I have some updates on my previous post, but I have one more question. Who here really believes that Florida would have jumped Michigan, from number four to number three, if USC had won?

All I can say is one year the students at BYU felt the same as you, when their team (including Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer) was forced to play the unranked team Texas A&M instead of having a shot at the National Title (They beat number one ranked Miami during season play). The game ended up 65 - 14 with A&M on top, and Ty Detmer left the game with both shoulders dislocated.

No one.

But a lot of the USC #2 vote was really a generic 'best team other than Michigan or Ohio State' vote. If Arkansas had beat Florida (and UCLA still beat USC), I imagine that Louisville and/or Boise would have picked up a lot of #2 votes (probably not enough to deny a rematch, but a lot).

If the pollsters had been willing to vote this way honestly, starting November 19 -- and so treated the Wolverines like every other formerly undefeated team when they lost a game, and dropped them 3-6 spots; I'd've put them below every BCS one-loss team at the time except for ND & Wisconsin (i.e. teams Michigan beat) -- it wouldn't have looked nearly as bad, but would have produced the same result. And as the last three weeks of the season played out, they'd've moved up ahead of teams that lost a second game after Michigan's season was over (West Virginia, Notre Dame, Arkansas, and USC), but stayed behind ones that didn't (Florida & Louisville).

treated the Wolverines like every other formerly undefeated team when they lost a game, and dropped them 3-6 spots;

They don't do that to every team that loses a game. It all depends on who the loss is to, and how bad the loss is. In most cases, undefeated teams are expected to win, so when they lose, and particularly when they lose badly, they deserve to have a significant drop. But when number two is playing number one on number one's home field, and loses close, there's no reason to drop them, since that is exactly what the expected outcome would be, indicating that the number two ranking was correct (and in fact remains so to this day, regardless of any other team's subsequent performance, unless USC and Florida had really blown out their last two opponents).

regardless of any other team's subsequent performance

Well, yeah, except that OSU and Michigan stopped playing football 2 weeks ago, while everyone else in the country continued to actually DO something.

If you really want to convince me that Michigan deserves to be #2, then maybe the Big Ten should have a Conference Championship. Of course, if that were the case, we wouldn't even be having this discussion, as Michigan and OSU would probably be in the same conference divison, and would therefore never play each other in a conference championship.

At least the BCS coordinator admits that he's "open to ideas and discussions" about playoff systems. As long as they don't include the NCAA, of course...

As much as I like reading your work, Rand, I think you may have been living in Florida too long... You're getting perilously close to the same sort of left-wing Spilled Milk Sulking that gripped Florida after the '00 and '04 elections...

All we can hope for is close games all around, or even upsets all around.

Well, yeah, except that OSU and Michigan stopped playing football 2 weeks ago, while everyone else in the country continued to actually DO something.

If by "do something," you mean complete their season, as Michigan and tOSU had done two weeks earlier, I guess. What's your point? Neither of them did anything to demonstrate that they're better teams than tOSU or Michigan. For example, USC's victory over Notre Dame wasn't nearly the trouncing that Michigan's was.

You're getting perilously close to the same sort of left-wing Spilled Milk Sulking that gripped Florida after the '00 and '04 elections...

I'm not "sulking." I'm amused.

I actually don't care that much. As I've said previously, I think that the whole notion of a national college football champion is absurd. I'll enjoy watching Michigan beat USC in the Rose Bowl. It will be like old times.

I'm just pointing out the entertaining absurdity of setting up a system, and then arbitrarily changing it or gaming it when it results in an outcome that displeases many.

You didn't answer my question, John. Do you really think that Florida would have jumped Michigan in the polls if Michigan had been number three instead of number two?

The pollsters have been maddeningly inconsistent about how much a team should drop after losing a game. The only thing that's been consistent, until the day after the OSU-Michigan game, was that loser dropped some. Louisville dropped from BCS #3 to BCS #7 after losing to then-undefeated and BCS #13 Rutgers (finished BCS #16). USC dropped from BCS #3 to BCS #8 after losing to then-unranked Oregon State (finished BCS #22). Florida lost before the initial BCS rankings came out, but dropped from #3 to #10 in the Coach's poll after losing to then-#10 Auburn (finsihed BCS #9). Rutgers dropped from BCS #6 to BCS #14 after losing to unranked Cinci.

Dave, I'm not sure how inconsistent it would be if you look at who they lost to, whether it was home or away, and how badly they got beat.

The point is that it's silly to think that because the second best team lost to the best team by three points on the best team's field, that they should drop. All that does is confirm the notion that they're probably the second best team.

Everyone seems to lose track of the basic fact that (since ties are no longer allowed) somebody was going to lose that football game. The outcome was a validation of the existing rankings.

Okay, then to answer your question, I think Florida WOULD have passed Michigan, for most of the reasons I stated above (strength of schedule, etc). I also think that the pollsters loathed putting USC in the National Championship game for yet another year almost as much as they loathed a OSU/Michigan rematch.

As one of my cigar smoking friends said this weekend, even if a playoff system isn't perfect (like the NCAA BBall tournament), at least the argument at the end of the season would be over who should be #12/13 or #16/17 instead of who should be #2/3. And then Wisconsin wouldn't get snuffed, either (unless the playoff system had conference restrictions, too, which it shouldn't).

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks both Michigan and Wisconsin got screwed. Based on their records and conferences, Ohio State and Michigan should play in the national championship game and Wisconsin and USC should play in the Rose Bowl. It's obvious the voters the last two weeks were going to rank Michigan third no matter what happened on the field.

Part of me, though, is glad that that didn't happen, because while Wisconsin was way underrated throughout most of the season, I think they're a bit overrrated now. In other words, I think USC would trounce Wisconsin.

They're not the only ones overrated, though. Boise State? The most difficult opponent they faced all year was Oregon State. Ditto Louisville, West Virginia, and Rutgers. None of those teams play in a top-tier conference, so their won-loss records aren't comparable to those in the Big Ten, Big 12, PAC-10, or SEC.

A playoff would help. So would these mid-major schools scheduling some non-conference games against nationally-ranked opponents. I give Louisville credit there. They at least played (and beat) Miami. Too bad Miami just wasn't that good this year. The others? Nope. Just a long list of mediocre teams. I guess after what happened to Texas after their loss to Ohio State and Oklahoma* after their loss to Oregon, I can't blame them. The system doesn't reward it. In fact, it downright penalizes teams for establishing a tough schedule.

Bah! The system just sucks for establishing a national championship, or even a decent top-ten ranking.

* Oklahoma. Now *there's* a team that got screwed. Kept out of the national championship picture by two admittedly blown calls. You'd think the advantage of having human polls over computer rankings would be that humans could compensate for that, but they don't. At least the particular humans they have doing these polls. Perhaps that's the real problem?

Mike

It's obvious the voters the last two weeks were going to rank Michigan third no matter what happened on the field.

That's probably overharsh. I think that they'd have had to go for a rematch if both USC and Florida had lost. There was no one else they could have plausibly vaulted ahead of Michigan under those circumstances. But you can be sure that the anti-rematch folks breathed a big sigh of relief on Saturday night after Florida beat Arkansas.