Now Georgia beats their first two opponents 45-21 and 56-17 and drops from No. 1 to No. 3 in the polls. But when USC labored to beat Fresno, the media talked about how good FRESNO was! Some national magazines actually claimed that in the good old pre-BCS days, Fresno State would have gone to the Orange or Sugar Bowl.
This really does have to stop. Ohio State's Jim Tressel deserves CREDIT for winning all these games the past few years with offensive skill players that USC wouldn't give a second look at.
Troy Smith was an undersized troublemaker who couldn't throw the ball in high school and received only a few scholarship offers from major schools—who wanted him as a backup DB or WR—and Tressel's system turns the guy into a record-setting Heisman Trophy-winning QB.
Last season, coaching a new (and pedestrian) QB Todd Boeckman and a bunch of yeomen WRs (Brian Hartline, Terry Robiskie, and Brian Small are NOT first round draft picks, unlike Ted Ginn Jr., Santonio Holmes, and Anthony Gonzalez, who played with Troy Smith), the guy goes 11-1 and makes the BCS title game.
Who was Ohio State's starting TB with Troy Smith, including in the 2006 title game? Antonio Pittman, who was cut by the team that drafted him and now is like fourth string for the Rams.
Yet it is Tressel that gets trashed.
Meanwhile, Pete Carroll has not only five-star recruits, but in many cases the consensus top recruit in America at his position or overall—guys like Ronald Johnson, Mark Sanchez (and John David Booty before him), Vidal Hazelton, David Ausberry, Stafon Johnson, etc., etc., etc.
How on earth does USC have 10 high school All-American tailbacks and get held to 10 points by a UCLA defense that FSU ran up and down the field on in the very next game? How does USC get shut out in the first half by a team that Penn State was leading 35-0 at halftime?
How does Jacquizz Rodgers rush for 186 yards against "Pete Carroll's best-ever defense" WHEN STANFORD HELD HIM TO 54?
How come Pete Carroll is never asked these questions? Is it because they beat 10-3 Michigan in the Rose Bowl in 2003 to give him one more national title than Tressel has?
Well, let me tell you—had the media not been so smitten with that 2003 USC team (which by the way, not only lost to but was thoroughly outplayed by an 8-6 Cal team that hadn't even settled on a starting QB at the time—Aaron Rodgers was sharing time with Reggie Robertson) that they saw fit to award them a national title over a team that had more wins and against a tougher schedule (you can argue with me but not the BCS formula, which judged both LSU and Oklahoma to have played a tougher schedule) that they awarded Carroll and USC an AP title, then there would be nothing that Tressel has that Carroll lacks.
Even Carroll's seven Pac-10 titles, Tressel's mastery of the Big Ten has been similar, and this is with Tressel having to face another elite program in his conference in Michigan.
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