After having a night to digest all that happened yesterday, what with a much much to close game against scUM and Auburn's(for a second week in a row) miracle win over Alabama, I feel confidant that as long as tOSU takes care of business next week in Indy, that they will go to the NCG, and have every right to that shot at the title. I don't believe that you can make a credible argument that any 1 loss team "deserves" to go over an undefeated BCS automatic qualifier. There has been a lot of talk in the media and on this site about how utterly terrible the BIG is this year, and while I will agree that it down, comparative to past years, I don't think that it is as down as people that have and axe to grind, and some of the folks around here want to believe. Truth is, we won't really know until the season is over, and even then it may end up being sort of murky.
I sat down, and just did a quick break down last night, of the top 5 BCS teams (who will likely be the same 5 when the new rankings come out), and just compared their opponents collective winning percentage. Ohio State's was the lowest at about 45%, FSU came in at about 49%, Auburn and Alabama came in at about 51% and surprisingly, Missouri was the highest at a little over 53%. Not a huge difference, but probably somewhat significant. Now, I certainly don't believe that this is the sole metric by which a team should be judged upon, but, it is one factor that I think needs to be taken in to account, along with things such as overall record, average margin of victory, a variety of off./def. rankings, if there is a loss, when and to whom, and probably some more that I've not mentioned or thought of, but I also believe that these different categories should all be appropriately weighted, and at the end of the day, the most important statistic is W/L. I'm not sure, exactly, how you punish a team for winning all of their games, simply because another team that didn't played a marginally tougher schedule. I don't think that the comparisons to Boise St. are very fair or accurate. When they were running rough shod through the MWC, the level of competition that they faced still was not at the same level that the BIG is today. In their best years, in a schedule where Boise St played Cal, Wisconsin, NW, PSU, Indiana, scUM, Iowa, and tOSU from this year, the odds of them getting through that schedule unscathed or even without a couple losses is highly improbable. So, really, just stop it with the Boise St comparisons.
At the end of the day, if tOSU is fortunate enough to have the opprtunity to play for a national championship, they will have earned that right based on the merits of being undefeated, much like FSU. With the offense we have, and Meyer as the coach, I would feel very confident that they could compete for the trophy and very possibly win it. I think that the poor defensive performances that we've seen a few times in the past couple of years tend to push people to an unreasonable position about the feasibility of a victory over another top ranked team. Not every, or even most of the defensive performances are poor though. That's not to say that there aren't some issues that need to be addressed, to be able to compete at the highest level, but when they play to their potential, they are very good. As with any team, if a focused team that plays with discipline shows up, they have a very good chance to win. Ohio State has the talent to compete for the crystal. When the game is played, its not going to matter who had the tougher road to get there, it's going to matter who showed up more prepared to play and there is a whole lot more to that preperation than simply who your opponents were throughout the year.
