For your hypothetical chaos fix, or pretty much anything else you didn't already know, check The Wiz's wonderful columnist corner, where the synapses hijacked by SMQ's fundamentalist, anti-BCS extremism snap and crackle with irrational glee at the mere headline of Tim May's article in the Tuesday Columbus Dispatch:
Could it be ... OSU-Michigan for BCS title?
Oh, Tim. Say it could, Tim. Show us the way to eminent, playoff-inducing meltdown via gratuitous head-to-head rematch. Give us the math, the algorithms, frizzy-headed and indecipherable PhDs. coolly flouting the instinct that fears chaos with science. Make this asteroid's path a precise track to a direct hit. We want blood, Tim!
What he sees when he looks at Ohio State and Michigan at this point in the football season, headed toward their showdown Nov. 18 in Ohio Stadium, is intriguing: a possible rematch in the Bowl Championship Series national title game Jan. 8.
OK, well, that's...you know, the guy does it for a living, pretty much, so...it's possible. He says it's possible. Who else does Tim have? Swing that multiply-sourced hammer right into those
So...it's just Palm? Well, he's, like, an expert. At least an expert pretty confidently thinks this might happen.
Oh. Tim. You tease. Why you gotta be like that?
Since, clearly, a single 1-2 match-up between the most bitter, undefeated of rivals with a month of preceding hype could not do justice to the awe-inspiring colossus that is Ohio State-Michigan 2006, the Dispatch offers the following scenario as the only possible means to a second:
* Ohio State beats Michigan in a close game on Nov. 18 (it must be OSU on top: "I think it is more likely to have a chance if it is a competitive game and Michigan loses, because with it being a road game for the Wolverines, they'd have a better chance of not being punished too badly in the two polls," [Palm] said).
* Southern California loses at least once in its final three games (although the Trojans have six remaining; the article utterly ignores the possibility of an Oregon upset).
* Florida loses again (only Florida! Stick a fork in Auburn and Tennessee).
* The Big East champion doesn't finish undefeated.
Unless, the article fails to note, that champion is Rutgers, who - though going undefeated will mean having accomplished at least the same as a hypothetically unbeaten West Virginia or Louisville - will be barred by legislation, a "border wall" and armed vandals from the mythical championship game if necessary. SMQ, of course, hopes for the maddening round robin of win-one, lose-one, a roulette that shouldn't preclude Pittsburgh.
If all these things and others shall come to pass, SMQ would like to note the title of this post is not a joke: what, exactly, would be the fundamental difference in the match-up on Nov. 18, between the unanimous 1 and 2 teams, the only undefeated teams in the nation at 11-0 apiece, and any mythical championship game in history? The date? The location? Bah.
What this article is really peddling is the absurdity inherent in the dreaded "plus one" proposal, which forces an unnecessary game when the alleged championship has already been played between the top-ranked teams. What, in the case of the initial loser rebounding to win in a rematch, about the mythical championship game would invalidate the initial result? This is the reason Florida's 1996 mythical championship victory, over a top-ranked, undefeated Florida State team that had smacked the Gators a month earlier, always seemed so fishy. How can such a game, when one team has already defeated the other in the previous contest, be deemed the "championship" - does Game Two count more than Game One of the World Series? If Michigan and Ohio State were to defy every statistical odd and wind up in the BCS steel cage title match after having already pummeled one another in a battle of undefeated 1 vs. 2, they could at least have the decency to make it two falls out of three.