ShareThisBy RAY McNULTY
Friday, November 10, 2006
The buzz from Gatorland has started already.
(Ital)If we get past Steve Spurrier's South Carolina team, beat Florida State, then win the Southeastern Conference title game, we should play for the national championship.(End ital)
Which is exactly what you'd expect from University of Florida football fans.
Because, well, they're football fans.
Florida is their team.
The Gators are 7-1.
And, of course, their 7-1 is better than everyone else's 7-1, or 8-1, or, in the case of the Big East, 8-0.
Why? Because the Southeastern Conference plays the best college football in America.
And because winning the SEC title is actually tougher than winning the national championship.
And because Florida has played a stronger schedule than all those other one-loss teams also hoping to get a shot at the trophy.
That's what they believe, anyway _ and nothing or no one is going to change their minds.
You can try.
You can argue that the SEC really isn't as tough as they think it is, that the league has no great team that it's just a pack of pretty good teams that beat up on each other on a weekly basis.
You can point out that Texas' lone loss was to top-ranked Ohio State, that Wisconsin's only defeat came at No. 2 Michigan, that California's one slip came at Tennessee in the first game of the season.
You can tell them that the Michigan-Ohio State loser might deserve a championship-game rematch, depending on which team loses and by how much.
They won't listen.
They don't want to hear it.
They see no injustice in being ranked two spots ahead of Auburn in the current BCS standings, despite the fact that the Tigers (8-1) beat the Gators and are clearly the better team.
They'll never admit that the Gators supposedly brutal four-game stretch _ Alabama, Louisiana State, Auburn and Georgia _ wasn't exactly the gauntlet it appeared to be in August. (Alabama and Georgia are mediocre at best, and the Alabama-LSU-Georgia triumvirate already has lost eight games this season.) They refuse to accept that their Gators have beaten only two quality opponents, eking out a 21-20 victory at Tennessee and winning 23-10 at home against LSU.
As far as they're concerned, Florida is the best of the one-loss bunch. And they might be right.
But many of them think Florida is, by far, the best of the one-loss bunch. And they're wrong.
Truth is, we just don't know.
Nobody does.
It's silly to sit here and say THIS team would beat THAT team IF they played. And it's even sillier to say Texas, California, Notre Dame and Louisville wouldn't win as much if they played in the SEC.
Didn't West Virginia beat SEC champ Georgia in the Sugar Bowl? That's why we need a playoff.
College football is too important to too many people to have its champion decided by Revenge-of-the-Nerds computer geeks.
The championship should be decided on the field by football players.
It's the only fair way to do it.
Until that happens, however _ and it won't, as long as the stuffed suits in the presidents' offices continue to believe their own lies _ there will be controversy.
And confusion.
And conjecture.
What there won't be, however, is consensus.
So go ahead, Gator fans, make your case. Go get Spurrier and Florida State. Win the SEC.
Believe whatever you want.
That's your right.
Even if you're wrong.
(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty(at)scripps.com or on the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)
