[NU Sports] SC Game

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

--- cherron604 at aol.com wrote:

> the Evil Empire will be consigned to its rightful
> place - a scattering of alumni, a scattering of
> local fans - kind of like a Tulane of the Midwest.
>  
Chuck! You nearly made me snort water all over my
keyboard after reading that last line!:) Hilarious.

It's a nice dream, but as long as they have their own
network hype machine and special exceptions for B(C)S
games, they'll be different. Too bad, because if you
take away the "Notre Dame" name, they'd be sniffing
the BCS as much this year as BYU or Hawaii are right
now.

What the Big Ten needs to lobby more for is some
equity in the league. The BCS has had rematches before
and more than one Big XII team has made the title game
despite not winning its league (or in one case,
division) AND getting blown out more than 42-39 in
their final game. But there just seems to be a much
more concentrated effort this year to keep Michigan
out of that title game. Yeah, you can make a case for
SC or Florida, but neither is clearly more deserving
than the Wolverines and yet for two-plus weeks we've
been hearing that the loser of OSU-Michigan should be
out of the running, no doubt.

And then there's the matter of Wisconsin, which is
being overlooked in all the BC-Mess. With an upset or
two next week, they could very well move into the top
four in the standings. An 11-1, top five team from the
Big Ten with name recognition and a horde of fans who
will fill seats that's NOT in the B(C)S? Now that's
ridiculous!

I also wonder if the Big Ten isn't being hurt by
ending the season so early. Each team had 12 straight
weeks of games with no byes this year in order to get
done by Thanksgiving weekend. We're not going to have
a title game, but maybe we could at least do what the
Pac 10 and Big East have done and space a few games
out so that games like Stanford-Cal, Rutgers-WVU and
SC-UCLA are played next weekend?

It kind of worked out well for the league this year
because we know we'll have two BCS teams so we can
fill in the other bowl slots, but most years we're in
the race for a second BCS slot and we have to wait the
extra three weeks to make travel plans anyway, so why
not space out some games and not allow our teams to
grow cold for two months and disappear from the
spotlight? Imagine the hype if there were two weeks
before OSU-Michigan? Or if Wisconsin had another game
left for people to watch and see if they deserved a
top 5 ranking? I'm not wild that the season has grown
so long, but as long as it's stretched into early
December, why rush 12 games in 12 weeks with no byes
to heal/rest up and exit the stage so early, just as
the national focus is shifting even more to the
college game?

Who knows - it might give us more flexibility to
schedule some good nonconference games outside of
September as well?

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


 
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