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January 1st

New Year's Day bowl games truly put the rest of the post-season to shame, which is the way it should be. Let the MySpace bowl continue placing the fourth place team from the Sunbelt conference against the loser of Harvard-Yale, it won't cheapen the intrigue and entertainment value of marquee Jan.1 bowls.

In that sense, one has to be somewhat disappointed that a majority of the BCS games are yet to be played, regulated to stand-alone prime time sports events instead of juicy additions to the schedule of the day for college football.

Good for FOX, bad for everyone else.

The Fiesta Bowl at 8:00 PM on Jan. 2, a Wednesday night? Is this the MAC championship game? Particularly in a year when the glamorous Rose Bowl is allowed it's traditional trappings, everything after the first of the year seems like a forgotten coda to the college football season.

It's also a real shame that the Michigan- Florida game wasn't played in a BCS location, because it was certainly the quality game that BCS officials are striving for. Other than a marathon viewing of HBO's The Wire, season one, this was the most entertaining 3 hours of couch time all (extended) weekend.

Like David Simon's razor sharp sociological mind-fuck (*ahem*entering it's fifth and final season on Sunday *ahem*), the Capital One Bowl was a multi-layered drama without a discernible heroes or villains. One one side there's the outspoken Mike Hart, jawing at Florida DT's four times his size and clearly involved in some kind of point shaving scheme, evidenced by his pair of goal line fumbles. Though across from the Wolverines stood an even less likable character, Tim Tebow, Urban Meyer's charismatic errand boy who has the best PR rep in the business. CBS's Gary Danielson ought to be furious with the way ABC was flattering Tebow, on whom Danielson has a well-vocalized man crush.

Yet, from the standpoint of an OSU fan, it wasn't too difficult to pick a side. As is the case every year, any animosity between Ohio St. and Michigan is rightfully put to rest for the small window of time when each team is representing the Big Ten. And, considering his record against Tressel, who doesn't love Lloyd Carr, the man who coached his last game at the school he loves? His team certainly does.

Between Hart making OSU's defense look like a brick wall and waiting for Rich Rod to mistakenly call maize "yellow" in the announcer's booth, this game was a great way to kick off the new year. A statement game for the Big Ten.

...Amidst a day of other conferences "stating" that the Big Ten isn't so great.

Illinois and Wisconsin both fell, the latter in a much more admirable fashion. The Illini lacked any fight and the Rose Bowl quickly began to resemble last year's Championship Game.



Illinois was outmatched from “go” and made things difficult on Herbstreit and Musburger, who were calling the game. When I changed the channel at 21-0 Kirk was listing all USC's Heisman winners while the camera lazily found them in the stadium. Hours later, in the fourth quarter, I stumbled upon the game again to find an info graphic of Pete Carroll’s successes on the screen, most likely recycled from the first half. Bad, bad television.

Thirty-eight Colt Brennan pass attempts and zero Colt Brennan touchdowns later, Georgia players were presenting their argument for #1. Not surprisingly, plenty of others have already written off the up-coming OSU-LSU game after the newly crowned best teams in the country, USC and Georgia, beat up on lesser opponents.

The Sugar Bowl, in which Georgia ruined Hawaii’s vacation without offering to refund their plane tickets, somehow managed to out-suck the Rose Bowl. At best it was a chance to see superstar in-the-making Knowshon Moreno, at worst an unforgiving exposure of Brennan and his system offense. The Rainbow Warriors were one season too late to be a non-BCS Cinderella story so now they are just the team that took Missouri’s place in the Sugar Bowl (and that’s going easy on Kansas.)

The bowl records after today:

1. SEC (6-2)
2. Big-12 (4-2)
3. Pac-10 (4-2)
4. Big Ten (3-4)
5. Big East (1-2)
6. ACC (2-4)

Silver Bullet Points

No surprises here:

The AP All-American teams were released yesterday (this is one that 'actually matters'). After a quiet start to the season, Gholston continues to receive his due recognition as one of the top DE's in the country.

• CFN unveiled their end-of-the year Big Ten recognitions. Lots of OSU love; Buckeyes account for nearly 25% of their top 30 Big Ten players. Despite all this flattery, one can't help but notice the omission of Marcus Freeman from this list and those like it. Dan Conner, Laurinaitis and J Leman were arguably the top three LB's in the nation, yes, but it's a shame their talent overshadowed the conference's 4th or 5th best linebacker--boasting 21 more solo tackles than Laurinaitis--who would shine almost anywhere else.

• I'm not one to jump on bandwagons long after they've passed by, but this one is too good to continue ignoring. (Note: Chris from Eleven Warriors and I are thinking alike today) So, at the expense of seeming behind the times in the blog metaverse:

According to his interview with SI, Tim "thinks people just Photoshopped [the jorts] in."
Photo c/o www.loserswithsocks.com

• Even though the increasing popularity of the Tebow/jorts approximation has left me without an original post for today's 'Eye Candy section, I couldn't be happier that that "Tebow Wears Jorts" has vaulted into the fan-friendly lexicon of college football along with "O-H...I-O!," "Roll Tide!," that cat sound they play at Beaver Stadium, and, to a much lamer extent, "Geaux Tigers!" Losers With Socks, a particularly nasty Tennessee blog, seems to have declared ownership of the phrase, but I suspect there's a clever second-year on UGA's campus who thought of it first. Either way, the mutual disdain for Tebow amongst SEC and Big Ten fans is a welcome reminder of the holiday spirit.