So, remember a month or two back when everybody was whining about how Michigan got screwed out of a shot at the Mythical National Championship? They lost to USC last night.
USC, you'll recall, demonstrated their inferiority to Michigan by losing to UCLA, which is how they ended up in the Rose Bowl, rather than playing Ohio State for the MNC.
How about the undefeated Boise State? The knock on them has always been that they play in a weak conference, and couldn't really hang with big conference teams. They beat Oklahoma last night, in a wild game, and end the season undefeated.
What can we learn from this? Basically nothing, because single-game results don't mean much, and college football doesn't have a playoff. Does USC's win over Michigan mean that they could give Ohio State a run? Does Boise State's victory demonstrate the quality of their team, or is it just a fluke? We'll never know, because these teams won't play another game.
In NFL news:
My Giants actually looked like a decent team on Saturday, beating the Redskins fairly convincingly behind 235 yards and three touchdowns from Tiki Barber. If he really is retiring (and I still hope he'll reconsider), he went out with a good final game.
Beating the Redskins gave the Giants a chance to make the playoffs, which could be secured with a win by the hated Cowboys. Who promptly honked a game to the woeful Detroit Lions-- a major catch-22 situation for a Giants fan. On the one hand, the Cowboys losing is always good, but their loss might've kept the Giants out of the playoffs... Happily, the Rams won, which gets the Giants in even with the Cowboy loss, so it's all schadenfreude, baby. Tony Romo getting roughed up! Terrell Owens yapping! Bill Parcells looking dyspeptic! Whee!
As for the upcoming playoff game, I don't hold out a great deal of hope that the Giants will beat the Eagles (who, you recall, they just lost to a couple of weeks ago), but you never know. Frankly, nobody in the NFC has looked all that impressive, so they might have a chance. I don't really see them winning three road games to get to the Super Bowl, though, and fully expect them to get pounded this weekend. But hey, at least they're still playing.
The Patriots won, too, which is good because it makes Kate happy. Vinne Testaverde threw a touchdown pass, giving him the NFL record for most consecutive seasons with a TD pass, and solidifying the Patriots' status as the team for really old guys looking to set records that nobody cares about before retiring to become studio analysts. Brett Favre, Tiki Barber, don't lose Bill Belichick's number...
And that's the state of football today, as I see it.
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"Looking like a decent team" when playing the Redskins hasn't been much of an accomplishment this year....
This is a good point, but remember, the Giants lost to the Titans after leading by 20 in the second half, and looked kind of shaky against the Texans...
I caught half of the Giants versus the Saints. When Shockey dropped yet another pass, the commentators made some snarky remark. My father-in-law then yelled at the TV, "of course he dropped it! He wasn't expecting Manning to actually throw the ball to him!"
I take it this year has been bad for Giants' fans.
As an OU grad, I was, as you might imagine, somewhat boggled by last night's game. I don't know if it was a fluke or not, possibly. OU played badly in the 1st half and more like the team I've seen before this year after the half. If they played again I think OU would win, but then, I thought they'd win last night.
MKK
As I recall, a couple of other teams beat OU. If thats what makes Boise worthy of a national champ shot, then we need to hand out several more trophies.
I take it this year has been bad for Giants' fans.
It's been a little frustrating, yes...
This is one of the reasons I like listening to Giants games on the radio-- the announcers are ludicrous homers, but they also feel free to rag on the team, as true New York fans do.
As I recall, a couple of other teams beat OU. If thats what makes Boise worthy of a national champ shot, then we need to hand out several more trophies.
They can only beat the teams they play. And they beat all of them.
You can easily argue that they wouldn't really be able to knock off Ohio State (they needed trick plays and overtime to beat a two-loss Oklahoma team), but they finally got a shot to play a big-time program in a significant bowl game, and they won.
A sane system would give them a shot to move on to the next level of competition next week.
They can only beat the teams they play, but they could, for instance, schedule a few teams with winning records. They have beaten a grand total of one ranked team in the last five seasons prior to yesterday, and that victory was a narrow one over the mighty TCU.
As a Niners fan, I'm extraordinarily optimistic. I shouldn't be, since John York still owns the team, but I am.
One good defensive draft + free agency (they've got a metric shitload of cap space), and they'll own the division for years to come.
yeah, yeah, I'm coming in late to this...
but as another OU grad and fan, I have to say that I agree that a sane system should give Boise a shot at winning it all. Sure, Oklahoma didn't have a national champion caliber team this year, but they still had a pretty damn good year all things considered. Even though they played very poorly in the first half, I actually thought we would win the game right down till that final 2 point conversion play had been run. Boise played their asses off in that game, and I have to give them credit for playing a great game. Could they beat Ohio St.? Probably not. But unfortunately, we are never going to know.