Now entering the 'knockout stages'
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2007 3:02 AM
After his Trojans finished off an underwhelming 20-13 victory over Arizona, Pete Carroll tried hard to sell his spin: “This was a really good day for us and a great day for everyone here at the Coliseum … just a heck of a day for us.”
I know that he had a much better vantage point than I did, but I wasn’t buying it. I had just witnessed the same 60 minutes of football. I saw injury-plagued USC stumble and bumble. I heard fans booing the home team for the second consecutive week. I smelled fear in the air as the Wildcats took a 13-10 lead into the fourth quarter. Surely, the Coliseum had seen much better days.
However, as evening faded into night, Carroll’s words transformed from garden-variety coachspeak to gospel. It was all beginning to make a lot of sense.
First, top-ranked LSU dropped a triple overtime 43-37 thriller at Kentucky. Then, Oregon State finished off a 31-28 victory over No. 2 California in Berkeley.
Les Miles and Jeff Tedford did not have a “heck of a day.” And in comparison, it really was a wonderful Saturday for USC … and Boston College, Oklahoma, South Carolina and whoever else survived another week in this shooting gallery of season.
So now basically everything has been reset. It’s time to start over.
By default, undefeated and untested Ohio State is expected to assume the precarious position at the top of the mountain when the first BCS standings are released on Sunday. And beyond the Buckeyes, South Florida and Boston College, everybody who is anybody has at least one loss to their name.
It used to be that you could lose early and come back into the national championship picture with some help. This year, however, there’s already been an inordinate amount of “help” being thrown around. So much so, that no more is needed. Teams just need to focus on taking care of their own business.
With seven weeks remaining in the season, we’re now entering the “knockout stages.” One more strike and you’re out.
Even the undefeated teams are included. They can’t afford to lose either. Prejudices involved with each of them won’t mix will with fresh losses when the human pollsters fill out their ballots. Things like Ohio State’s league and South Florida’s name will be hindrances.
But the way this wacky season has been going, it seems highly unlikely that more than two of the no-loss or one-loss teams will be able to navigate through the remainder of their schedules unscathed. In the end, two teams will buck the trend, identify themselves and advance to the BCS Championship Game.
This is not to say that there won’t be any controversy. There will be a ton of that, but the contenders are now on notice and will have a fair shot to get it done in a manner that is based primarily on results.
So Miles and Tedford need not despair. They have as good a shot as anybody (or more specifically, Oklahoma).
It’ll be kind of like March Madness in the sense that it takes five consecutive victories to reach the men’s basketball national championship final. The two teams that make it to New Orleans on Jan. 7 will have to do something very similar.
