Quote:
Originally Posted by MWM
The SOS schedule argument gets blown out of proportion for sure. People assume that if you don't play anyone, you're automatically not very good. Or that you couldn't beat anyone good. That's not the case. It's entirely possible that the best team in the country plays the easiest schedule. All you can do it go out and beat the people on your schedule.
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Exactly.
And I think what separates the six BCS conferences is so small that it's ridiculous to claim superiority. I mean, if Michigan beats App. State and Oregon, they are number 1, OSU is number 2 and the Big 10 as a whole looks very strong. You'd have all these other Big Ten teams that have only three losses (Purdue, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois) with two of their three losses coming to #'s 1 and 2 (Michigan and OSU).
Two games is all it takes to make the Big 10 go from "great" to "weak" by the consensus. Besides Michigan and their two "upsets", the other top teams in the Big Ten (OSU, Illinois, PSU, Purdue, Wisky) went a combined 18-1 out-of-conference with the only loss being Illinois to #6 Missouri by 6 points (40-34). But, yet, none of these teams (other than OSU) is a consensus top 25 team, simply due to the perception that the Big Ten is weak because of the two upsets of Michigan and OSU's collapse against Florida last year. Meanwhile, five teams from the SEC with three losses are consensus top 25.
If things are going to be judged by such a small ample size of a game or two here or there, the Big Ten could just as easily claim superiority over the SEC by beating the SEC 3 of 4 times head-to-head last year.
But, no. Everyone wants to focus on the perfect storm on January 8th in which Florida, a team that was lucky to even make it into the game (thanks to USC choking to UCLA) blew away the number one team in the country. Yes, the Big Ten must suck.