Stewart Mandel and SEC = BFF!!

One word, two syllables: Mandel.
I know I should avoid it, whether Howie on DOND (which is what I think they should rename the show, btw) or Stewart, maybe the largest mainstream media Southeastern Conference fanboy that there is.
Sidenote, if you want Howie coverage, you can go to KatFancy, which is considerately linked right here.
But what I want to talk about is Mandel's latest column on the annual BCS stupidity. In a surprise that should shock no one, he is pushing for Florida to get a shot at Ohio State in Glendale for the new BCS Super-Ultima-Champo Ridiculo-Bowl. The idea that Michigan would be given another shot is anathema.
Full disclosure: I loathe all of the teams involved, and I truly hate Michigan and their accountant/coach Lloyd Carr. I just want to take you through Mandel's charade, FireJoeMorgan style.

So what's it going to be this year, football fans? The team that went out and won its conference championship in convincing fashion Saturday night or the team that hasn't won a football game in three weeks?

Well, Stew Meat, I guess we'll have to choose Florida when given those options. I mean it would be ridiculous to pick a team that hasn't won in three weeks because that means three losses, right? No, my southern friend. Michigan played once in those three weeks in an exciting game that they lost to Ohio State, a team that is legendarily strong this season. And what Stew likes to forget is that Michigan had to travel to Columbus to play the consensus number one team in the nation in a ridiculously-hyped game that may have lived up to the hype. The fact that Michigan's schedule was completed and that its league doesn't have a championship game is not a reason to disqualify it. A lawyer, such as Jay Bilas, Duke Law 1992, might say this sort of argument is "outside the scope."

The reality is, the Michigan/Florida debate strikes at the heart of an issue that's never been formally addressed by the BCS: Is the title game supposed to match the two best teams in the voters' eyes or the two most deserving. Because it's hard to argue against the Gators in terms of the latter.

I don't see why this distinction even needs to be addressed. The obvious question is who is the best. Maybe an example would make it clear: Three seconds left in regulation, the high school basketball coach finds his team down by two and is drawing up a play during a timeout. Does he tell the team to pass the ball inbounds to the most deserving player: Timmy, the senior with Bell's Palsy who spent three years as the team manager only to try out for the team this year and get on the squad as the 12th man? Or does he draw it up for the best player: Lance, the blue-chipper who has scored 30 to keep the team in the game, has a hot hand and would probably actually make a 3 to win the game? I'm voting for Lance. Who deserves what doesn't matter? Both Timmy and Lance would agree, they both want to win to prove they are the best.

But most of all, Florida won what most consider to be the toughest conference in the country this season. Michigan finished second in a conference whose fifth-best team was Purdue.

Is there ever a season when "most" don't consider the SEC to be the toughest conference? It's ridiculously deep, the schedule is always tough, and every year teams seem to trip up once along the way. But Michigan only tripped up once, too, and the team that tripped them up was the team that will obviously be favored to win everything in Glendale.
I guess Stew proves he can read the Big Ten standings by informing us that Purdue finished fifth. I guess his point is that Purdue stunk and still finished fifth out of 11, not 10, teams. OK, noted. Georgia finished tied for third in the unbelievably, nay nearly unfair, SEC East. Yeah, those guys beat Colorado by one point at home. Colorado lost to Montana St. Montana St. got beat by Chadron State. Florida beat Georgia by a touchdown - in Florida. Full disclosure: The game was in Jacksonville, not Gainesville.
I think this stopped meaning anything along time ago. We'll just move on.

"I think the country wants to see the Southeastern Conference champion against the Big Ten conference champion," a politicking Meyer said Saturday night. "I think that's what this is all about."

I have no truck with this (an old-timey phrase I enjoy) being included in Mandel's column. My truck is with Meyer, who obviously revels in this sort of situation because he actually looks like a southern politician, is named after a pope and went so far as to pull out John Madden's official "this is what it's all about" card. The coaching matchup of Meyer (suave, thin, may use hair products) against Tressel (wears a tie, coached at Youngstown St., not afraid to use Clarett) is obviously going to seem more appealing to many voters than Lloyd "Used" Carr (looks like your grandpa, smells like your grandpa, I'm sure for some is their grandpa) and Tressel (Clarett, Clarett, Clarett).

If there was a component in the BCS formula to account for unforced interceptions and opposing stars' injuries, then by golly, the Gators would be in a heap of trouble right now. All it goes by, however, is whether you won and who you beat, in which case it's hard to argue with Saturday night's result -- or Florida's resume as a whole.

I thought you said it should go by who was most deserving, not whether you won and who you beat? And again, you're saying it's hard to argue with Saturday night's result? Yeah, it is, since Florida won a game and Michigan players hung out in their dorm rooms. Stewbert, you are falling prey to what social psychologists call the "recency effect." Michigan couldn't help the fact that they weren't scheduled to play Saturday. I'm sure they would have taken on whoever was put in front of them, but no one was. And Florida's resume as a whole - using Stew's own WYWAWYB matrix is one loss in an SEC schedule. Michigan's is one loss in a Big Ten schedule. If this is your rubric, the dates of the games will prove little.

On the flip side, the Wolverines don't have a game-breaker in the class of Florida's Percy Harvin, who burned Arkansas on Saturday for a 67-yard touchdown run and 167 total yards. Where Michigan's defense gave up 500-plus yards the last time it took the field against Ohio State, the Gators held the Razorbacks to 311 on Saturday, LSU to 318, Tennessee to 220.

This is where Stew starts to get tired and his true SEC blood begins to rise close to the surface. Just before this paragraph he begrudgingly made a few nice comments about Henne and Hart (who, with that name, should form a Hall and Oates-esque band).
Stew, I know you haven't watched much Big 10 football this year, and I know he was hurt for a while, but allow me to introduce you to Mario Manningham. I think he is in Percy Harvin's class as a game-breaker. Here are Harvin's 2006 stats. He played in 12 games, all but one. He rushed for two touchdowns and caught two. That's it for this amazing gamebreaker who regularly broke games beyond repair. Here are Manningham's 2006 stats. He played in eight games and missed four with injury. He caught nine touchdown passes and didn't run for any because that is what Hart is for. And he had more catches and receiving yards than Harvin in many fewer games.
Why would Mandel think Harvin is somehow more of a threat than Manningham? Why that darned recency effect again! Harvin scored half of his season's haul of touchdowns in the game Mandel just watched before he wrote his column. Since Manningham wasn't playing in that game and right there before him in living color, Mandel seemed to forget he even existed.

"There's a lot of people making a lot of decisions out there, and this is a big one," he said. "We're going to tell a group of young men that just went 12-1 against a difficult schedule ... that they don't have a chance to play for a national championship? I'm going to need help with that one."

Here's guessing he won't have to give that speech. In the end, the voters will -- and should -- opt for reward over rematch.

First, as to the Pope's comment: Here's your help, Michigan only lost one game, too. And if the voters choose your team to play Ohio State, isn't Grandad Lloyd going to have to tell his men they don't have a chance to play for a national championship under the same exact set of circumstances? Are you going to offer help to him from the Vatican as you should, Pope? Now, it is possible that Senator Meyer was making a very incisive comment that Michigan, by dint of its previous battle against No. 1 Ohio State had "played" in a quasi-National Championship game a few weeks ago while his team of Gators had yet to "play" a national championship game. This is an interesting argument, if he knew he was making it, but ever since the first fall practice everyone has known that the real national championship game is Jan. 8 in Glendale. To argue otherwise is disingenous.
And as for Stew's parting shot, it's truly biased that he presents the argument as the alliterative reward vs. rematch. I think some readers may feel a rematch would be a reward. But the SEC fan in Stew won't allow it. There is only one choice for him, which makes his contribution to the debate sort of pointless.

Final full disclosure: I don't really care who plays Ohio State. I just would prefer that the arguments be presented with equal ferocity on each side. Sports Illustrated could have presented someone for the Michigan side in a separate column since Mandel's take was not exactly a surprise. But the only other article I could find at si.com about the issue was B.J. Schechter's, which voted for Florida as well. And, in an example of ridiculousness that may top even Mandel's, Schechter's column does not include the word "Michigan." That isn't a joke. Control F that thing and check for yourself.
My feeling is that Florida will be the choice in the end, which makes this exercise sort of pointless. Especially since we'll know in only a few hours. However, I think a disservice has been done to Michigan solely because they shared a conference with the obvious best team in the country. This allows people to say they didn't win their conference, lost a game and don't deserve a rematch. But I ask you, Stew, and you, dear reader, as I close what I'm sure no one will read to the end: If the Big 10 is so weak and the SEC is so strong, why was the only number one v. number two game of the season within the Big 10 and how can an 11-team conference be so easy if two of its teams are the best in the country? Thank you for your time. I bid you good morrow.