Laughable Anti-Auburn Read on SI.com

[JetaTek 0]

Taken from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writ...read/index.html...

Tiger pause

Give it a rest, Auburn fans. USC and OU deserve the title game

You can never please college football fans. They take Murphy's Law to the next level by following their yearly motto: "Anything that can be complained about, will be complained about."

For nearly two years, college football fans have been salivating over a possible USC-Oklahoma meeting in the national championship game. It's the sport's lone marquee matchup and would litter the field with superstar players and coaches on both sides of the field

It's Pete Carroll vs. Bob Stoops, Matt Leinart vs. Jason White, Reggie Bush vs. Adrian Peterson, Shaun Cody vs. Dan Cody, Matt Grootegoed vs. Lance Mitchell.

It's perfect.

Well, not quite.

As we learned year in and year out, nothing is entirely perfect in the world of college football. This season is no different. Thanks to the Auburn Tigers, we have a love triangle to determine which teams should play in the title game. That threatens to break up the lovely tango USC and Oklahoma have been performing since August.

The Tigers, after years of being nothing more than an overrated and inconsistent program, now has fans fawning over them like adolescent girls at an Usher concert.

Craving a juicy new controversy and another excuse to kick the already down-on-the-turf BCS, some fans are clamoring to have Auburn as the No.1 team -- or at least have them in the Orange Bowl.

Every year around this time, we hear how the system should be tweaked. Get rid of the preseason polls, get rid of point differential, get rid of strength of schedule, get rid of the computers, get rid of the humans ...

Ah, just get over it.

It's not happening. There will never be a playoff system, at least not one that will please everyone, and there will always be a team that gets forgotten quicker than a New Year's Eve resolution.

This year's team is Auburn and as much as the Tigers would be slighted if they go undefeated and are left out of the Orange Bowl, they aren't going to get much sympathy from USC. Compared to the Trojans' snub last season -- being locked out of the national title game as the consensus No. 1 team -- Auburn's slight seems laughable.

In the end the Tigers have only themselves to blame. Many of the players on Auburn's current team, including quarterback Jason Campbell and tailbacks Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown, played a large part in the team's underachieving past and overrated label, which made voters less likely to put the Tigers in the top 10 until they proved their worth. But more important, Auburn is getting killed in the computer rankings for a non-conference schedule that included home games against The Citadel, Louisiana Tech and Louisiana-Monroe. What, was Louisiana Community College too busy?

Say what you will about Oklahoma and USC winning a couple of squeakers, but they've been the class of college football for the past two seasons and have earned the right to play in the title game. Unlike the Tigers, they didn't take any shortcuts in their non-conference schedules. The Trojans went on the road to play No. 15 Virginia Tech and BYU and will play Notre Dame at home next week. Oklahoma invited No. 25 Bowling Green and Oregon to Norman before it began its conference schedule.

And speaking of conference schedules ... can we please pipe down on giving Auburn a pass to the title game because they play in the big, bad SEC? Is the SEC the best conference in football? Probably. But is it that far ahead of the Pac-10 and the Big 12? Hardly. The Pac-10 and the Big 12 each have two teams ranked in the top five of the BCS. The SEC only has one team ranked in the top 10.

So take off your Oliver Stone caps and calm down. We finally have the national championship game we've been hoping for since Week 1. It's USC. It's Oklahoma. It's perfect.

Arash Markazi is a reporter for Sports Illustrated On Campus. The Hot Read appears every Thursday on SI.com.

Wow. Just wow. Too bad he didn't leave an e-mail address.

[bammanmr 0]

sh** like that just pisses me off! what a hack.

[mcgufcm 4,107]

oklahoma was the class of college football last year? interesting. i think someone should call the police then b/c apparently kstate and lsu stole the rings oklahoma earned. but hey, they were your big 12 south champs last year. hopefully, they got a ring for that right?

[Ranger12 46]

Give me a "M"!

Give me an "O"!

Give me a "R"!

Give another "O"!

Give me a "N"!

What's that spell? Another undeducated wannabe sports journalist that knows nothing about football!

[AURaptor 1,125]

1. Beat bama

2. re-beat U.T.

If Auburn does those 2 things, and then goes on to win its bowl game, it'll ALL be good!

[WarEagleFL 0]

he mentioned last years teams a few times, I thought this was the 2004 season not the 2003 season.

[Aubie16 1]

You can email him if ya'll want. On the right side of the article it says something about his mailbag and you can send comments.

The 3 topics that I brought up with him were...

1. USC last year was not a bigger slight than Auburn would be this year. USC lost a game, Auburn was undefeated. Much bigger slight this year, whoever gets left out if they are undefeated.

2. The whole bowling green out of conference game thing.

3. This years team is not last years team. We now have an OC that knows his stuff. Thats the beauty of college football, every team gets to start over each year.

This is not the letter I sent him but it is the basic topics I covered. I'll post any response I might get.

[PChamp119 96]

Tiger pause

Give it a rest, Auburn fans. USC and OU deserve the title game

And speaking of conference schedules ... can we please pipe down on giving Auburn a pass to the title game because they play in the big, bad SEC? Is the SEC the best conference in football? Probably. But is it that far ahead of the Pac-10 and the Big 12? Hardly. The Pac-10 and the Big 12 each have two teams ranked in the top five of the BCS. The SEC only has one team ranked in the top 10.

Arash Markazi is a reporter for Sports Illustrated On Campus. The Hot Read appears every Thursday on SI.com.

Maybe its because Auburn jsut beat Georgia, who was in the top 5 of the rankings.

[AUTaxMan 0]

I don't understand why SI would publish crap like that. You can't take cheap shots at players without backing them up with at least a mote of substantiation.

[autiger162005 0]

Auburn has proven time and time again to be head and shoulders above anybody they've stepped on the field against. The only stumble this team has had was against a #3 LSU team, but we've come a long way since then. But for anybody to talk as if Auburn is the fly in the BCS ointment is nothing but an ignorant jack@$$ trying to sound as if they know something. The Tigers are the best team in the nation without a doubt and I can't believe that anybody whose associated with college football in any way can't see that. I just hope that all the other sports writers in the nation aren't as stupid as this guy.

BEAT BAMA!!!

[AUHansel 0]

oh...so by playing well the last two years Oklahoma deserves to go to the Orange Bowl for the National Championship....damn, I wish we would have done better, because our play the last two seasons wasn't national championship par, so we don't deserve it.

[tubahoss 0]

this guy can eat my ass with a spoon.........go back to your engineering graduate studies Arash

[aumoore 0]

"The Tigers, after years of being nothing more than an overrated and inconsistent program, now has fans fawning over them like adolescent girls at an Usher concert."

Overates and Inconsistent? I believe Auburn is like #16 in all time wins and has much more history than many of the so called Top teams like Miami and FSU.

This guy needs to get a life or at least quit sleaping with Bob Stoops.

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

Is this the same article that was edited after some Auburn fans pointed out that his number on bowl eligible teams was wrong, claiming the SEC had fewer and the Pac 10 had more?

[WaDE'05 8]

Three rules to live by:

1) Beer from a can is always 10 degrees cooler than beer from a bottle.

2) Never trust a man who paid more than 15 bucks for his haircut.

3) People named Arash don't know $h!t about college football.

[AUloggerhead 2,244]

Three rules to live by:

1) Beer from a can is always 10 degrees cooler than beer from a bottle.

2) Never trust a man who paid more than 15 bucks for his haircut.

3) People named Arash don't know $h!t about college football.

123687[/snapback]

Three other absolutes:

1. WaDE'05 is unaware of the heat transfer properties of metal vs glass, and he's also clueless as to which gets warmer faster when removed from the cooler.

2. WaDE'05 saves money on haircuts by using his own cereal bowl & a pair of scissors in front of the mirror.

3. We don't know that for sure, but we strongly suspect Arash may have attended either OU or SC.

[AURainman 6]

Blood.......boiling.........must.........verbally......attack........article....

[AURainman 6]

Alright. THIS is the kind of Bull***** that makes the polls so frickin' wrong. He holds LAST year against this year's team. He had wet dreams about Stoops and Carroll in bed together and now, even though Auburn has played the most dominant football this year, he REFUSES to change his mind based on last year.

Hallelujah. Holy Sh**!!!!!

Somebody get me a Tylenol.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

It's the sport's lone marquee matchup

That sentence right there shows his total lack of brain cells...

And the reason there are fewer SEC teams in the top whatever is because Auburn beat them all...

Stupid schmoe.

[AURainman 6]

Another thing.

I've read too many articles where sports writers have said, "What has OU done to deserve losing their #2 position."

THAT's NOT HOW ITS SUPPOSED TO WORK!!

You don't pick a guy and wait for failure. You analyze, week in, week out. Whoever DESERVES it the most, you give it to them. You don't arbitrarily rank teams because they "haven't failed." You rank 1, 2, 3, etc. based on how the teams are playing.

ARRAGHRIAOGJGOKSDFJJJFAMOFOR+ADFIJ

[channonc 466]

WTF!!!!

That's pretty much all I can say right now.

[Raven_tiger 5]

Just keep winning...That will make that crow taste all the better.

WDE

[sportwareagle 0]

I guarantee you the reason he says this is because he is one of those that picked these two to go to the title game and he knows he's going to have to eat crow already!!!

Better yet, he's probably just some bum SI picked up off the streets of Southern California and asked him what he thought about it all. Wait until we beat Bama and win the SECCG and then we can send him what he deserves!!!!!!

WAR DAMN EAGLE AND BEAT BAMA!!!!!!

[SabanToothedTiger 0]

I don't have a link, as I can't remember exactly what site I read it on - but Markasi is, in fact, a graduate of USC. Tells you all you need to know right there.

[WarEagleFL 0]

Hallelujah.  Holy Sh**!!!!!

Somebody get me a Tylenol.

123708[/snapback]

Settle down Clark Griswold

CLARK: Oh, I was just smelling - smiling. I was just blouse - browsing. I guess it wouldn't be the Christmas shopping season if the stores were any hooter than they - hotter than they are. Whew, it is warm in here, isn't it?