Mortality Rears Its Head

At the beginning of the season the big quandary was parity. Remember? There was no dominant team that everyone could agree on as being the force in the land that was going to run the table. Ohio State was as close to a consensus #1 as we ever got, and they had questions on defense, but then won at Texas and we never looked back. The talk about unquestioned dominance began and that was that. We forgot our early (and dead on) assessment of a wide open race this season. There was no USC, Oklahoma or Miami powerhouse program back for a return trip to the Nat’l Championship game.

After Saturday’s 17-10 victory at Illinois, in which the Illini outgained Ohio State's vaunted offense, the Buckeyes are still the #1 team in the country, but we are reminded that we were right about our hesitations about every team in the country way back in August. It’s still anybody’s game.

Look at #2, Michigan. Last year this was a 7-5 team that couldn’t play defense and few people were talking about them in the Top 10 let alone challenging for the National Championship. Since the win over Notre Dame the D has been stifling and the bandwagon has been picking up people at every corner. Until Saturday, when Michigan took all of 60 minutes to beat Ball State by an 8 point margin (34-26) that felt closer than it looks on paper.

Great teams stumble. Many have to be tested unexpectedly in route to greater victories. When a team isn’t ready for this challenge they lose, and in former seasons Ohio State and Michigan may well have, though I expect both teams will treat their latest humbling wins as wake up calls. With the exception of the remaining undefeated teams, every team formerly in the National Championship discussion has lost. This includes every team in the SEC, Big 12, Pact 10 and ACC. The only Big East team anyone mentioned in that discussion was West Virginia (claiming myself among that group) and look where that got us.

Florida, as another good example, I used to think was the best team outside of Ohio State or Michigan (and maybe they still are). They beat Vanderbilt by just a touchdown on Saturday 26-19 in the kind of not very dominant performance which has become typical for Urban Meyer’s team this year. And that’s weird if you consider the Utah program he came from was a point-scoring nightmare with less talented athletes. Admittedly that was in a conference that doesn’t play D quite like the SEC, but the last great coach at Florida proved that scores can be run up in the SEC too and Urban Meyer’s game should be well suited to that effort.

The point is Florida, a serious contender for best team in the SEC, is like many good teams not all that dominant this year. Just like the Texas team that limped past Texas Tech last week and the USC team that lost to Oregon State. (This particularly leads to a great impossible chain of transitive victories: Boise State > Oregon State > USC > Arkansas > Auburn > Florida > Tennessee > California …)

As for this season Michigan and Ohio State are the best of what’s around, but nothing’s a sure thing. And maybe it’s even better this way, it’s more college to win in a season where nobody’s running a junior NFL program that automatically stuffs the opposition.

In the end I think the game is better when there is room for both tragedy and miracles. Who likes a forgone conclusion? Who likes a last second Doug Flutie bomb putting down the Miami juggernaut? It's that kind of season.