I mean, I’d like to see some highlights from the hockey game at Wrigley.
If you didn’t watch the Rose Bowl, rest assured that USC could not have beat up Penn State more if it had been a 65-7 score. Mark Sanchez and the Trojans wideouts ripped the Nittany Lions secondary, so much so that Penn State’s penalties and USC’s quietly efficient defense hardly seemed to matter. With a 31-7 halftime lead, it was almost like the Trojans let the Lions move the ball because they could… and then immediately tacked on one last score to make it 38-14.
Of course Pete Carroll’s team might not get all of the credit it deserves, since they had to play a mere Big 10 team. But y’know, they have the longest win streak of the one-loss teams, and the Pac 10’s undefeated bowl performance surely helps. If nothing else, there ought to be a race for #2 (and some first place votes) in the AP poll, between the Trojans and UT (assuming that the Longhorns win).
And if you don’t want to talk about this game in the context of “we need a playoff” (or a plus-one game), it’s at least a shame the Rose tradition (and all of the BCS’s non-championship conference tie-ins) meant we couldn’t have a Texas-USC game, which might have made a separate AP #1 quite possible. I’m afraid Penn State could have contented itself with Cincinnati or Virginia Tech (though Penn State-Alabama could have been a ton of fun).
The only good thing about attending the game (besides being reminded that new episodes of television begin next week, above) was it was not especially frustrating. PSU committed penalties and made mistakes and got outplayed if not outworked – but USC’s superiority was so convincing there was really nothing to complain about. The safeties and linebackers, especially, just never had a chance in coverage. And Pete Carroll just might be the bowl game heir to Joe Paterno – give him four weeks off and there is almost no way he will get outcoached or outprepared. Tonight USC looked like they had the 1986 Penn State coaching staff with the 1986 Miami talent.
Great analysis. I can’t help feeling that despite the massive attention that the BCS has garnered since it’s inception, that everyone not playing the National Title Game is wasting it’s time. Couple that with traditional match-up rules like Pac10 v. Big10 written into the contract (and, yes, I know that the Rose Bowl was #5 v #6 this year) and you have yourself a real possibility that nobody, even fans of these teams, will give that big a fuck about the outcome. And, no, I was never a fan of the complete randomness of the old AP/UPI system, but if we can’t have a playoff or plus one, I see the potential for a ratings drop-off at some point. The inherent problem has always been the disparity in quality between the major conferences from year to year, now that problem has been highlighted to the millionth degree. March Madness makes perfect sense within that context and I don’t see this BCS crap having a chance to survive without even a four-team playoff. Get rid of the conference championships, finish a week earlier and start the playoffs in late December. The Title Game would still be around the first week of January. What would be so wrong with that?