[NU Sports] Uh Oh! BCS Poll Warnings

[Eric West]

I don't think it's the BTN that's at fault. The fact is that the Big Ten 
doesn't have a single out-of-conference victory against any team receiving 
votes in either major poll. I don't mean just the ranked teams: not even 
the schools getting so much as one point have lost to a Big Ten team. The 
only other conferences for which that's true are the MAC and the Sun Belt. 
What's more, of our seven remaining OOC games (before the bowls), six are 
against MAC teams and one is against North Dakota State. Regardless of the 
network, I'm sure we'd get more coverage if there were something worth 
covering. It's not necessarily our fault that some of our scheduled 
opponents aren't performing all that well, but no rule says that we have to 
schedule the MAC so much.

Meanwhile, our high-profile games have been losses: Michigan loses to 
Appalachian State and Oregon, Illinois loses to Missouri, and most of our 
other conference contenders have lost to one or both of those teams. Plus, 
we snap Duke's losing streak, Iowa blows it against Iowa State, and 
Minnesota loses to both Bowling Green and Florida Atlantic. Yes, other 
conferences have embarrassing losses, but they also have at least one or 
two good wins to balance them out. The Big Ten doesn't; small wonder many 
folks aren't yet impressed.

I'm not saying the Big Ten can't get two BCS teams (most likely scenario 
would be Michigan wins out and Ohio State loses only to Michigan), but I 
can't claim that the conference particularly deserves it this year.


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Eric West
e-west at northwestern.edu