#8 Ohio St. vs. #3 USC: The Trouble with Bullies

Despite winning a national title as recently as 2002, having seven seasons this decade with at least ten wins, and bringing home five Big Ten championships since 2002, the Ohio St. Buckeyes have a reputation of being a bunch of fourth graders that get bullied by the much bigger sixth graders. Florida gave them a purple nurple. LSU gave them a wet willy. USC gave them an Indian rug burn, and, last bowl season, Colt McCoy finally stole their lunch money. In the eyes of the American sports fan, Ohio St. is a great paper tiger, instantly mocked and easily dismissed.

Most point to Ohio St.'s failures on the big stage as being related to their physical and mental shortcomings. The sixth graders are bigger, faster, and stronger, swooping in like the wheelers in Return to OZ, and if the losses are not due to their physical weakness, then Lee Corso and Kirb Herbstreet explain to us that Ohio St. loses when it matters most because of their failed strategery.

All of the above are true. The Gators and Bayou Bengals were clearly in another athletic class than the Buckeyes; it was like those games were literally played by the mascots. The silver and scarlet were crushed like acorns underneath the tooth and claw of their opponents. The problem is these single losses wiped out what were ultimately successful college football campaigns.

The ultimate goal of any college football team is to win a national title. There is not a coach, player, or program that does not want to stand alone at season's end with that fragile crystal football in their hands. The real issue at hand is that the current system, used by college football to select champions, sets up the winner of that crystal football to be overly praised and for the loser to be overly scrutinized. The two teams that meet on the field for this trinket are put under a magnifying glass that makes the winner appear as big as a prehistoric insect, a mosquito capable of lifting cars and crushing them like aluminum cans, while the loser feels the increased heat of a sun ray burn a hole through its head. When Ohio St. lost to Florida and LSU on a national stage, with a championship at stake, the story became not that Ohio St. lost but that Ohio St. did not deserve to be there in the first place, making them an impostor, as opposed to a qualified runner-up.

A win is a win, and a loss is a loss. The results of single games should carry great weight. Today's matchup between #3 USC and #8 Ohio St. is highly anticipated because this game stands a legitimate chance of either propelling one of these teams into the national title game or causing the loser to settle for a place in one of the other BCS bowls. This game clearly means something and will help shape this year's college football season. While the BCS system lends importance to today's top ten matchup, today's game does not receive its importance solely because of the BCS system.

When competitors meet, they want to win. Competitive drive is what makes for great battles, not computer ratings or crystal footballs. Not to belittle their sacrifices, but throughout history, countless men have gone to war and died without knowing the ends to which their deaths were a means, and, to a lesser extent, when kickoff comes, players, coaches, and fans focus on the intensity of the moment, an intensity that would exist with or without the BCS.

Last year, when Alabama took a 31-0 lead into halftime against Georgia, who was ranked #1 at the time, my pain as a fan was so severe and immediate that all I could think was how did this happen and can we somehow make this respectable. It wasn't until after the game that I began to realize that the Bulldogs' SEC and BCS hopes probably died at halftime. During the game, all I could think was how can we stop the bleeding, get to safety, and survive. The college football atmosphere creates a passion for one's team that is so visceral one will root for their team no matter what the team's record is or what the score on the scoreboard reads.

Before the BCS, big college football games existed. After the BCS, big college football games would continue to exist. College basketball chooses their champion by way of a playoff, and the teams still meet for meaningful games during the regular season. Ask a UNC or Duke fan whether or not the games matter when those two teams meet twice a year on Tobacco Road. Ask all the players that have sweat and bled in that series if those games meant less to them because a championship was not immediately at stake. In fact, those two teams have never met head to head for a national title and the rivalry somehow manages to stay strong. A matchup created by computers does not trump rivalries, tradition, and passion. In many ways, a fan's love for his, or her, team is a high school romance that ignores all the obvious signs that it's time to bid love adieu because just the feeling of love is enough to make the emotion meaningful.

As of now, Ohio St. sits on the curb, by the bus stop, hair unkept, wrist burning, ear wet with spit, pockets out and empty, encircled by the harsh laughter of his peers. The picture is tragic, and, as one matures, one realizes that maybe they should not have laughed so hard at this outmatched fourth grader, but, instead, praised this fourth grader for getting up every morning and believing today will be the day it defeats the bully. In any other sport, this program would be admired for fighting the good fight, scheduling tough out of conference opponents, and treating each day with a brave consistency, like a Dean Smith, a Bobby Cox, or a Marv Levy.

The BCS needs to go, simply because it teaches us to view the world incorrectly, forcing us to focus on birthright, as opposed to the merit of one's achievements. The BCS threw a fourth grade Ohio St. onto the blacktop, with the much bigger sixth graders, instead of making Ohio St. prove itself by way of a playoff, and that makes the BCS the true bully of college football.