Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

If you want to see the BCS go Bye-Bye, then Monday night’s Fiesta Bowl may have helped your cause. The once mighty Wolverines are licking their wounds and trying to figure out what happened. Our hometown football club limped into the off-season with a mighty defeat. This weekend sees the start of the NFL playoffs. And last but not least, the BCS (Mythical) National Championship game is “picked” by TALB.

Four Dash Twelve
The long sad 2006 Buccaneers football season has come to a close, mercifully. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong this year. Bucs fans know that the season turned on Chris Simms’ spleen. We were on the way to maybe winning the first collision with Carolina when his spleen ruptured. Then things just got ugly from there. I’ll do a post-mortem later on, once I’ve had time to collect my thoughts.

Mee-cha-gan
So Wolverine fans, how’s everyones’ ass taste now? “But, it was just a three point loss on their field. We’d win I know it!” Well, how about you figure out a way to score more than 20 against a team with two losses. A team that lost to UCLA and Oregon State? Go back to the U.P. and fish for some ice or something. Whatever it is you people do up there this time of year. Let the real football teams, you know the ones that won their conference championships, get to their business.

Broncos Bust-Up BCS
In what is being billed as the Greatest Game Ever Played (since the last GGEP between OSU and Michigan back in November), the Boise State Broncos defeated Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl in overtime. Our friends at Googtube have a couple of videos of interest. First, the succession of plays<?a> from the end of the fourth quarter and through overtime that made this game what it was. And the final two-point conversion “ Statue of Liberty” for the win. Unfortunately TALB didn’t get to watch the game. College football is full of hyperbole, but reading about the game and watching some of the highlights it would appear that this is truly a great game.

Regardless of where this game places among the GGEP hierarchy, more importantly this might stand as Exhibit A in the argument for a Division I-A, oops Bowl Subdivision, playoff. BSU is 13-0 and defeated a good Big XII champion. As Stewart Mandel points out, this is no comparison to when Urban Meyer’s Utah Utes beat Pitt a couple of seasons back. This is legitimate. This is for real. BSU will probably end up in the top five in the final polls. Granted, BSU attained their 13-0 whilst playing two or three teams that finished 4-7, and one that went 1-11. But by playing well against OU and beating them, they made a case.

What it will probably take to get a playoff though is a team like BSU coming in third in the BCS standings while going undefeated. And then going on to have a game like this where they defeat a “major” conference champion. AND THEN, having the one-loss #2 team win the “National Championship” game. Such a scenario would likely be the stake through the heart of the BCS. It won’t matter that the undefeated WAC or MWC champ would probably have been 8-4 if they played in the Big-11 or SEC. What will matter is that a team with 13 wins and no losses came in second (or even third) to a team with 12 or 13 wins and one loss.

In Other Bowl News…
The SEC stands at 4-3 in the bowl season thus far. With LSU and Florida left to play.
The state of Florida is undefeated to this point, with USF and FSU posting impressive wins. Miami squeezed by Nevada upon the blue carpet in Boise 21-20. Again, Florida will take on Ohio State next Monday.

Elsewhere in the BCS:
The Rose, as noted above, was a blowout by USC over Michigan.
Louisville capped their most successful season ever by defeating Wake Forest in the Orange Bowl last night.
And tonight brings us the Sugar between LSU and Notre Dame. LSU will probably wood-shed the Irish.

Super Bowl Championship Tournament
Last week we talked about the Colts’ and their terrible run defense. Their first round opponent, Kansas City, is averaging 134 yards rushing a game as a team. While Indy is giving up 173. The Chiefs’ Larry Johnson trails only LT in total rushing yards. As you might recall, the 6-10 Houston Texans defeated the Colts by running the ball right down their throats. Unless something changes between now and 4:30 PM ET on Saturday, the Colts will be out of the tournament by dinner time.

Dallas at Seattle presents a match-up of underachieving teams. The Cowboys were the talk of the league during November. But they swooned through December and the world (and various starlets) fell out of love with Tony Romo (not A Place for Ribs). The Seahawks looked good against the Bucs, but then again who doesn’t these days. Seahawks should win at home.

Eagles over Giants. Easy right? Well not so fast. The Giants are up and down, but showed they could turn it on when they needed to. But I still think the Eagles will take this one.

The Patriots in the playoffs are dangerous. Especially when the other side sports a rookie head coach. Though he learned everything he knows from the guy across the field. The Jets are playing well right now. And peaking in December and into January is just about the perfect way to head into the playoffs. That being said, I’m still taking the Pats.

Which would set up the following Divisional round games:
Seattle at Chicago
Philadelphia at New Orleans
Kansas City at San Diego
New England at Baltimore

And finally…
The Pick
As a Gator fan I want to believe they will win. But when you look at Ohio State and see how complete they are, you just have to stand in awe. They would probably give the Raiders a run. Which isn’t to say the Buckeyes are undefeatable. It will take a mistake-free game the likes of which we haven’t seen all season. I’m going to call it Ohio State over Florida, 40’s to 20’s. I will be more than happy to eat my words.

Next Week: And the “champion” is….