My Thoughts on Ohio State Versus Michigan
November 19, 2006 – 8:50 pmRather than clutter the comment thread on my previous post, I decided to write my thoughts about yesterday’s college football game between Ohio State and Michigan here in a new post.
While the game was indeed a good one, I thought it was too sloppy to be considered one of the all time classics. The game was close most of the way through, and that’s always good for entertainment, but between Ohio State’s two botched snaps and all of the game-changing penalties, it was too unpolished for my liking.
What about that late helmet-to-helmet hit from the Michigan defensive player on Troy Smith that kept the Ohio State drive alive? How sick must that guy be, knowing a bone-headed move might have cost his team a chance at a national championship? But then you go back to the pass interference penalties on Ohio State that kept Michigan drives alive. It seemed like each defense wanted to one-up the other in terms of bailing the opposing offense out. Kind of weird for a game of that caliber.
And I saw today that Ohio State and Michigan stayed #1 and #2 in the latest BCS standings. I really don’t want to see these teams slug it out a second time, this time for the national championship, and find out which team will botch snap or late hit its way to its opponent’s national title.
Let’s give USC or the SEC champion a shot. I’d like to see some real college football, not some flag-filled back-and-forth penalty fest.
3 Responses to “My Thoughts on Ohio State Versus Michigan”
After my long shpiel on your last post, I agree completely with this one. It was a close game, an entertaining game, and most definitely not a championship-level game.
I’ve mentioned it enough that you should know I’m big on strenght of schedule being used in a big way to rank teams when their records are close. It’s important to not just look at how many ranked teams you’ve played against, but how many strong teams (of the 8-4 variety) and how many middleweights (of the 6-6 variety) you’ve played. If you play 4 ranked opponents and 8 teams that are 3-8 on the season, or non-Division 1A teams, then you do not have a strong schedule.
Based on my not-entirely-quantitative analysis of strength of schedule, looking at the top 6 teams, which (assuming they win the rest of their games) will have nearly equivalent records, I would rank the teams thusly: #1 Florida, #2 USC, #3 Ohio State, #4 Arkansas, #5 Michigan, Notre Dame (unranked). Of course, chances are that Arkansas will lose to Florida in the SEC championship game, and Notre Dame will lose to USC, so those two teams will be out of the running. But of Florida, USC, Ohio State, and Michigan, I think the championship should be Florida vs USC, assuming that neither team does the unthinkable and actually loses their last regular season game or their conference championship. Entirely too much emphasis is being placed on the undefeatedness of Ohio State.
My not-entirely-quantitative analysis:
1) Ohio State - 4 ranked opponents, 6-8 wimpy opponents
2) Michigan - 2 ranked opponents, ~7 wimpy opponents
3) USC - 4 ranked opponents, 1 wimpy opponent, lots of middleweights
4) Florida - 3 ranked opponents, 4 strong unranked opponents, ~3 wimpy opponents
5) Notre Dame - 3 ranked opponents, ~8 wimpy opponents
6) Arkansas - 4 ranked opponents, ~5 wimpy opponents
By Adam on Nov 20, 2006 at 2:07 am
Wow, you would rank both Florida and USC above Ohio State? You’re definitely not afraid to go against the grain with your college football opinions.
There’s two competing philosophies with the strength of schedule argument. (1) Teams can only play the schedule they have. If they win their games, they should be rewarded. If they lose their games, they should be punished. Simple as that. (2) Teams should be punished for playing a weak schedule (since they do have some control over their non-conference games). You have to play with the big boys during the regular season to play with the big boys during the bowl season.
Now, I think the truth lies somewhere between those two. If you’re in a major conference and go undefeated, it’s hard to keep you from playing for the championship. It can certainly happen (see Auburn, a couple of years ago), but a series of awkward events have to occur first.
Ohio State defeated the consensus number two team in the nation. It doesn’t really matter how they did it. They’ve conquered every challenge that’s come their way, and they even scheduled Texas as part of their non-conference schedule. They’re not running from anyone.
After that, I think the SEC champion certainly has a strength of schedule argument against USC. But, USC gets a chance to put all that to rest with a big showing against Notre Dame. If USC beats Notre Dame by 14+ points, and the SEC championship is another 17-14 type game, I think USC will be playing Ohio State for the national championship.
On a completely unrelated note, I have an extremely difficult time taking Notre Dame seriously after watching them get completely demolished by Michigan a couple of months ago. I know teams can improve by leaps and bounds as the season progresses, but to lose the way they lost on their home field prevents me from thinking of them as a top flight team to any degree.
By jjk on Nov 20, 2006 at 10:27 am
See, this is my problem. USC beating a #5 Notre Dame doesn’t do much for me, because there’s no reason for Notre Dame to be ranked that high. The way I think things should be run is that wins and losses get weighted by the record of the other team (whose wins and losses are weighted by the record of the other team, and so forth for a few levels).
It’s all well and good that Ohio State is undefeated. That’s no small accomplishment. However, the difference between a 12-0 Ohio State team and an 11-1 Michigan, USC, or Florida team is VERY SMALL. Based on record alone, I’d put Ohio State at #1, and tie up Michigan, USC, and Florida at about #1.25. But the Big Ten, while a “major conference” is a very weak one this year. So, for both Ohio State and Michigan, their conference games were not against good teams, and their non-conference games were against bad teams. Whereas, as much as I hate to say it, the Pac-10 is on the upswing in terms of strength. And it’ll be a cold day in hell when the SEC isn’t one of the toughest conferences in football.
I guess what I’m getting at is that there’s no way that “Ohio State is 12-0 and thus they should go to the championship” tells the whole story. As long as we don’t have some sort of playoff system, the BCS rankings need to be worked to more accurately reflect reality, and 12-0 > 11-1 just doesn’t cut it.
And I really do think that we need some sort of playoff system. The current season is typically 11-12 games + 1 bowl game. Shorten the season to 10 games, then do a single-elimination playoff between the top 16 in the BCS rankings. That gives you 14 games per season for the teams that go all the way. 15 games if you toss in a conference championship. That’s only two more games than a full season now, and it’ll be less than that for most teams.
By Adam on Nov 20, 2006 at 2:50 pm