I love college football. It’s by far my favorite sport and Ohio State is the best team.
It’s wonderful to sit in front of the television on a Saturday afternoon and watch college students from across the country decked out in their team’s colors scream at the top of their lungs. College football is just pure athleticism or so the naïve side of my mind would like to believe.
I know that someone will always disagree with a controversial coach like the “great” Bobby Bowden, or which coast a team’s offense comes from and, in the end, that certain someone will vote for national rankings. But that’s where the problem lies.
Ohio State won the national championship over a presumably unbeatable Miami University in a very hard-fought but disputed Fiesta Bowl. Therefore, it would seem obvious that once a team wins, they have earned a certain respect and the right to be number one in preseason rankings.
But yet again, the powers that be decided to cheat the champs and gave the number one ranking to Oklahoma, the 2000-2001 champions.
Preseason rankings are based on teams’ records from the previous year and the projected strength and record for the upcoming year. Therefore, Ohio State deserves to be number one.
Not only did the team win the Fiesta Bowl, but also until recently, its best player Maurice Clarett, was the top running back in the country ranked #26
It has two players in the nation’s top 10 interception leaders and a quarterback who had a 59.4% completion percentage last season and a 55.4% percentage this season to keep him ranked in the top 10.
I’m from San Antonio, Texas, so naturally I am a University of Texas Longhorn fan. It is virtually impossible for me to even tolerate Oklahoma. To be honest, I don’t even like the Buckeyes.
But in spite of my predisposition, I find that I can be impartial because I know that Ohio State is the best team in the country.
In my eyes, OSU is in this position: it wasn’t able to prove itself last year and so it should be forced to prove itself this year. Actually, it has more than proved itself, because clearly the team is still undefeated with a 5-0 record thus far this season.
All I really want is for Ohio State to receive the respect they fought for, trained for and then won. Is that really too much to ask?
Lauren Armwood, 17, is a freshman broadcast journalism student from San Antonio, Texas. She can be reached at l_arm15@hotmail.com.