posted on Monday, January 08, 2007 4:33 PM by mike.hlas

Big Ten in Ruins

When Ted Ginn Jr. took the opening kickoff for a touchdown Monday night for Ohio State, I jokingly e-mailed a friend to remind him that C.J. Jones did that for Iowa in the Orange Bowl four years ago, and Iowa lost by 20 (it was 21, actually) points. So Florida was going to win by 20 over Ginn's Ohio State team.

I couldn't have dreamed that I was shortchanging the Gators, who went on to annihilate the Big Ten's best, 41-14.

Couple that with Michigan getting pasted by USC 32-18 a week earlier, and you have the Big Ten decimated, destroyed, obliterated, in ruins. All right, not literally. But man, oh man, oh man, oh man.

All the whiners who thought it should have been an Ohio State-Michigan BCS title game were mum Monday. Had USC beaten UCLA in its regular-season finale, it surely would have gone on to wipe out Ohio State in the BCS championship. The Michigan-OSU regular-season finale was a classic. But it turns out it wasn't the two best teams in college football after all, just the two best teams in the Big Ten.

How teams can change in one year. Iowa played Florida in last year's Outback Bowl, losing by a touchdown. Hawkeye fans will always wonder what would have happened had the on-sides kick the Hawkeyes recovered late in the game not been overruled by a dubious offside penalty.

But Iowa proceeded to go 2-6 in the Big Ten this year, 6-7 overall. Florida, meanwhile, wins the national title. The two teams really weren't that far apart on Jan. 1, 2006, were they?




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# re: Big Ten in Ruins

Tuesday, January 09, 2007 11:03 AM by Dale
i wonder how many of us did that? i turned to my son and said pretty much the same thing. then when troy smith was run down by a defensive end for an easy sack, i turned off the tv and picked up a book.