I don't have a problem with someone rethinking the difficulty of 
> Florida's schedule and the quality of their wins.  I have a big 
> problem with voters who simply didn't want to see a rematch and those 
> who tried to sabotage the process one way or the other by voting 
> Michigan or Florida as low as fifth.  There were also some who cited 
> the 13th game, something that Michigan is powerless to do anything 
> about and that even the conference can't fix without getting a twelfth 
> member.  The thing is, it's hard to get people to separate the two, 
> especially when they have personal biases.
>
> Ron Zook and Steve Spurrier both voted Florida #2 (surprise, 
> surprise.)  Zook was the only Big Ten coach to do so.  Part of his 
> rationale?  "For me, it was the fact that they played a 13th game."  
> News flash, Ron.  If you accomplish what you expect to in Champaign, 
> that could be you in four years getting screwed by some idiot because 
> your conference doesn't have twelve members.  Better book that extra 
> game in Honolulu now.
>
> For complete Harris Poll results, including individual voter's 
> ballots, see http://www.pollg.com/g/w27236/w27236gateway.htm.  Take a 
> special look at the ballots of Larry Keech (Boise State #2, Michigan 
> #3, Florida #5), Robert Lawless (UM #2, UF #5), Ray Melick (UF #2, UM 
> #4), Gene Ponti (UF #2, LSU #3, UM #4), Paul Zeise (Louisville #2, UF 
> #3, UM #4).  Those formerly affiliated with NU (Rick Taylor and John 
> Pont) both went for Florida over UM.
>
> -Michael
>
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