The man who famously picked Ron Powlus to win two Heismans back in the day is at it again.
Beano Cook revealed his prediction for the BCS championship game on Wednesday morning, joining Lou Holtz in picking Florida over Notre Dame. The ESPN radio host promptly mocked the selection of the Irish (apparently forgetting that he himself anointed Charlie Weis as the world’s smartest man less than four years ago)…and most people seem to share the opinion that Beano and Lou have gone completely batty.
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Cook believes the Irish will play Florida in January for the National Championship.
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But have they?
Both made the caveat that they don’t believe Notre Dame is necessarily one of the top two teams in college football – they simply feel that with a user-friendly schedule it’ll be easier for the Irish to run the table in 2009 than it will be for most top-level teams.
After a good look at the schedule, the theory makes sense…so much so that I’d actually bump Florida out of the title-game discussion first.
• The defending national champion Gators can coast through their non-conference slate as usual (a Division I-AA team, two pushovers and a home date with Florida State), and they don’t have to play Alabama or Ole Miss – but that Oct. 10 night game at LSU could be a bear, as could the annual Cocktail Party matchup with Georgia. Even without facing the Rebels, who won in Gainesville last fall, that SEC slate is bound to provide at least one banana peel.
• Second-ranked Texas has its yearly showdown with Oklahoma – and a Halloween trip to Oklahoma State – to worry about. The No. 3 Sooners, meanwhile, can count the Longhorns as just one stop on a death march that includes an opener against BYU as well as road dates with Miami, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas Tech.
• USC gets to play its four toughest opponents on the road: Ohio State (Sept. 12), Cal (Oct. 3), Notre Dame (Oct. 17) and Oregon (Oct. 31). Good luck, Pete.
• No. 5 Alabama and No. 7 Virginia Tech open against one another. The Crimson Tide doesn’t have to face Florida, but they do travel to Ole Miss and Auburn. The Hokies host Nebraska and North Carolina and travel to Georgia Tech.
• Ohio State gets to play host to USC after opening with Navy, and most of the Big Ten is lighter fare, but there is a Nov. 7 road trip to Penn State…and don’t overlook that season-ending visit to Ann Arbor, either, even if Michigan struggles again.
Penn State has that same journey to the Big House on its slate, as well as a road trip to East Lansing on Nov. 21, but its overall slate might be among the country’s most favorable. The only other ranked, BCS-conference teams with so few obvious roadblocks to an unbeaten season are Georgia Tech…and Notre Dame.
If any of those three – the Nittany Lions, Yellow Jackets or Fighting Irish, finish the regular season unbeaten, they’re going to Pasadena for the title game. As much as the pollsters, and the BCS system in general, fall all over themselves to push the Big XII and SEC teams to the top of the pile, it would be almost impossible to cast any of those unbeatens aside in favor of a one-loss Florida or Texas. You can do it to Boise State or Utah…but not Georgia Tech. And certainly not to Penn State or Notre Dame.
The system would implode, and the call for a playoff would deafen the entire American populace.
With that in mind, is picking the Irish to make it to that title game really that big of a reach?
