Monday, August 10, 1998 - The Michigan Daily - 15
top te insanity! Football should
HICAGO - Northwestern foot- the last three seasons - and Pm stuck Gary Coleman's age-- are all put into a
ball coach Gary Barnettwand in Evanston!" blender that chums out the magical BCS
Ohio State coach John Cooper Meanwhile, the luncheon continued rating. And everyone is happy.
sat next to each other at the same table with a promotion- The BCS head honchos also made
during last week's Big Ten preseason & . video extolling thinly veiled comments decrying the
press conference luncheon. the virtues of the Associated Press poll. Pretty smart idea,
They were laughing and talking as BCS; how it will especially considering reporters made
they shoveled in the chicken latch pro- pit No. I against up about 90 percent of the audience.
vided. For our dining entertainment, Big No. 2 in a final, Ahh, the insanity of it all. Football is
Ten commissioner Jim Delany and a decisive show- not, and should not, be decided in the
handful of ABC executives were down for the sultry summer months in Chicago,
explaining the new Bowl Championship anomalous which is home to zero Big Ten teams.
Series ratings.national title. A RAJU My theory is that the elevated temper-
At one point, I saw Cooper look up complex formula Sharat atures cause many to not think straight
from his meal to listen to the presenta- --which takes in the Dark People like Illinois coach Ron Turner,
tion. Barnettjust stared at him, as if into account the for example. He said he was "looking
thinking, "I can't believe this moron' team't record, forward to this season," on the heels of a
team is No. I in the country. He's just ranking, opponents' records, strength of perfect, winless campaign last year. Like
going to blow it against Michigan again. schedule, average team shoe size, Pi, Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez forget-
I've even beaten the Wolverines twice in the inverse square root of 174.3 and ting the name of one of his players for a
be decided in autumn
good 30 seconds: "Oh yeah, Roger
Knight!"
And by far the most affected by the
heat were the more ancient coaches.
Iowa's Hayden Fry joked about his
Hawkeyes, calling them the "wait 'n'
see" team. He talked about having some
fast guys from the track team vying for
wide receiver spots, about anotherplayer
who "fell in love and liked her better
than football," so he quit the team.
Penn State's Joe Paterno looked and
talked like a disheveled old man who
just wanted a glass of sun tea and a
seven-inch black-and-white television so
he could watch reruns of 'The
Honeymooners." He said he would not
want his name alongside his top 25
coaches' poll vote because he didn't
want to get angry letters from opposing
schools.
"I need more mail from Michigas like
I need a hole in the head," Paterno said.
Preseason polls and meetings, for that
matter, are useless. They only put an
undue amount of pressure on the top
teams and make it harder for lower-
ranked teams tormake arn for the title.
Wait until mid-October to rank teams,
then hold press conferences like crazy.
The weather will have cooled off around
the country enough so that we can all
think straight. And then we can tryto
take a crack at that BCS formula.
- Shart Raju can be reached via e-
mail at srju@umich.edu. For general
questions about Michiganffootball,
e-mail dailyfoo ball@wnich.edu.
Michigan senior
defender Carrie
Brady and the
rest of the
Wolverines have
even higher
expectations for
themselves this
season - they
were rankerd 17th
coache pr
J0 .551/1 l
RANKED
Continued from Page 13
less tie with a goal that sailed past
Northwestern goalkeeper Wendy
Schulz and into history.
Ten months removed from that
moment, such success has sunk in.
It's no longer shining and new.
Now it fits them snugly, like a pair
of broken-in cleats.
With this official recognition of
the Wolverines' success,
Berendowsky thinks her teammates
can "come out a little older, a little
wiser" this season.
"We have high expectations, and
other people have high expecta-
tions," Belkin said.
Last season, the Wolverines
weren't supposed to go to the NCAA
Tournament. Last season, they
weren't even supposed to win the
Big Ten Tournament.
This season, it might take more
than a golden goal to make history.
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