Catching Up: College Football

I started to write this post on Friday, but ended up getting pretty busy and couldn't finish it. My point, however, that USC will still play in the national championship game was only enforced further with what happened in college football over the weekend.

It's funny that so many writers and experts spent Friday saying USC just played its way out of a national title shot.

How quickly we've forgotten a little thing called the 2007 college football season. Did it not show us that anything can happen on any given weekend?

USC delivered a thorough dismantling of Ohio State on Sept. 13, and as impressive as the Trojans looked then, they still hadn't shed their reputation as one of those teams that at least once each season, it might beat itself by not showing up for a game against a far lesser opponent.

What has happened in the last few weeks (and looking ahead) leaves me with one serious question: Which scenario below earns you more respect?

+ Beating an elite team like Ohio State, then collapsing against a weak conference foe 12 days later?

+ Losing only to that elite team, then blowing through a mediocre conference schedule and ending the season with just that one loss to the national powerhouse?

SEC screamers cry, "We beat the heck out of each other every week." What league doesn't?

Sure that conference has been the best in the country for several years, but is that unique? Isn't college football, like everything else in sports and even in life, cyclical? Maybe in five years the Big 10 or the Big 12 or the Big East will be where the SEC is now.

I've never seen anything in sports as ridiculous as Mississippi fans barking at Ohio State fans, at an NIT semifinal basketball game here in New York last March, that the SEC is superior.

I repeat: Mississipi. And basketball.

I'll never forget when the Red Sox won the World Series last year and couldn't stop chanting "American League East, American League East, American League East."

And if SEC people want to go beyond the last few years, then I'll go ahead and do that too. I remember when Ohio State won three Fiesta Bowls in four years, one of which was the national championship. Could it possibly be coincidental that in the last two seasons, the Buckeyes just faced better, more inspired teams twice in 365 days and national television cameras happened to be rolling? Maybe not, but does the statement "Ohio State sucks" sound more reasonable? That's what the tremendously obnoxious USC fans pelted my small group and me with at the game in Los Angeles two weeks ago.

Remember, only one team other than USC has played in three national championship games in the BCS era. It's the team from Columbus. And as bad as this idea sounds, it could very well play in a fourth one in January. I don't like OSU's chances, but mathematically it is very possible.

When SEC clowns said last year that OSU didn't play anyone of merit last year, those fans were right. But OSU's team was built for 2008, not 2007, and the Buckeyes yet still avoided -- for the most part -- the upsets to inferior conference foes that plagued teams from the SEC and every other league. That's called not choking. That's called showing up. That's called beating the teams you're supposed to beat.

And lastly, don't rip Ohio State for its non-conference schedule. Keep in mind that once Jim Tressel moved to Columbus, the Buckeyes added home-and-home series with Texas and USC, and in the near future have Oklahoma, California and Miami on the docket. That game at Washington last year was part of a home-and-home agreement settled before Tressel took over, so long ago that when it was scheduled, the Huskies were still among the national elite.

So this rant sounds more like a rah-rah session for Ohio State, but it's more of a shut-the-hell-up to SEC fans. Mississippi should not have won at Florida Saturday. And Alabama should not have embarrassed Georgia in Athens. Alabama is good for sure, and I'd love to see the Tide keep rolling, but I don't think it will happen.

I think either Oklahoma or Missouri will play for the title, and it could be against USC, LSU, or even, yup, Ohio State. But who knows? If we learned one thing last year, it's that every week, upsets happen, the BCS standings endure a jolt and predictions look more and more ridiculous.