By Scott Bowles
But how do you predict a national champion? Pick the team that should be the strongest by the end of the year? Sounds reasonable, but my gosh, Georgia won it last year, and they certainly didn't have the nation's best team. But they did manage to go undefeated, and since nobody else did, that made them No. 1.
So obviously, when doing this sort of predicting, you've got to pick the team most likely to finish the regular season undefeated. (It's idiotic to try to pick the bowls; the selection process is so quirky that you can't even begin to guess who's going to play where until Thanksgiving. ) And that being the case, it makes things easy. You've got to go with Michigan.
I mean, just look at their schedule. If Ohio State looks as bad this season as they did at the end of last season (and they should be even worse), then the only game the Wolverines might lose is their second, against Notre Dame. The Irish, by the end of the season, should have one of the two or three best teams in the country. But when they play Michigan in the middle of September, the offense wilt still be working out the bugs ill the new wide-open scheme that coach Gerry Faust is bringing in and will likely get smothered by the excellent Michigan defense. And heck, even if Michigan were to lose that game, it's so early in the season that a loss would have been forgotten by the time of the season-ending polls. So Michigan's a clear choice.
So what if Michigan loses that gamed Who's got the next-best chance of finishing undefeated Well, the major college playing the most garbage teams will once again be the Georgia Bulldogs. But the 'Dogs probably used up a decade's worth of good fortune in winning the national championship last year. Georgia won seven of 12 games by a touchdown or less; chances are a couple of those results will be reversed, most likely Clemson and/or Florida. And unless Georgia goes undefeated again, they won't attain an especially high national ranking by clubbing the likes of Vanderbilt and Temple.
So the next-best bet for finishing the regular season undefeated is probably Pittsburgh. Sure, they actually play two tough teams this year and have only one starter back on defense. But the Panthers shouldn't have many problems with the early part of the schedule, and when they play the two tough teams, Florida State and Penn State, their opponents are going to be doing well just to be standing up. The Seminoles will be completing a four-game nightmare that begins with successive contests against Nebraska, Ohio State and Notre Dame, while the Nittany Lions will come to town having just played Alabama and Notre Dame back-to-back.
So does anybody else have a chance to go unbeaten? Well, there's North Carolina; the Tarheels did lose outstanding players like Amos Lawrence and Donnell Thompson, but they're still in the Atlantic Coast Conference and they don't play Oklahoma this season. N.C. dominated the ACC last season, beating everyone but Clemson by at least two touchdowns, and though the Tarheels won't be as good, they could still conceivably go unbeaten. But so what? North Carolina cannot win a national title without winning a New Year's bowl game and though they probably aren't good enough to do so, it's a moot point because they won't be invited to one. North Carolina could be like Georgia last year, the fluke team of the season; if they're 12-0, the Tarheels could win it all -- if everybody else is 10-2.
Brigham Young has a better chance of going undefeated than anybody else; they don't play anybody any good.
Big deal. The WAC's bowl tie-up automatically sends BYU to the Holiday Bowl to play a low-prestige also-ran from the Big Ten or SWC or someplace. If BYU wins, it was to be expected; if they lose, everyone carps about how they don't play a competitive schedule. So what's their problem? They need a competitive schedule.
Nobody else is a good bet to go undefeated; most everybody else plays three or more good teams and that stretches the odds too far. The other way to win a national title is to lose one early but finish strong. The ways the polls work, it's not so much a matter of to whom you lose, but rather, when you lose to them. For instance, last season Michigan lost two of its first three games, including one to Notre Dame. Notre Dame lost two games as well, but the Irish lost their last two. And both final polls had Michigan ranked No. 4, Notre Dame rated at the bottom of the top 10.
So since conference games tend to come later than non-conference games for most teams, the teams in unbalanced conferences would stand the next-best chance of winning the national title. And that of course points to the Big Ten and Big Eight. We covered the Big Ten already, so that leaves the Big Eight. Or rather, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Or probably Oklahoma, since Nebraska never beats them. Regardless, whichever team wins that game will have an excellent shot at winning everything. Both play tough non-conference opponents early, USC and Texas for the Sooners, Florida State and Penn State for the Huskers, but in a Big Eight which looks especially weak this season (only Iowa State appears capable of competing for a minor bowl bid among the also-rans), neither should lose any league games. The OU-Nebraska winner not only gets a big boost in the ratings for beating a highly rated team late in the season, they get a slot in the Orange Bowl as well.
Conversely, the Southwest Conference is balanced enough that everybody ought to lose at least one league game and that pretty much takes everybody out of the national title chase. Even if the conference winner emerges with a 10-] record (not an unlikely proposition), only Texas has the national prestige to draw a Cotton Bowl opponent the beating of whom could result somehow in a No. 1 ranking. If SMU or Houston gets the Cotton, forget it.
The Pac-10 teams are in a similar situation. Last year's champ, Washington, lost two games in conference. And if anything, the league appears to be more balanced this season. USC could wake up and dominate the conference, but the Trojans must replace their defensive backfield this season, a weakness that will almost certainly prove fatal at least once in that pass-happy conference.
Of course, the Southeastern Conference will have a national title contender because it has Alabama. But Alabama will be a contender this season more because they're Alabama and don't have a real tough schedule than because they're a great team. The defense will still be rugged, but the offense lost seven starters and since the Tide only scored three points in their two losses last year, 'Bama should be in trouble every time they run up against a good defensive team. Mind you, there are only a couple of them on Alabama's schedule -- Mississippi State and Penn State -- but as those games come at the end of the season, the chances are good that 'Bama will lose one late and thus get knocked out of the title race as they were last year.
So that leaves the independents. But most of the ones which are any good have murderous schedules this season. Florida State draws Nebraska, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Pitt, LSU, Miami and Florida. Penn State has that horrible season-ending set of Alabama, Notre Dame and Pitt. Miami plays Florida, Houston, Texas, Mississippi State, Penn State, Florida State and Notre Dame. Count all of them out. Even Notre Dame has a much tougher schedule than they usually have -- Florida State, USC, Penn State and Miami in addition to the Michigan game -- but they shouldn't be counted out as summarily. If the Irish can survive either the Michigan game or midseason contests with Florida State and USC, they should be in good shape at the season's end. Besides, Notre Dame would finish in the top 10 if they went 7-5.
Anyway, what follows is a top 20, based not upon relative ability, but rather on relative chances to finish high in the polls:
1. Michigan
2. Pittsburgh
3. Oklahoma
4. Notre Dame
5. Nebraska
6. Alabama
7. Penn State
8. Georgia
9. USC
10. Texas
11. North Carolina
12. Mississippi State
13. BYU
14. Stanford
15. Florida
16. SMU
17. UCLA
18. Florida State
19. Ohio State
20. Oregon