Stewart Mandel - A Voice of Reason

[Orestes]

So we've seen this plenty of times over the past few years: Oklahoma highly ranked and highly touted going into a BCS bowl only to be embarrassed. So what is it? Are they under-motivated, overrated or just choke artists?

--Mike, New York City

It's pretty puzzling me to me how the same coach, Bob Stoops, who won a national championship in his second season, won nine of his first 10 games against top-10 foes and to this day has an absolutely sterling overall record has now lost four straight BCS bowl games, three of which his team was widely expected to win, two of which have been absolute blowouts. It's equally puzzling why Oklahoma has not suffered anywhere near the same backlash that Ohio State -- 3-1 in BCS games under Jim Tressel -- has endured for its sole bad showing a year ago.


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Last season sportscasters said that the Florida-Ohio State game provided evidence that the SEC is faster than the Big Ten. Now, those same commentators are arguing that Ohio State is just as fast as LSU and will be motivated this year because they feel disrespected by all the talk of them being slow. Huh?
--T.J., Urbana, Ill.

For the love of all that is holy, can we please stop with the sweeping generalizations about the SEC and other conferences?

There's no arguing that, for whatever reason, Ohio State could not handle the speed of Florida's pass-rushers in last year's title game, but how that one game became a testimonial to the speed of every other player on every other team in that conference is beyond me. Yes, we saw much the same thing in the Georgia-Hawaii game, but who's to say USC, Virginia Tech or any number of other teams wouldn't have given the Warriors the same problem.

Don't get me wrong, speed is arguably the most important factor in college football today, and many SEC teams tend to have particularly fast defensive linemen and linebackers. But so does USC, so does Virginia Tech, so does West Virginia and ... believe it or not ... so does Ohio State.

Meanwhile, speed is hardly the only deciding outcome in a college football game. If it was, how did Michigan beat Florida on Tuesday? My guess is if we took out stopwatches and timed every member of last year's Florida team and this year's Florida team, we'd find no noticeable difference. I'm guessing all those five-star recruits Urban Meyer has brought in the past couple of years did not cause the Gators to get slower.

But those players, particularly on defense, are far more inexperienced than last year's, and supposedly "slow" Michigan was able to exploit that. The Wolverines were also the more physical team that day, which, even in the age of spread offenses, remains an important factor in any contest. And of course, there's no understating the importance of a good game plan. Michigan seemed to catch Florida off guard by doing several things (handing off to Mike Hart out of the shotgun, calling running plays for Mario Manningham) they had not done all season, while the Gators' extreme dependence on Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin ultimately doomed them at the end of the game when trying to run a two-minute offense with so few other options.


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Stewart -- did I miss something? Since when does beating Arizona State and Illinois get you crowned likely national champs and the hottest team in college football? Oh, I forgot ... USC was the only team with injuries this season. Do you crown these guys too?
--Dustin, Lake Charles, La.
No, I'm as puzzled by the continued USC infatuation as you are. Even before the Rose Bowl beatdown of Illinois, there seemed to be a huge segment of the public and media that still believed the Trojans were the best team in the country, despite almost no tangible evidence to support that. This is a team that beat two -- I repeat, two -- teams with winning records during the entire regular season and lost to a team (Stanford) that finished the year 4-8.

Yes, I understand USC -- and John David Booty in particular -- was banged up in that game. You know who else suffered a boatload of injuries this season? Oregon. The Ducks were playing without three of their top four receivers and their No. 2 tailback when they beat the Trojans on Oct. 27. If you want to argue that USC could have won the national championship if it had stayed healthy, I'd counter that they might not even have won the Pac-10 had Dennis Dixon stayed healthy.

No question, USC, once healthy, was one of the top teams in the country by the end of the season, but there are still at least three other teams -- Ohio State, LSU and Georgia -- I'm more impressed with based on their seasons as a whole. As far as I can tell, the continued perception held by those who still believe USC as the top team in the country is based primarily on their track record (six straight seasons of at least 11 wins is pretty darn impressive) and the fact the Trojans were picked as such before the season. (Which is itself amusing, considering all the complaints I hear about preseason polls).

The fact is, USC did not look remotely like the No. 1 team in the country until the 11th game of its season, Thanksgiving night against Arizona State, and the Sun Devils wound up getting crushed by the two other best teams (Oregon with Dixon and Texas) it faced. The Trojans then beat up on what we figured all along would be an overmatched Illinois team. If you want to ignore their first 10 games and anoint them based on their final three, be my guest, but I personally tend to favor those who show consistency over a slightly longer period.


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Remember your comment that USC was nowhere near the best team of all-time? I bet you do. But guess what, you simpleton? That distinction is not earned in one season, which you obviously thought it was. Guess what? USC is the greatest team of all time, and we just proved it again.

--Steve McGuire, Redondo Beach, Calif.

Gosh --- it's hard to argue with that logic. I guess I better take back everything I just said.