Yankees always upset Alabama.

RE-MATCH
RE-MATCH
RE-MATCH

And if Vanderbilt goes undefeated in the SEC, chances are good the Commodores will play for the national title.

/as long as we're talking about sh*t that has no chance of happening.

Bah I guess I have to start clicking on articles again.

legion_of_doo: ha, subby, good one.

'Bama football fans, I don't think any Michigan fan is really entertaining the idea of a win down in Dallas, not to mention the whole mythical national championship thing.

/ just winning the B1G/going to the rose bowl is barely in the discussion for Michigan

A close friend is a Wolverines fan and said in no uncertain terms, winning a National Championship is secondary to winning the Big Ten. I don't understand college football fans at all.

As a Bears fan beating up on Green Bay is always a plus, but if someone told me Chicago would get swept by the Packers but win the Superbowl, I'd call it good.

*shrug*

JRaynor: A close friend is a Wolverines fan and said in no uncertain terms, winning a National Championship is secondary to winning the Big Ten. I don't understand college football fans at all.

Worry about what you can control, then worry about what you can't. Why put more importance on events you have no control over?

Like I had an Airman in the Guard who kicked ass - was always volunteering in the community, organized several events, volunteered to work on the base to provide support to other units so they could send people overseas and have everything taken care of at home. If she had said that getting "Airman of the Year" awards were the most important thing to her, then she would've gone crazy, because no matter what she does, there are other Airmen in the state who go out on combat missions and get a bunch of confirmed kills and stuff. One year, the guy who won it took down a gunman who was shooting up downtown. Volunteering all year isn't going to beat that out, ever, for an award. My Airman knows she kicks ass and she does it to help people and because she enjoys helping.

Similarly, for the most part, Michigan could whoop ass all year and as long as there are good SEC teams and maybe a good Big XII team, people are always going to act as though those teams are more impressive. So why put importance on that?

meanmutton: there will never be a legitimate national champion.

It's as legitimate as any other method. It's just not that big a deal.

Ken VeryBigLiar: That second class would never in a million years get picked over a one loss team in the SEC, Big 12 or Pac-12.

Depends on the team in those other non-SEC conferences. USC, Oregon and UW (after a couple years of success again) are the only schools in the Pac-12 that have a shot at a national title game. OU and Texas are the only guaranteed Big XII teams (hell, everything in conference championship week last year said SEND OKLAHOMA STATE TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME but we got a rematch anyway).

meanmutton: If voting was "as legitimate as any other method" then why don't they use it for any other sport at any other level in any league anywhere in the world?

Because those are governed by leagues (have a strong central authority) and playoffs are what bring in the most income. College football is run by confederations, which are decentralized power - so the individual power sources gain no benefit from the income provided by a playoff - in fact, if their teams are not selected for the playoff, they may stand to lose money.

/it's always about the money. Only a rube would think it's about "fairness" or "legitimacy."

meanmutton: I'm the one who said that there was no legitimacy.

There's no "legitimacy" in any of the methods. Playoffs exist to produce money for the centralized authority, not because they're the "legitimate" way to determine a champion. Most leagues started off with the team with the best record at the end of the year being the champion. Playoffs make money.

meanmutton: You have failed to convince me that a team that wins a tournament or a team that wins a league is no more legitimate a champion than a team that has been voted to that championship. Just because playoffs make money, that doesn't nullify the result.

Of course I have. Most leagues do a pretty good job of convincing you that is the best way to determine a champion. You've spent your whole life being told "the only way to REALLY determine a champion is through a playoff." In reality, they end up with a nice little tournament champion. And that's fine. A tournament champion is a champion, but that means that the team that won the tournament was the best in the nation for about a month (and that's without getting into the fact that tournaments aren't round-robin and largely depend on matchups). Regular seasons last for 5-7 months.

Let's look at tennis, which has a No.1 player AND it has a season-ending tournament of the top players in the world (which would be a playoff). Their tournament champion is just that, the tournament champion. Not the new world No. 1. Not the Player of the Year. They play 10 months and have dozens of matches. To say "yeah, all those count, but these ones are the ones that REALLY count" is idiotic.

FFS, NASCAR even tried to throw in playoffs to boost ratings.

Why would you say that one months' successful performance earns you a championship of a period of work of 6 months? And that that's a legitimate method of determining the champion?

This is ONE area where I think Europe doesn't completely suck - they have tournaments in soccer, but the regular season does actually earn you a title that matters. And it was one thing that didn't suck in football - conference titles did matter before we started pretending that No. 1 out of 120 teams that can't possibly all play each other was the most important thing.

Michigan fan here.

Headline is nuts. Article (if headline is accurate) is even more nuts. Michigan will NOT be playing for the national title unless they are undefeated AND Denard Robinson is having a Heisman caliber throwing the ball year AND Fitz Toussaint is having a Heisman caliber year running the ball.

Then maybe Michigan will play for a National title. But not before. The Big 10 has squandered most of its credit over the past 5 years playing terribly on the national stage. We need to earn it back, and that's going to take more than an upset of Alabama to do.

/M Go Blue!

9beers: Which is why he's the only player in history to throw and rush for 1500 yards in a season.

I don't have anything against Robinson, but stats like these are retarded. Max out sh*t that aren't important to QBs, minimize the qualifier for important stats, then say he's the only one. Yeah, a lot of QBs post over 3000 yards every year, though, and they're not even good. They just usually do it almost all through the air.

Krymson Tyde: Techhell: Michigan fan here.

Headline is nuts. Article (if headline is accurate) is even more nuts. Michigan will NOT be playing for the national title unless they are undefeated AND Denard Robinson is having a Heisman caliber throwing the ball year AND Fitz Toussaint is having a Heisman caliber year running the ball.

Then maybe Michigan will play for a National title. But not before. The Big 10 has squandered most of its credit over the past 5 years playing terribly on the national stage. We need to earn it back, and that's going to take more than an upset of Alabama to do.

/M Go Blue!

You know how I know you didn't read the article?

Beyond pretty much stating that I didn't? *chuckles*

Well played, Subby. I thought I had just gotten in before the Buckeyes and SEC fans got in with their snarks, and only had enough time to google Fitz's last name to make sure I was spelling it correctly. Well played indeed.

/M Go Blue!