Craptacular Doesn’t Begin To Describe It

Sunday, October 29th 2006
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I went .500 last week in my picks. I felt more confident this week and so far I’ve managed an 8 - 9 record. My four “confident” games? I went 2 - 2. We’re talking an implosion the last two weeks on par with The U.

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And of course, the Trojans lost (after deciding to stress all of us by making a huge comeback effort).

USC is a historical program, with a swagger. It benefits (and suffers) from that image. Before the Rose Bowl last year we had Kirk Herbstriet calling the Trojans the greatest team ever. Now, looking back the pundits quickly realized how foolish they had sounded. There reaction was to immediately start disparaging this Trojan team. They sat on the edge of their seats “knowing” the Trojans were going to screw up. Nevermind these are the same dumbwits who picked teams like Miami and Notre Dame to play for the national championship.

That won’t matter when the human polls are released. All that pent up hate is going to cause the Trojans to plumnet, disproportionately to being a one loss team.

And the rest of the college football world can smile. But, they’re all morons.

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I say that NOT because they’re glad to see USC’s demise. But because they think they’ve witnessed USC’s demise. The subtleties of the BCS are lost on these people. It isn’t a terribly complicated system. And a little understanding of it would show that the Trojan haters should at least wait for another loss.

Why do I say that? Because the computers love USC. And the love is only going to grow if the Trojans win out, because the computer love is based on strength of schedule and the toughest part of the Trojan’s season hasn’t even begun.

At the time of writing only Sagarin’s computer rankings are out but the Trojans are fifth. I wouldn’t expect them to fall farther than eight in any computer rankings (there are six used for the BCS rankings). Ahead of Tennessee, ahead of Louisville, ahead of West Virginia, ahead of Texas in basically every computer.

It is my opinion that there are only three teams “effectively” ahead of USC in the BCS for the #2 spot.

USC is going to get trounced in the human polls, no doubt about that. Hopefully the fall won’t be lower than 11th or 12th. That hurts. But if, and that is a big if, the Trojans win out their strength of schedule may boost them all the way up to the second spot in the computer average. Now they’ll still need a lot of help in terms of other teams losing in the human polls. But there are several teams, who might be in front of USC in the next BCS, who we can ignore because they’ll be effectively jumped.

Let’s have a look at the teams that “might” be in front of USC in the next BCS this afternoon:

• Ohio State
• Michigan (Either Ohio State Or Michigan Has To Lose)
• West Virginia (Either West Virginia Or Louisville Has To Lose)
• Auburn
• Florida
• Texas (Weak Computer Ranking Means Might Be Able To Be Jumped)
• Louisville
• Notre Dame (USC Plays, Controls Own Destiny)
• Cal (USC Plays, Controls Own Destiny)
• Tennessee (Weak Computer Ranking Means Might Be Able To Be Jumped)

So, if the Trojans win out (if I win the lottery), there is a liklihood that there are only three teams we need to lose a game to make it to the MNC. Auburn, Florida and the winner of Louisville-West Virginia game. Not unreasonable especially for Auburn and the Louisville - West Virginia winner. Auburn has looked weak and defeatable the last few weeks against mediocore opponents (kind’ve like USC before their loss to Oregon State). Louisville and West Virginia both have to play Pitt and Rutgers still.

Florida is a tougher cookie but can we say Arkansas in the SEC championship game?

If we can win out and work our way back to within a spot of say, Texas, in the human polls…there’s no doubt with our computer strength we’ll jump a team like that in the BCS.

Of course, it seems unlikely right now that USC can run the rest of its schedule especially facing Cal, Notre Dame, and Oregon. As well USC may plumnet even lower than predicted in the human polls, making this trip more difficult. So all this day dreaming is probably moot.

But all those haters should note, it is not implausible that USC (despite being ranked lower than these teams in this week’s BCS) will actually be in a better position than one loss teams like Tennessee and Texas and even maybe an undefeated team like Louisville.