In professional sports it's become a fairly common practice to debate the winners of MVP awards. Pundits like to say that there should be two separate awards, one for the Most Valuable player and one for the Most Outstanding player because these two concepts are radically different and often are not represented by the same player. Well, after watching Louisville basically earn a place in the college football national title game with a victory over West Virginia last night I'm beginning to think college football needs to segregate it's national champion from it's best team.
At the start of every college football season pundits talk about who will win the national championship. Some teams get legitimate mentions because they are outstanding football teams. Some teams get lumped in based solely on having a reputation as a 'big' football school. Others are simply in the discussion because they have a good shot at going undefeated and folks assume that for some reason these teams should be included. It's all bullshit. Does anyone honestly think that should Louisville make it to the national title game they're more deserving than the loser of the Ohio State-Michigan game? Heck no! There's the national champion and then there's the best team. And just like in MVP awards, the two aren't always one in the same.
So here's my completely subjective college football groupings based on nothing other than who I think are contenders and who are pretenders.
LEGITIMATE TEAMS: These teams are here because if they play their game, no one outside the other teams in this group could beat them. They all deserve to be in the national title discussion.
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- Southern Cal
- Notre Dame
SURVIVING ON REPUTATION: In other years, any one of these teams could be in the legitimate teams group. This year they're not quite up to snuff, but still get mentioned because of name recognition.They're all capable of beating one another, but they'd need some help in beating any of the legitimate teams.
- Florida
- Auburn
- Texas
- Tennessee
POSERS: These teams have no business being in the national title discussion. The only reason they're here is because they happen to be in a BCS-affiliated conference and/or happen to have a shot at going undefeated in a mid-major conference. Either way, they're competitive with one another but would probably get spanked by any of the legitimate or reputation teams, provided those teams don't completely melt-down.
- Louisville
- West Virginia
- California
- Rutgers
- Arkansas
- Boise State
So there you have it. Completely arbitary. Absolutely debatable. But that's the way I see the college football landscape. To think of it in another way, try this - Take your favorite college football team and imagine they could play any of the above teams for a national championship. Would anyone pick a team not in the posers group? Or, imagine you could remove 5 of the teams above and the rest are put in a hat from which one is chosen randomly to play your favorite college football team for the national championship. Would anyone not choose all 4 legitimate teams and probably 1 reputation team? But it's just an opinion, but then again so is the determination of who gets to play for the national championship...
3 comments:
As much as I love ND, I don't think we are a legitimate team this year because our defense is so shaky (terrible in the first half, good in the second half), and because Brady Quinn and the offense sometimes come to play and sometimes don't. I lump us with the reputation teams, and I think I'd put USC down in the reputation teams too.
I honestly think that unless Ohio State or Michigan blows out the other during their Nov. 18th matchup, they should replay for the National championship. No one can argue they are the best two teams in football right now, with both having gone on the road to hostile environments (Texas and ND) and humilating their top-2 ranked opponent. Even though the Big 1? is weak this year, neither of these teams has even looked like they might lose against a Big 1? or any other opponent. I think if a 1-loss team plays for the National Championship, it should be one of these two.
Louisville will go undefeated, and if they play in the National Championship game, it will be interesting, because they have a good offense but no defense. If Louisville plays OSU or UM, they will lose 42-31.
My whole point is this, Kevin - given each one of those teams at their best, legitimate teams would likely only lose to each other, reputation teams to legitimates or other reputation teams, and posers to anyone. These groupings are just my interpretation of which teams are better than others and more deserving of accolades.
Hey, if you needed a quarterback for your team, would you take Brady Quinn or Troy Smith? According to the pundits Smith is a shoo-in for the Heisman so he must be better, right? Wrong. These groupings are the same concept.
I think we ARE a legit team. Sure, the ND-colored glasses are on, but think about this. Take away the Michigan loss (say we just didn't play) and we are #2 right now. It doesn't matter that we had some close games. Our team has been playing great with the lone problem the same as last year - our D gives up the big play!
The killer schedule to start the season didn't help. I really think the team is improving and will be ready for the USC and Bowl games.
I think Michigan is the best team in the country and we got blindsided. Ohio State will lose to Michigan and a 1 loss team will play Michigan for the title.
Louisville will lose at Pitt. OUT
USC will lose to us. OUT
Texas is overrated and will lose to either A&M or in the Big 12 Title. OUT
Auburn or Florida will lose a game and the other team will probably choke in the SEC Title. A stretch, but OUT and OUT
That leaves OSU. Do we deserve to rematch Michigan or does OSU? It will be a very interesting dilema. Personally, I feel that a late loss is worse than an early loss, and we should get the nod.
Of course, if any of that doesn't happen, ND goes to the Sugar Bowl if we beat USC.
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