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. DJ+ CI 0 0 Megan Spillane 0 0 0 August 3, 1998 a W S4 r , I 0 4. Cenee ta . Hmora 10. Duke 1 H ar eA& I O2,atvar4 13.Wiliam & Mary 14.Clemson 15. UCLA h 1, Minesota (tie) S7. MtIahIgas 1.9. ib ham Young 20. Soutere VahodisI 22 a a p al 23.,*Ide~l 24 S etaifor 25. Pesa Slala A UM Tz ~O 615 E. Liberty off State 668-9329 PtyOL TALES D RT 310 MAYNA RD - ANN ARBOR - 99. 00