1) For the umpeenth year in a row now USC ends the season looking as dominant as any team in the land. We can play the What if game (What if USC hadn't slept walked through the first half against Oregon State? What if the Pac 10 played the way they did in the bowl games (5-0) all season? ) But there was no particular reason to have placed USC in the championship or even in a plus one. Which probably goes to show the fallacy of either having meaning. Sure we can only point to USC's loss against Oregon State but is that truly worse than Florida's loss to Ole'Miss? Yes? No? Maybe so?
I often wonder how much of the Big 10s current image is simply a function of USC dominance. (I'm sure SEC fans will say USC would be somehow average in their conference but A) Name another team that has 9 starters on their defense that will be drafted in the first two rounds and B) the SEC's depth was exposed in this bowl season. Put it differently there is no other team that I'd say is superior to USC if they played next week. And there's absolutely no way to prove it - no matter what format was used.
2) The Bowl games have shown theres a fairly large discrepencies between some of the conferences. While the Cotton Bowl and National Championship will probably adjucate between the Big 2, as much as it paints me its clear the Big 10 belong with the ACC and Big East at the bottom. Its unclear how much of the Pac 10 record is a function of beating non-BCSers and not traveling well enough to face off against the best of the Big 2 but Oregon's win over Ok State shows that if it is a step behind its in the teams that didn't make the Bowl games (oh yeah not every conference team makes a bowl game)
3) The ACC seems to have a number of rising and young teams and while they didn't overperform this year, my sense is that they will be declared the next big thing as soon as they get a headline win. Circle V-Tech v. Alabama in September as one of those headline games.
On the Random News Front
1) Starbury might be headed to Boston. Outside of annoited team must sign random veteran ex-star why does this make sense?
2) Minnesota and Arizona have STILL (as of 10:11 AM Friday) have no sold enough tickets to avoid a local blackout. I wonder if in this economic environment it makes sense to have the NFL blackout rule. Heck, I still don't understand the blackout rule period. But then again the league front office does seem to have sado-masochistic theme going.
3) Its obvious now in the NFL coaching carousel that the Browns should hire Mangini, the Jets Shanahan and the Broncos Rome Crennel. No? One of the oddities about coaching GM/hires is that frankly we as fans have no idea whats going on and relying on Jay Glazer's anonymous sources (Jay Glazer here according to anonymous sources mop and glow is great on shaved heads) doesn't seem particularly informative.
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