THE LOVE AFFAIR CONTINUES

Now that Penn State is out of the National Title race, it seems that the rest of the nation can breathe a huge sigh of relief, and resume their man-crush/love affair with the Big XII and SEC. It was a shaky affair, but their spouse (Big 10) will no longer invade on their space; consider a divorce being filed. As many analysts/writers have stated, the Nation gets what it deserves; A Big XII vs SEC National Championship. Here's an excerpt from ESPN's Pat Forde's weekly article, "The Forde Yard Dash"

"The Dash wishes to send a fruit basket and a set of steak knives to Kirk Ferentz and Iowa (2). Thank you, Hawkeyes, for saving college football from a third straight season of sending an overmatched, overrated and outdated Big Ten champion to the BCS National Championship Game. Now that Iowa has taken overly conservative Penn State (3) out of the title mix and Ohio State has removed itself with two losses in a season of great expectation, hopes are high for a worthy title game. "

Pat Forde went on to refer to the other conferences as "Big Boy Leagues" and said the Big 10 can gladly send its winner to the Rose to "get throttled by USC." Its a shame though, because if Oregon State wins out, then they will represent the Pac 10 in the Rose Bowl, because everyone conveniently forgets that Oregon State holds the head to head tiebreaker, but that is another story for another day. And I digress...

Why does the nation deserve this kind of match-up? Why do we want to see a game that will feature no defense whatsoever? Well, out of these two "power conferences", one of them has proved that they can play defense to some extent...

Oklahoma is 1-5 in BCS Bowl Games since the 2000 season, whereas Texas is 2-0. However, as a whole, the Big XII conference is 6-8 in BCS Bowl games since the 1998-1999 season. Why does this merit an immediate invitation to the BCS Championship? The Big XII has not impressed in past years, so why now all of a sudden does the nation HAVE to see a Big XII vs SEC match-up? Don't get me wrong, the 3 top teams in the Big XII are outstanding this year, but I just cannot buy into the hype.

If the past repeats itself, and Florida or Alabama (hell, I'll even throw USC in the mix) gets a crack at a Big XII team in the title game, I think you will see yet another blow-out in the National Title game. The SEC may not be known for defense, but Alabama ranks 4th nationally in total defense whereas Florida ranks 14th. USC, well, we all know where they rank for total defense; 1st overall! Oklahoma boasts the nations 51st ranked defense, Texas Tech, despite their explosive offense has only the 57th ranked overall defense to compliment that offense. If that was not enough for you football fans to stomach, Texas, who many still consider to be in the title hunt, have an eye-popping defense that ranks 60th overal (all stats are from ncaa.org).

And before anybody says how it does not matter how you play on defense, it only matters how many points you can put up, I'm going to more than likely slap you. As we saw in this weekend's Penn State game, a good defense can stop a high powered offense anyday. A strong defense can make an offense do things it does not want to do.

If the "much deserved" National Championship does occur, I will root for the SEC to rout the Big XII (it really kicks me in the pants to say that, but it must be done). This will hopefully shut the nation up, and help people realize that the Big 10 is not the only "weak conference" out there (I still feel the Big 10 is better than everyone thinks, but that's my opinion). The Big XII has proven that they too have difficulty in big games (why is it that they still refer to Bob Stoops as Big Game Bob?). Hopefully, a rout will show the nation and "experts" that the Big XII is merely just the flavor of the year.