Last night as I snuggled into bed still high from another B1G championship, I gave the Ohio State Buckeyes a 50/50 shot at the playoffs. I knew it would be a coin flip with the Crimson Tide and I was ok with that. I felt like OSU shouldn’t have made the playoffs last season having not won their conference, so they were playing with house money this season, especially after Iowa.

When I say I didn’t really care, I had no idea exactly when the announcement was coming. I knew it was sometime after noon, but didn’t bother to tune into the show. As I was sitting on the couch, an email notified me the decision was made and I opened it. My blood boiled and I became enraged. I was not expecting that reaction, especially when when it hit me that my furor was because the Wisconsin Badgers got completely hosed and the reaction had nothing to do with OSU.

I am no fan of the Badgers. In fact, I hate them. I hate that stupid jump around thing they do and I remember stories of batteries and coins in marshmallows. I will neither confirm or deny that I still watch video of Robert Reynolds choking their QB. However, I have an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, and Bucky got fuckied. Let’s examine just how hard.

The Tale of the Tape

Wisconsin Badgers

• Record (12-1 overall, 12-0 regular season, 12 wins over FBS opponents, 0-1 in conference championship games)
• Best Wins, #21 (rankings come from the “committee”) Northwestern Wildcats (9-3, no losses to a mid-major), UR Michigan Wolverines (8-4, all losses to teams in final rankings)
• Best Non-conference Win FAU, (10-3 overall, 10-1 after their loss against Wisconsin, coached by Lane Kiffin)
• Best Loss, #5 Ohio State (11-2, conference champion)
• Notable accomplishments- Won all regular season games and made conference championship. Won 12 games against FBS opponents. Only win by less than 10 was against Northwestern. In same division as PJ Fleck.

Alabama Crimson Tide

• Record (11-1 overall, 11-1 regular season, 10 wins against FBS opponents, unqualified to play in conference championship game)
• Best Wins, #17 LSU Tigers (9-3, one loss to mid-major), #23 Mississippi State Bulldogs (8-4, 3 of 4 losses to teams in final rankings, beat UMASS by 11 late in the year)
• Best Non-conference win, Fresno State (8-4 mid-major, ranked last week of season by completely unbiased playoff committee)
• Best Loss #7 Auburn (10-3, lost conference championship by 21. Beat 5-6 FCS Mercer by 14)
• Notable accomplishments- Actually managed to blow out Mercer. Rolled over a division who’s third best team would have a slim chance to win the Fun Belt. Passes eye test for those with a vested financial interest in Alabama making the playoffs.

Ouch.

As an entitled fan of an elitist program, I fully understand what happened to the Badgers. They lost out to a biased, archaic system that always had more to do with politics than what happened on the field. It’s time to change that system. I’ll delve more into that in my next post.