Posted on 12/03/2006 2:41:24 PM PST by BurbankKarl
There isn't going to be a rematch.
No. 1 Ohio State will play No. 2 Florida, not Michigan, for the Bowl Championship Series national title on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz.
According to a BCS source, Florida moved from fourth to second today ahead of No. 3 Michigan in the final BCS standings.
An official announcement will come this evening in a televised unveiling on Fox.
The news means that USC will play Michigan, not Louisiana State, in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.
LSU had pre-sold more than 42,000 tickets in advance of making its first-ever Rose Bowl appearance, but UCLA's upset win over previously No. 2 USC on Saturday, coupled with Florida's win over Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference championship game, changed the final pairings.
The BCS bowl lineup is now expected to be:
Rose: USC vs. Michigan.
Sugar: Notre Dame vs. LSU.
Orange: Louisville vs. Wake Forest.
Fiesta: Oklahoma vs. Boise State.
Florida's jump over No. 3 Michigan, which was idle Saturday and has not played since a three-point loss to No. 1 Ohio State on Nov. 18, likely will cause more uproar in BCS circles.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The VPISU Gobblers have been alot tougher than they are this year -- but then, so have the Dawgs.
The schedule is what it is, you just have to deal with it. Next year, Michigan gets Ohio State at their house, and if the Wolverines win by 3, Buckeye fans can say the same thing.
I guess you could go to a neutral site, like the Florida-Georgia game, but would the majority of fans at either Michigan or OSU put up with it? My guess is no. Florida-Georgia in Jacksonville has been that way forever, so now it's part of the tradition and lore of the game, and tradition and lore are just about everything in college football.
In all the time Steve Spurrier was at UF, he never beat FSU in Tallahassee. He got a tie there once (the infamous 1994 Choke at Doak), but that was as close as he came. That still didn't stop him from winning a national championship. And if he or Bowden had ever suggested that that game be moved to a neutral site, they would have been pilloried by the press and the fans at both schools.
I think that will probably be the best of all the BCS matchups, and to be honest I am picking USC only because it is the Rose Bowl. It is basically a home game for them, and historically they have owned Michigan in the Rose Bowl. If it were the Sugar Bowl I would have the score switched, and maybe even a wider margin for Michigan -- I think playing in Pasadena is worth at least 7 pts for USC.
hmmmmmmm...now I know why your screen name is dfwGATOR!!
LOL...you could be right, probably are. I just thought what I heard on the Ticket was interesting...but, I know that the Big 12 has some pretty lousy teams at the bottom...and so does the Big 10...
Pac 10?? same.
Yeah, okay, top to bottom best conference..they just haven't had an abundance of NC...but, if there was a playoff???
We will never, ever know...
Is Ohio State the third challenger? I guess they could always beat themselves.
A question for the folks that really follow or do that sort of thing, if you were to take Ohio State and give 3 points on this game, would you expect to get anyone to take that wager?
Yes, unfortunately, USC does get a "home" game...poor, Michigan, the lost by so little to OSU at OSU..and now they have to play USC in their own backyard.
It will just give me more of a rooting interest...since I don't have "home team" to root for this year...because Texas had Vince Young playing for the TITANS instead of the Longhorns..thank you very much.
Seems like there have also been a number of recent situations where a team was snubbed, and then went and flopped in the one they played. Oregon last year and Cal the year before come to mind.
Also, don't forget that Lloyd Carr appears incapable of winning a bowl game.
It's more than that with Notre Dame. It's money.
ND has enough clout to negotiate their own TV deals with the networks, and they get to keep all that dough for themselves. If they joined a conference, they'd be forced to share a cut of it with the conference, and they're not having any of that.
Being able to position themselves as a NC contender by lining up a schedule full of cream puffs is just a side benefit.
It's not like it's a fluke that the teams alternate where the game is played. I don't see the Buckeyes saying "we could have won at a neutral site." More likely, "oh well, time to start another win streak."
That is why I was so shocked when Auburn-Alabama was changed to a home & home series -- although I think the fact that Legion Field is a decrepit falling apart POS had a lot to do with it. Not to mention having to traverse miles of crack houses to get the dump. And the Auburn fans will undoubtably point out that Alabama played 2-3 home games there every year, so it was basically an Alabama "home game" -- or at least that was the excuse for the years of Bama dominance of the series.
Of course, since the series moved from B'ham, Auburn has dominated it, so maybe the Auburn fans were right. LOL
My point is that the Illinois tape is not going to show many bells and whistles of the Ohio State offense.
VInce is 3-1 with the Titans so far too. :-)
Ugh...what even happened to the separation of church and sport??
Oh...that isn't in the constitution...never mind. LOL
Seriesly, I used to get a lot more upset about Notre Dame before the BCS system...because then it was mostly a "by invitation" type deal...and they were getting invitations to games that they really had way too bad of a record to justify the invite.
But, for the reasons you pointed out...the teams that didn't get the invitation so that the bowl committees could tell their donors, "Hey, we got Notre Dame"...were "s" out of luck.
The BCS is far, far from perfect...but at least Notre Dame didn't sneak into the Rose Bowl..it is bad enough that they are going to the Sugar Bowl...(my least favorite bowl--INSIDE--football is an outdoor sport).
They have been FUN to watch...this last 2 weeks were great..
The look on Dungy's face today was priceless when that field goal went through...lol
Lienart is looking better each week, Romo is a god in Texas right now, Cutler is looking solid so far tonight, Jason Campbell has looked ok, and Vince is getting more confident each week.
LOL I no sooner post about Cutler and he makes an ungodly ugly Rookie mistake. ROFL.
LOL...I was reading your post, JUST as Cutler made that HUGH mistake...bless his heart.
Florida-Georgia went home and home for a couple of years while the old Gator Bowl was "rehabbed" (i.e. torn down and rebuilt in place) into Alltel Stadium for the Jaguars, and while it was novel experience for Gator fans to go between the hedges and for Dawg fans to visit the Swamp, everyone was happy when the game returned to where it belonged, in Jacksonville. I don't even know why they started playing the game in Jacksonville way back when, to tell you the truth, any more than why Indiana and Purdue decided to use a wooden bucket as a game trophy back in the day. It's just one of those goofy deals in college football, and one of the reasons why I love the game so much.
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