take a look at this and remember that:
-USC lost to an unranked team.
-Penn State beat the hell out of that unranked team a few weeks before
-Oklahoma State is unbeaten and just roughed up previous #3 Missouri. Yet they trail USC in the rankings…
-Ohio State’s only loss came against the (cough cough) #1 team in the country. Ordinarily I’d say they shouldn’t trial USC – but in this case they deserve to – for the rest of the season no matter what happens to either team.
-LSU is SEVEN spots down from USC (in the AP poll) after losing to Florida. Yes, the same Florida who has the current heisman trophy holder (and possibly this year’s too). Oh, and yes that is the same LSU that is defending the national championship after pummeling OSU (who now is ranked one ahead of them).
USC is the only team in the top ten to have played less than six games in the season. Don’t forget their strength of schedule comes in at an amazingly tough #48. And trust me, Oregon State wasn’t considered the “rough patch” on the schedule. Lets look at USC’s next three opponents:
WSU – currently 1-6
Arizona – currently 4-2
Washington – currently 0-5
That is right – all those awesome teams from the insanely tough PAC10 conference. They follow up Washington with games against the likes of Notre Dame (clearly kicking ass under the direction of the great fat man again and the best young college football quarterback recruit the nation has ever seen), Stanford and UCLA. Yes, I omitted Cal. The only test for USC left this season lost by eight points to Maryland. And lets not forget Maryland plays against tough teams like … Delaware, Eastern Michigan and (lost to) “Middle Tennesee State” (I didn’t know that team existed until today).
We can talk about how much OSU is sputtering and stalling and losing the big games all we want – but at least OSU isn’t rewarded for mistakes and a weak schedule. And we ONLY lose to quality teams. What were our last six losses (which stretches back through four seasons and includes bowl games):
September 10th 2005 – Lost to the Texas team that beat USC in the rose bowl with Vince Young.
October 8th 2005 – Lost to Penn State in Pennsylvania (then #1 in the big ten, undefeated and continuing a win streak third longest in the country behind USC and Texas…who would play each other in the rose bowl for the national championship that year). PSU always sucks, after all – what are they rated right now (#3)?
January 8th 2007 (yes, it was exactly 15th months since their last loss) – Lost to Florida – who’s quarterback would win the Heisman trophy the next season – in the national championship.
November 10th 2007 – lost to Illinois, who would finish first in the big ten and go to the Rose Bowl.
January 7th 2008 – lost to LSU in the national championship.
September 13th 2008 – lost to #1 ranked USC in Los Angeles.
In the last 12 months USC has lost to Oregon State and Stanford.
… time to do something productive before I get too worked up over this… and it isn’t even a Saturday!….
