If you want to win this football game, you're going to have to score a lot more points in the second half, and not let the other team score so much.

[Update at the start of the fourth quarter, after Smith is sacked, almost a safety]

They're not following my advice, at least not the first part of it. Off to bed.

[OK, one more]

A wag over at Free Republic:

Being that it is Florida and Ohio, I can expect to see calls for a recount, no?

[Morning thoughts]

I'm asked in comments if I'll now "give Florida the credit it deserves." I'm not sure what that means. Florida was unquestionably, by far, the best football team on that field last night. Does that mean they're the best team in the country?

Who knows?

This just once again points out the absurdity of attempting to discern who is the "best team in the country" or picking a "national champion" in college football. We had two big bowl games in which the teams that were heavily favored got beaten soundly, to most peoples' amazement (perhaps even many of the fans of the winning teams). That should tell us that there's something fundamentally wrong with how we judge these things and our ability to predict them.

Let's go back to the old transitive paradox. Florida beat tOSU. Auburn beat Florida. Why isn't Auburn the "best team in the country"?

Oh, that was then, and this is now. Well, OK. So would Florida have creamed the Buckeyes back in November, before they had a seven-week layoff? Or did the Buckeyes go from being the "best team in the country" to someone lucky to stay in the top ten in the first few minutes of the game, after they lost Ginn?

Who knows?

Were the losses of tOSU and Michigan in the post season an indication that they weren't as good as people thought, or that the Big Televen conference is overrated against the SEC and Pac-10, or is it a consequence of the fact that both teams had a couple weeks longer break than their opponents, due to vagaries of the scheduling?

Who knows?

If you want to have a playoff, could there be a better lead up to it than the last two games we've seen in this stadium? After their performance in the Fiesta Bowl, shouldn't unbeaten Boise State have a shot at the Gators now?

Who knows?

Folks, there are too many teams, and too few games played to determine a college football champion at any point in time (and it's a dynamic situation), or even sensibly rank them. Live with it, and accept the old dictum that college football is the only sport in which the champion is determined by drunks arguing in bars, and doomed to remain that way. And I'd be saying that even if Michigan had played last night, and won.

[One more, after looking at the overnight AP poll results]

OK, why did the Buckeyes drop only to number two? After that performance last night, they should have plummeted to the second half of the top ten. Once again, the irrationality and intrinsic paradoxes of the process is displayed.

How appropriate: OSU's band was playing the theme from "Titanic" at halftime.

Ok Rand, you can have your fun, but when the night is over, will you finally give Florida the credit it deserves?

Even my wife was rooting for Ohio, and she doesn't care about college football. Well, except for Tennessee, and that only because she was born there. And she had a grudge on Florida for beating Tennessee.

Football allegiances in the South mystify me.

How appropriate: OSU's band was playing the theme from "Titanic" at halftime.

I got a good laugh out of that. Ohio was sinking fast at that point.

Speaking of injuries, Troy Smith is lucky he was able to walk after the opening sack. The (unintentional) low tackle he took could have put him out of commission for 6 months if he had been hit 1 inch left or right of where he was.

I don't think that Boise State deserves a shot at Florida at this point, but maybe USC deserves a shot at them. A playoff system might have ended up with USC/Florida, in what might have been an interesting game, or maybe a blowout.

My crystal ball is missing, otherwise I'd tell you how such a game would have really shaken out.

The SEC Rules over you Yankee boys.

:)

Rand,
Love your site, but I have to point out the Big 10 was grossly over-rated (as a whole) this season. Ohio State beat one fairly good team (Texas) and one pretty good team (Michigan). That was it. Michigan screwed the pooch vs USC (big time) and Florida showed the polish and poise of a program that had played a much more demanding schedule than OSU. Wisconsin was pretty good (beat Arkansas, but that was it) and OSU didn't even play them. The rest of the Big 10 was mediocre at best.

The problem with the magic 'playoff' is that while the idea is good, how it would work is still very much up in the air.