Back in November, Ohio State president Gordon Gee inadvertently kicked up some dust when he accused BCS insurgents
Boise State and
TCU of building their resumés
on "the Little Sisters of the Poor" – unlike, of course, the mighty Buckeyes, whose sixth consecutive BCS appearance was built on the solid foundation of such
heavy-hitting victims as
Marshall,
Ohio,
Eastern Michigan,
Indiana,
Minnesota and an injury-ravaged edition of
Purdue. Gee quickly
backpedaled from that dig, but was still forced over the weekend to admit that he planned on
"eating my portion" of crow after the Big Ten's 0-5 flop in New Year's Day bowl games, capped by TCU's 21-19 win over
Wisconsin on the Big Ten's most hallowed postseason turf, the Rose Bowl.
True, TCU went into the game as the higher-ranked team and a three-point favorite in Vegas,
hardly a "David" to Wisconsin's Goliath. But that didn't stop someone from reminding everyone in Columbus about Gee's misplaced elitism this week by springing for space
on 20 different electronic billboards around the city congratulating the Horned Frogs on behalf of, yes, the "Little Sisters of the Poor."
Whoever's behind it, he, she or they could afford to clean up their subject-pronoun agreement just a tad ("For its BCS Rose Bowl Victory…"), but they are clearly the undisputed national champions of smack.
For the record, the final
strength-of-schedule rankings according to Jeff Sagarin's computer formula pegged Ohio State's schedule as the 68th toughest in the nation, Wisconsin's as the 71st, and TCU's as the 80th before the bowl games. The toughest schedule in the Big Ten, per Sagarin: Minnesota, at No. 38, at least in some part because its numbers weren't dragged down by having to play Minnesota. But eh, what are you gonna do? You play who you play, right?
- they do have a GREAT Band!