{"id":1073,"date":"2009-01-01T19:06:15","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T01:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2009-01-01T19:15:37","modified_gmt":"2009-01-02T01:15:37","slug":"remember-the-trojans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1073","title":{"rendered":"Remember the Trojans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Presented for your consideration:<\/p>\n<p>Team A: 12-1, lost one game on the road to a ranked team.  Allowed less than 8 points a game during the regular season, racking up a 450-93 score over the regular season.  They didn&#8217;t do this against patsies either.  They dominated a conference that went 5-0 in the bowls, went on the road to crush a 5-7 ACC team, smashed an independent team that went on to run wild in a bowl, and convincingly beat the top two teams in the Big Ten.<\/p>\n<p>Hypothetical Team B: 13-1.  Lost one game on a neutral site to a top-five team.  Played all other ranked teams at home.  Scored an incredible 702 points during the regular season but gave up 319 (25 per game).  Their conference is 3-1 in bowls so far.  Their non-conference schedule included a horrible AA team, an 11-2 Big East team, a Pac 10 team that didn&#8217;t win a single game and an 11-2 Mountain West team.  The good teams in that list were played at home.<\/p>\n<p>Can you make the case that Team B is clearly better than Team A?  Because the Sports Media Twerps certainly think so.  If Oklahoma wins the BCS Bowl, they will become a national champion while Team A (USC) will probably not be ranked any higher than they are now.<\/p>\n<p>The SMTs also rank Texas two slots about USC and claim that the Longhorns deserved a shot at the title.  If Texas wins, they will be ranked higher than USC in the final poll.  This is a Texas team that lost its only road game to a ranked team, had a laughable non-conference schedule and outscored opponents 527-223, an unimpressive ratio given their pathetic schedule.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if USC is better than Oklahoma.  I would love to find out.  I am pretty convinced that they are better than Texas.  I would love to see them prove it.  They should clearly, at the very least, be ranked #2 or #3 at season&#8217;s end.  They won&#8217;t be unless Alabama and Texas both lose because the SMTs <a href=\"http:\/\/joeposnanski.com\/JoeBlog\/2008\/01\/08\/airport-pondering\/\">don&#8217;t think about their votes<\/a>.  Their ranking considers three factors: 1) number of losses; 2) amount of hype; 3) how they ranked last week.  Texas was more hyped as a title contender than USC.  Therefore Texas must be better.  Ignore those facts behind the curtain.  You are getting sleepy.  Very very sleepy.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, a playoff would be so much worse than this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Presented for your consideration: Team A: 12-1, lost one game on the road to a ranked team. Allowed less than 8 points a game during the regular season, racking up a 450-93 score over the regular season. They didn&#8217;t do this against patsies either. They dominated a conference that went 5-0 in the bowls, went &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1073\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Remember the Trojans<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzKF-hj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}