Jaxbuck;1245184; said:
This all really comes down to the 2006 loss to UFO by SOU. Never has one school and its entire conference been so vilified for one loss. Its just amazing.
I have a theory about that Jax.
It was not just the fact you lost, it was the fact that there was this month long fight about the #2 team to face tOSU.
It was very heated. I remember reading here about how Urban was non-classy for campaigning for #2. How Michigan was so much better than Florida. How Ohio State and Michigan were clearly, undoubtedly the two premier programs, and how it would be a shame to let Florida in the BCSCG.
If you remember, the hue and cry over the horrible injustice done to Michigan by the voters in the polls that allowed Florida to jump to number two was actually quite large. How it was Lloyd being classy and not campaigning enough that made the BCSCG that unfair deal, how the two best teams were denied a chance to play the game to match The Game just a month earlier, how the "body of work" for Michigan was so much more impressive than the gimmicky offense that was Florida.
Well, it was not losing to Florida that was the deal. It was the total destruction of the Skunkbears by USC, followed by the dominating win by Florida, but only after hearing endlessly how much better an all Big-10 game would have been. It was not just you losing, it was the hype for two teams that was heard at such a loud volume for such a long time, only to have them
both waxed in their bowls.
Had Michigan not been punked, it would not have been as bad for y'all. Synergy, is how I see it.
The subsequent losses by Big-10 elite in major games (I do not include the fine win by Michigan over UF as one of the major games, as we were not that highly ranked, but it was a great Big-10 win), you in Baton Rouge and out west to USC, and now Penn State being done by halftime in the Rose (let alone the Zooker being crushed last year too), and it now is what it is.
My long point is that it is not just that game that did it, but the weird deal where the two teams who were touted as the best two teams in college football, the "Best of all time" stuff about the Buckeyes and the Heisman winner with a narrow number 2 in M*chigan that was the reason for the fall.
An unusual level of expectation was demolished, followed by several years of similar debacles by Big-10 elite in BCS games.
That is not your fault guys, as much as Michigan and Illinois and Penn State AND you.
Sucks. Kick some shorthorn ass. If, however, your secondary gets torched by McCoy, you have a good many years until you'll get over the bad press. I hated to see this, as your guys do not need the added pressure of being the last line of defense in saving the Big-10 rep.
Kicking the Ole Ball Coaches ass is not > that the ass whooping by USC. So it is up to you guys.
To dive a little deeper, I think the resentment that still lingers is more from Reconstruction than the war itself. The Reconstruction period was brutal for southerners, and that probably has more to do with riff that still lingers between the two regions. Probably why most (if not all) State Capitol buildings in the South face the South. Of course, this is all just guesses on my part, but it's all I could come up with.
