If anyone wants a playoff you got a taste of what would happen in a multi-team playoff when Ohio State won at an injury depleted Michigan squad in Nov. and catapulted itself into a National Championship game in which the Buckeyes were outmanned. In a playoff system the same thing could/would happen wrt to the bad luck of injury. Some teams would have a difficult path to the title and others by luck of the injury draw would have a cakewalk. I think Michigan proved without doubt what kind of offensive team they could have when they ran up and down the field vs. Florida. Henne and Hart made this year's Michigan team hum and without them they sputtered against an Ohio State team they should have/would have beaten otherwise and that would have paved the way for an LSU-USC match-up perhaps although Oklahoma may have screwed that one up too. The Detroit Free Press this morning is brutal on the Buckeyes. The main headline is in big bold type " TWO EASY " Another main column by a senior writer is entitled: "For OSU, It's the pretender bowl again..." The column is very brutal on the Buckeyes and if it is indicative of what is being said around the country then I wouldn't want to be a Buckeye fan right about now. Again... if anyone wants to spew venom towards me personally for reporting this fine... but it certainly is the story in college football right now. I would say just man up and realize that OSU had a pretty good team and made it's way to the title even if they once again fell short to SEC ultimately. It's not a crime.....
MCG, if you want to take shots at Ohio St and the Big Ten, then just "man up" and say so. Please don't spurt ridiculous tripe like this: Talk about stretching to meet your weak point... You are suggesting that getting through one game due to depletion of an opponent during the season equates to it happening SEVERAL times during a playoff??? Right... :roll:
Your premise is ridiculous. There is no way possible to quantify after the fact a team's ability to beat another team based on any criteria, including injuries. Speculation on same is futile and just plain dumb. I see why you would want to say that..........because in your mind it cheapens OSU's win over MI and makes Florida look better than OSU in losing to MI. That kind of twisted, self-serving rationale is foolish and simply doesn't hold water.
Sid...I have to ask you...did you watch both games? I have watched Michigan all year and I can say without doubt they were at their weakest offensively health wise vs. Ohio State. They were pathetic offensively that day and it came out that Henne had nerve damage in his arm as well as his shoulder injury. The kid should not have even been playing and frankly the coaches screwed up not preparing Mallet instead. Hart was barely himself in that game as well and yet OSU only managed 14 points against a defense that was on the field the entire game. What I am saying is that a healthy Michigan team beats Ohio State that day and we have a different team in the title game and maybe a better matchup. The same kind of thing could occur in a playoff scenario so bottom line is that we have a basic playoff system already in place and all we need is a plus one I think to make everyone happy. Fyi.....Lou Holtz tried to point out the Michigan win as a reason that Ohio State was qualified for the game and Mark May shot him down with the same "Michigan was injured" angle as I am stating here.
Stop it! Injuries are part of the game. And Mark May makes a good living saying controversial, stupid things.
MCG, you and I have gone round and round with me in my capacity as a moderator. I know you were not happy when on a number of occasions I locked one of your topics after things like this got out of hand. I have been gratified with you on a couple of fronts during this bowl seasons. First you were very helpful to me in discussing my injury and what your went though, for that I thank you. Secondly I have felt you have made a lot of progress in being more understanding of the other guys feelings. I have been hopeful that others would observe the same and eventually forget their feelings as to how you rubbed things in last year, and like it or not your did. Now the day after a very painful loss for the Ohio State folks you are finding it tough to be gracious. So what if some talking head takes shots at Ohio State. That's the reason I don't have a lot of respect for most of them. So you have to find articles that knock Ohio State, put them out there and act innocent. Well I'm sorry, but if you think you can continue to do that and have mutual respect with these folks I don't quite understand your thinking. Things are not to the point that I would lock the topic, but I will tell you that I'm afraid you just don't understand the dynamics of this forum if you think anyone but you and perhaps Tailback think this does anything to move discussion forward. It does not!
Yes, I saw both games. You do this a lot. You speak about speculative thoughts as if they were facts. You cannot say that. You are not powerful enough to change the course of human events. There is no way anyone can say that even with a "healthy" MI team, the results of that game would be different. I'm sure you would like to say that if Florida had played the same MI team that played Ohio State that Florida would have won. It is not possible to change the outcome to suit your agenda, but you keep on thinking that in the imaginary world of MCG.
My opinion is different than yours to be certain Sid. The injuries that Michigan had that day made for a very different team that faced Ohio State and hence UM had less than 100 yards of total offense. I choose to believe that it was injuries to key seniors on the Michigan offense including the Qb that caused that lack of production more than the Ohio State defense. Some members of the media ( quite a few I suspect ) would agree with me and maybe a few agree with you. Bill I only started the topic because of the mini-debate I had going on beforehand about the ramifications of a big Ohio State loss. That and the fact it is all over the Detroit sports section and radio here. I think you realize that this will indeed be a subject of national debate for some time to come but maybe you don't want it on this forum. So be it...we can hide our heads in the sand then in an effort not to offend anyone.
I continue to think you don't understand the dynamics of this forum MCG and that is to your determent when it comes to mutual respect. So it's a national debate, sorry but the impression you give is rubbing it in. That's it, I've had my say I'm sure you will continue to draw other people into your debate, but as I said it comes as a price to you.
Well it's a good thing that I don't get my sense of personal worth from what media pundits decide to pontificate about my school's football team...particularly proven OSU haters like the Detroit Free Press and and Mark May...To the Detroit Free Press I say "Hail to the Victors!"...congrats to the Michigan seniors...winners over mighty Florida and 0-4 against the OSU chumps. These are kids playing a game and trying to win...they have given us uncountable reasons to be proud to be their fans...including how they handle losses and adversity. I won't list their many accomplishments here...but why in the hell would I want to be anything but a Buckeye fan? We'll be back...count on it.
Stu....that's the attitude I would expect from you....good job! The last time Florida lost to Kentucky I was there in 1987 and the fans got on us pretty good. Back at the hotel I was having dinner and looked over at the next table and saw a downtrodden fellow Gator and I said..."I'd still rather be a Gator".... Ohio State won't go away....they are here to stay no doubt. In the interim there will be a lot said about the Bucks, the SEC and the Big Ten. Maybe I'll just zip it on this board though wrt to Ohio State. On LSU though I would like to ask Sid if by some form of the imagination did he think the powerful, healthy LSU team we saw last night was the same LSU team that lost to Arkansas and struggled mightily with Tennessee?
My answer is, I don't know. It's obvious that the LSU QB and DT played well last night, but if they had been healthy vs. Arkansas I still don't know what the result would have been. Maybe LSU would have won, maybe not. We'll never know. Same with MI vs. OSU, LSU vs. KY, etc., etc. Where you and I seem to differ is that you want to create a scenario of imaginary do-overs and I don't use the hindsight-based what-if approach. When a game is over, it's over. The result stands in fact and in history, regardless of the infinite list of what-ifs that may or may not have affected the outcome. Once you open the door to revising history, you must consider every aspect of every second that ticked off the clock. You cannot choose simply one or two aspects that might have influenced the outcome without re-constructing the entire game. What if Hart and Henne had been healthy vs. Ohio State? What if Henne had thrown one or two interceptions that ultimately led to OSU TDs? What if Hart had fumbled as he did vs. Florida and those fumbles led to OSU TDs? Who knows? The score might have been worse than it was without them. We'll never know. If you are going to engage in a do-over mindset, you can't pick and choose the do-over factors that would influence the do-over outcome. You must start all over because the entire game would have been played differently by both teams. Do you see how futile it is to try to revise history? It can't be done.
No "What ifs allowed" If so.. what if Babe Ruth remained with Sox? What if Joe D and Teddyball game were traded for each other in '41. what if Pesky did not hold the ball in '46 World series? What if Billy Buckner...... Forget it...just wanted to liven things up!
Your point is well made, Jif. Bringing it forward to 2007, what if the Detroit Tigers did not have the number of injuries they had in 2007? Would they have won the AL Central? Would they have faced the Bosox in the AL championship? Who knows?
If we are playing <t>hypothetical 'healthy on healthy', you have to include USC and Oregon in that debate...and while we are speaking of consensus media opinions.. NO ONE wants any part of a healthy USC right now...<br/> <br/> And to answer your question that you've been asking me for 2 days MCG, I'd take USC over Ohio State or LSU right now. I think they'd clock Ohio State as bad as they beat Illinois and they'd beat LSU by 4+ IMHO.<br/> <br/> I just wanted to take a look at the two playing together to get a better read. The bowls proved that the tired and played out 'speed of the Big 10' thing is just bullsh*t.</t>
I think it is hilarious that an argument can be considered rational when it is based on some sort of imaginary premise. WRT Michigan, if I remember correctly they were fairly healthy going into the Appalachian State game, considering it was the first game of the season. Injuries happen in football, they can occur before a game, after a game, or during a game. Considering injuries in an effort to make your team look better than another is ludicrous. Had Michigan been healthy playing against Ohio State, Laurinaitis and Co. may have knocked out Henne on the first play of the game anyway. You can speculate this sort of stupidity all day long but what we end up with is what happened on the field of play. Ohio State beat Michigan and an inspired Michigan team beat a Florida team that was flawed. That's just the way it goes sometimes. As far as Ohio State goes, they are now 0 for their last 9 against the SEC in bowl games. That's fact. The reasons for that record are surely varied depending upon the year and the matchups, etc. Someone stated in another topic that the rest of the Big 10 owns the SEC. I would argue that that is ludicrous as well. They have a winning record when you take Ohio State out of the equation but Ohio State is year in and year out the best Big 10 team. This is another one of those fantasy land arguments. One thing that I do foresee this win impacting is the BCS consideration for the SEC versus other conferences going forward. I don't think you'll see a worthy SEC team get left out again as was the case with the 2004 Auburn team that went undefeated only to get spurned in favor of an Oklahoma team that got blown out. On the other hand, Auburn played a non-conf schedule that season comparable to OSU's so the blame cannot totally be placed on the system. Speaking of Oklahoma, they have been just as pathetic (perhaps more so) in BCS games of late than Ohio St. but the backlash isn't nearly as bad. Granted they haven't been in "the big one" in a couple of years but they did lose to a non-BCS school and got blown out by WVa as well as getting blown out in the aforementioned game against USC. I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of OKlahoma getting the benefit of the doubt either. But who knows what the BCS may have in store for us in the future???
Now we hear from the west coast division of the do-over club. It's like the presidential contenders on a stage in Iowa.........Move over and make room for me. My do-over is more compelling than your do-over. Injuries are part of the game in any sport. They are a fact of life which can influence entire seasons. It's been like that since the beginning of time in sports. Point to any ML baseball season, NFL season, and especially this college football season, and you will see one or more teams whose hopes were dashed by injuries. That's part of life in sports.
I'm blaming Fla. If they hadn't looked so poor defensively against an average Michigan team we wouldn't be having this conversation. Had Harte fumbled twice at the goal line vs. OSU I'm sure that the results would have been the same. Only the Gators could piss away those 2 gifts. Feel better now?