My Letter to Gene Wojciechowski
Here is the email I wrote to ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski in response to his article about how Michigan got jobbed. I realize it doesn’t directly relate to his point about the national title game, but it does relate to the concept of the BCS being a f**ked up system and the Big Ten getting the screw. Why did I write to him instead of someone else? I don’t know. I just read his column, and after all the hysterics yesterday about the controversy for the BCS title game, I wanted to complain to someone in the media, not just to my readership.
Excellent article about Michigan getting a raw deal. I agree that both Michigan and Florida are deserving. That is why a playoff is the only real option to eliminate controversy. But then again, if there was a playoff, there would be a LOT less to talk about between Thanksgiving Day and New Years. One thing that has only gotten sporadic mention this season is the rule about more than 2 teams from one conference getting to the BCS. Wisconsin got MORE jobbed than Michigan. 11-1 with your only loss to the “2nd” ranked team in the country and doing that in the Big Ten should get you there, period. People who back Michigan’s claim to the title game suggest that their only loss was to the #1 team, and therefore, that is a “better” loss than Florida losing to a lower (yet still highly) ranked team. Well, apply that argument to Wisconsin. They destroyed most of their Big Ten opponents. They beat Iowa with their backup QB. They beat an underrated Penn State team. And they lost to Michigan IN Ann Arbor by a much-closer-than-it-appeared 14 point margin (they were tied at halftime). Wisconsin didn’t even have a chance to match up with Ohio State this year, so we will never know how that game might have played out. The bottom line is that the BCS is broken, and not just because of the #1 versus #2 controversy. It is broken for those teams like Wisconsin that are excluded from the conversation because they have the bad fortune of being the 3rd best team in a conference that has the two BEST teams in the nation. Now that is the definition of getting jobbed.
Of course, Fox had Barry Alvarez on the BCS Selection show, and only for a moment did they touch on Wisconsin - when they displayed the embarrassing final BCS rankings graphic that showed the 7th ranked team (by the BCS…the Badgers were 5th in the Coaches’ Poll and 6th in the AP) couldn’t play because of their B(C)S rules. Alvarez, the class act that he is, instead of complaining just stated “But we knew the rules going in”. I applaud your professionalism Barry (as I would have been up there bitching to whoever would listen). If Urban Meyer had the humility that you demonstrated we would be watching Michigan versus Ohio State in the title game.