Great articles on the Wolverines getting jobbed.

[-NoQuarter-]

The voters have spoken. Between Gator chomps, here's what they said:

Never mind.

Never mind what we did the last couple of weeks, voting Michigan ahead of Florida. We've changed our minds because, hey, we can.

Because the rematch thing suddenly became too real. Because when Urban Meyer politicks, we listen. Because we thought it was time to throw the embittered SEC a bone after stonewalling Auburn's national title bid two years ago.

We thought the Wolverines were better than Florida back in November -- and even though Michigan hasn't played a down of football since Nov. 18, we've decided that we don't think so anymore. We were dazzled by the Gators' work since that date: a seven-point victory over Florida State and a 10-point win over Arkansas. And we decided that Ohio State-Michigan was not in need of a sequel.

That's our story and we're sticking to it. Now if you'll excuse us, we'd like to put our fake nose and glasses back on and return to anonymity. These publicized ballots make us more accountable than we'd prefer. Goodbye.

Once again, Florida and the ballot box have made for a wildly controversial combination. Six years ago it was hanging chads. This year the voters are hanging Chad (Henne) out to dry outside the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game.

Some system, huh? You've got to love a sport that reduces its championship to a politicized popularity contest/guessing game.

I really don't have a problem with a Florida-Ohio State title game. In fact, I prefer it to Ohio State-Michigan -- prefer to see a battle of conference champs, and prefer not to put the Buckeyes in double jeopardy against a team they've already beaten.

But I don't like the way it came about.

On Nov. 26, the Wolverines led the Gators by 86 points in the Harris Poll and 30 points in the USA Today poll. By Sunday morning there had been a 154-point reversal in the Harris poll and a 56-point swing in the USA Today poll.

That was shocking. If you were already predisposed to voting Michigan ahead of Florida, I didn't see enough in that game to merit that kind of turnaround. We certainly didn't see anything from Michigan to merit a demotion, given the fact that the Wolverines weren't playing.

Which makes me suspect that habitual slot voters massaged their ballots simply to block a rematch -- something they should have considered the previous two weeks, it seems.

Or perhaps they simply liked the sound of Meyer's insistent voice, as he lobbied like nobody since Mack Brown groveled Texas into the Rose Bowl two years ago. If we've learned one lesson from recent BCS history, it's this: Whiners win. And that will only breed more whining in the future.

(Harris Poll voter Jim Walden was apparently so smitten by Meyer's pitch that he became the only voter on the planet to put Florida No. 1, ahead of Ohio State. Walden also voted Oklahoma fourth, Boise State fifth, Wake Forest seventh and LSU 11th. Makes me wonder whether we were watching the same sport all fall.)

Here's something else we learned this weekend: When the going gets tough, voting is optional. Buckeyes boss Jim Tressel flat refused to vote in the final USA Today coaches' poll and got away with it.

Tress was OK with voting every other week of the year. But now it's time to cast the final ballot -- which, coincidentally, will be made public -- he suddenly bails out?

Nice precedent there. How many coaches made a mental note of that maneuver and will try to employ it next year? What if 10 coaches decide that propriety demands an abstention on the critical (and public) final ballot?

Tressel will say he didn't want to influence the outcome of a vote that decided who his team will face for the title. But if he voted in August, September, October and November, he damn well ought to vote in December, too.

Of course, in a rational world the polls would be little more than curiosities, and the championship would be decided on the field. As Meyer himself said on ESPN Sunday night, the voters are "asked to do a job you can't do."

Divining the difference between 11-1 Michigan and 12-1 Florida is truly an impossible task -- though at least the voters were spared from splitting hairs in triplicate when USC spit the bit against UCLA.

The only way to know for sure is, of course, a playoff. But if you call a Division I-A university president today, you'll probably get the following ramble: "academic concerns … length of season … maintain integrity of the regular season … Meineke Car Care … MPC Computers … once-in-a-lifetime experience … this is a recording. …"

"Next year's going to be the same thing," Meyer said Sunday night.

Please, Urban, don't go ruining 2007 already.

Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/colum...pat&id=2685389

[Glenn]

If we've learned one lesson from recent BCS history, it's this: Whiners win.

So true.

Urban Meyer is a whiny little bitch.

Say what you want to about Lloyd, at least he still has his dignity.

People who slam Michigan for not being a conference champion apparently are too dense to figure out that every once in a blue moon, the best two teams in the country will be in the same conference.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Glenn]

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...EWS99/61203012

MITCH ALBOM: Michigan wronged by voters

BY MITCH ALBOM
FREE PRESS SPORTS COLUMNIST

Well at least, after all the games, the rankings, the computers, the controversy, at least the college football world finally reached a conclusion:

The system stinks.

That’s the only conclusion we can agree upon. All else is chaos. Did Michigan get jobbed? Sure it did. There is no way, in a logical world, that a big time, second-ranked team, whose only loss is by three points to the top-ranked team, should fall behind anyone with at least one defeat in a poll. Anyone. Southern Cal. Florida. Anyone.

Instead, it happened twice in the past two weeks. First, USC beat Notre Dame, and a wave of hype, forced logic and selective memory made voters forget that USC struggled often this season and blew a game to lowly Oregon State — and instead they leapfrogged USC over Michigan for the No.2 spot. The USC Trojans are the strongest contender! Look at them!

Then, over the weekend, USC was exposed, losing to unranked UCLA, and, oops, guess the hype was wrong. So instead of restoring No.3 Michigan to where it belonged, a new wave of hype, forced logic and selective memory made voters leapfrog the Florida Gators over the Wolverines and into the national championship game next month. Hey, they’re the strongest contender! Just look at them!

You can spin this thing any way you want. It was strictly about fresh versus familiar. In the end, Ohio State will play Florida on Jan.8 in Glendale, Ariz., because people with votes want to see that game more than they want to see a rematch of Michigan-Ohio State. This was all about the line of thinking that says: “Give someone else a chance.”

But if the system were about giving everyone a chance, they wouldn’t call it a poll, they’d call it a donkey ride.

SO MUCH BABBLING
Which is not to say there hasn’t been some donkey-like behavior. Consider Urban Meyer, the braying coach of the Gators. When asked by ESPN about Michigan on Saturday night, Meyer said: “They had their shot.”

Thank you, Judge.

Meyer is not only rude, he’s confused. Nowhere in the Bowl Championship Series system is “having their shot” supposed to determine anything. The system is supposed to rank teams, not manipulate them. It’s supposed to set up a national championship game, not cast it.

Ask yourself this question: If we were in the fifth week of the season, and Michigan and Ohio State had played their game and were idle — do you think Florida would have jumped up two spots to wedge between them by beating eighth-ranked Arkansas?

I don’t.

The truth is, Meyer is wrong. Michigan didn’t have its shot. Not at a national championship game — which is all the BCS is supposed to determine. And now it won’t get its shot. Why? Because Florida is somehow a superior choice since it doesn’t play in the same conference as Ohio State?

Meyer acts as if the SEC is Broadway and all the other conferences are summer stock. He talks as if you have to survive germ-warfare to win an SEC game (conveniently excusing his close scores against some lesser teams) while suggesting that other conference champs should be blowing out their opponents.

Hey, if Ohio State is as great as everyone says it is, and most of its victories are against the same Big Ten teams Michigan faces, why does it work FOR the Buckeyes and against the Wolverines?

That’s fair?

“Florida belongs,” Meyer told reporters Saturday night. “The other team had a shot. We went 12-1, and I think the country wants to see the Southeastern Conference champion against the Big Ten champion.”

Well, it’s nice to have Lord Meyer tell us what we want to see. Apparently “the country,” in his view, doesn’t include huge parts of the Midwest. His first name may be Urban, but it should be Parochial.

Yes, people can say the same thing about Michigan fans. And in Florida they probably are. But the one thing Gators fans will never be able to argue is that they were EVER No. 2 this season before Sunday night.

Michigan can say that. Michigan, having not touched a football in two weeks, has to wonder why it was dropped — while Florida was vaulted. Michigan has to wonder how losing on the road to the only team ranked ahead of it — and losing by three points — is somehow less worthy than Florida losing by 10 points to Auburn, a team not even in the final Top 10.

PLAYOFF SYSTEM NEEDED
And with that, another rankings mess mars a college football season. Michigan’s Lloyd Carr, who was far more graceful than Meyer, optimistically called it, on his TV show, “a great controversy.”

But controversies are rarely great. And college kids are supposed to study math, not be victimized by it. Yes, the Wolverines will go to a Rose Bowl and there is nothing bad about that. But there is a reason why sports that determine things by voting — figure skating, gymnastics — continually result in anger, bitterness and missed chances.

And it is why this system remains a joke, while the obvious solution keeps getting ignored.

I’ll say it again. Add two games. Both on the same day. A four-team playoff. You take the Nos. 1-4 ranked teams and let them prove who belongs on the field for the championship.

Under that system, this year, Michigan would play Florida. And Meyer actually would have to coach his team past Carr’s, instead of trying to do it with his mouth.

Such a playoff would only affect four schools each year. It could be done using two existing bowls. As for when do you schedule it? Well, considering the national championship this year is more than seven weeks after Ohio State’s last on-field appearance… I’m guessing they can find some time.

But don’t hold your breath. It won’t happen — at least not soon. Instead, exhale that sigh that has been sighed for so many years in so many places since rankings were used in lieu of actual on-field battles. It was a popularity contest, in the end, what people wanted to see. And the new, exciting orange beat the same old maize and blue.

And if you’re wondering what that has to do with football, you are not alone.

[Vinny]

I'm not usually a Wetzel fan but this is decent:

No new CarrBy Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
December 3, 2006
He maintained a dignity that belied this most undignified of processes. Lloyd Carr's team won't play for the Bowl Championship Series title and won't get another shot at Ohio State after not being able to hold off Florida for a title game bid.
But the Michigan coach kept it real and kept it right throughout a controversy that so often makes everyone look wrong.
Carr doesn't dance for anyone, doesn't beg for anything, doesn't slam someone else. With his team's title hopes slipping away, with the media pleading for him to start pitching his Wolverines to swing voters, he refused to get involved and refused to violate his core beliefs.
Carr clearly is angry with Gators head coach Urban Meyer, who made pro-Florida and anti-Michigan statements in an attempt to influence voters and media coverage, something Carr considers beneath both him and the game.
I think it's going to be a great controversy … based on some of the comments the Florida coach has made in the last two weeks – campaigning strenuously for a berth in the championship game – and making some statements about Michigan that I think were inappropriate," Carr said Sunday on his television show before the BCS pairings were unveiled.
Meyer was dumbfounded with the criticism because all he did was what 99 percent of his peers would have done. College football isn't a pretty business, and Meyer never hesitated when it came to going to bat for his team, going all out for his kids. He got after those voters the way coaches do on the recruiting trail.
The goal was getting the Gators to Glendale. The goal was achieved. End of story. No apologies.
It may be for the worse (it's difficult to see how it's for the better), but that's the way the game is played these days.
Who knows if Carr could have had the same success for the Wolverines? In the end, the computer formulas declared the Michigan-Florida debate a tie. It was the voters who shifted their allegiance to Florida.
But there are no certainties. As sure as some Michigan fans wish Carr had been more Machiavellian, the thing that hurt the Wolverines the most this season was the bottoming out of the Big Ten, a usually deep and strong conference that reverted to the days of Ohio State, Michigan and a lot of weak sisters.
Florida had the better resume because the SEC had five good teams and the Big Ten didn't. The Gators simply beat more good teams and won the toughest conference in the land. Carr should be upset at Joe Paterno, Joe Tiller and Glen Mason for fielding weak teams.
Regardless, Michigan's case – that its sole loss was at No. 1 Ohio State, that it had a stronger team than the Gators – never had the advocate that Florida did. Carr would rather sit back and let the process play out than win with speeches.
He made just a single "SportsCenter" appearance in which he refused to say much and turned down every other request for comment. That's Lloyd Carr. And not just in talk, but in action.
And so Michigan and its coach go down winners even in this most disappointing of times. This program, Bo Schembechler's program, is supposed to be about just what Carr demonstrated, right or wrong, smart or stupid, hopelessly old school or not.
Meyer did it his way, and perhaps, in this tough world, in this tough game, it was the right way. Perhaps showing his players that you need to kick down the door to opportunity is the best lesson.
Saying Carr was right doesn't automatically mean Meyer was wrong. Meyer acted just as a modern coach would, where seizing every advantage and fighting for every last inch is the only way.
Meyer was a natural politician after capturing the SEC title on Saturday, when his stump speech appealed to every voter emotion imaginable.
There was confidence: "Florida belongs."
There were comparative attacks: "The other team had a shot."
There was overstated extrapolation: "The country wants to see the Southeast Conference champion against a Big Ten champion."
There was a dare to ESPN to cover this in a pro-Florida way: "I hope they list all the statistics, put it all out on the table, here's what it is."
There was potential emotional distress: "We're going to tell a group of young men that just went 12-1 in a most difficult schedule that they don't have a chance to go play for a national championship? I'm going to need help with that one."
It was a speech that James Carville and Karl Rove would have loved. Meyer didn't even seem to understand how it could upset Carr. He couldn't see the issue. He didn't get the problem.
Carr did. Whether you agree with his old-school, bedrock-value approach or not, whether you think he blew it by not sticking up for his team, you have to appreciate that when everything was on the line, he walked the walk.
When a shot at a national title was in the balance, Lloyd Carr, the old Michigan man, proved that even in this hyper-competitive era, even in this senseless system, the values he always expounds – pride, respect, humility – still can take precedent over all.

[umichjenks]

Meyer is about as unclass as Gary Danielson whose horrible chart showing Florida w/ 7 pluses against 3 pluses for Michigan. Somone explain to me how he can say us beating Vandy by 20 and Florida winning by 6 is a push? We beat MSU by 14 and they beat an absolute terrible team in the 4th qtr. by 7 poings a push? Puuhhleeeazzee. SEC and CBS have a contract together and it was ridiculously unprofessional for Danielson to rip on Michigan and preach for Florida.

Now on to the biggest baby I've seen since Tom Osborne (aka retiring so Nebraska could get a share of the 97' championship). He cries about "style points" and how they shouldn't matter at all. This same guy that when he was at Utah was saying that these "style points" should be the reason Utah should go to a BCS bowl because the amount of points they put up. This guy is such a joke and I will laugh when OSU kicks Florida's ass by at least 14. Just get a 4 team playoff to play for the top 2 bowls, every other sport has a playoff, why can't we do it for NCAA FB?

[-NoQuarter-]

What a fuckin' joke...

[Moodini31]

Absolutely amaing articles. Great finds fellas. Mitch Albom always has been, and always will be my favorite journalist/author of all time.

I also gotta give props for Lloyd for being a class act and not whimpering and politicking like Urban Cryer. What a whiny little bitch.

[WTFchris]

Meyer is about as unclass as Gary Danielson whose horrible chart showing Florida w/ 7 pluses against 3 pluses for Michigan. Somone explain to me how he can say us beating Vandy by 20 and Florida winning by 6 is a push? We beat MSU by 14 and they beat an absolute terrible team in the 4th qtr. by 7 poings a push? Puuhhleeeazzee. SEC and CBS have a contract together and it was ridiculously unprofessional for Danielson to rip on Michigan and preach for Florida.

Now on to the biggest baby I've seen since Tom Osborne (aka retiring so Nebraska could get a share of the 97' championship). He cries about "style points" and how they shouldn't matter at all. This same guy that when he was at Utah was saying that these "style points" should be the reason Utah should go to a BCS bowl because the amount of points they put up. This guy is such a joke and I will laugh when OSU kicks Florida's ass by at least 14. Just get a 4 team playoff to play for the top 2 bowls, every other sport has a playoff, why can't we do it for NCAA FB?

how come all 3 of your posts are the same? Your point will hold more wieght if you just post it once.

[Glenn]

If OSU beats Florida, LSU loses its bowl game and UM and Wisco both win theirs, we'll most likely have this:

1. OSU
2. Michigan
3. Wisconsin

Do you think we'll still have to continue hearing about the "superior SEC" if the top 3 fucking teams in the country end up being from the Big Ten?

[WTFchris]

If OSU beats Florida, LSU loses its bowl game and UM and Wisco both win theirs, we'll most likely have this:

1. OSU
2. Michigan
3. Wisconsin

Do you think we'll still have to continue hearing about the "superior SEC" if the top 3 fucking teams in the country end up being from the Big Ten?

that would be perfect. Everyone seems to overlook the fact that the SEC went 1-4 in games against non-SEC ranked teams this year. I'm not sure where this dominance comes from.