The Big Ten chose correctly in sending Ohio State to the 1974 Rose Bowl.

It was so well reasoned that I can find little to argue against. I too find it unacceptable that a winner was voted and therefore cannot disagree on this point. Similarly, I concur with his contention that a playoff would have been a poor way of choosing because presumably their November showdown in Ann Arbor was the playoff. I will confine myself to arguing from one angle: The Big Ten Conference neglected to detail an acceptable system of tiebreakers. They committed to hoping for an outright winner, falling back on the head-to-head result as a first tiebreaker, and finally resorting to a vote. The Big Ten was committed to voting between Ohio State and Michigan. My argument will proceed in two parts. The first shall consist of what factors the commissioners should consider. The second part shall be a demonstration that, according to the relevant factors, Ohio State was the superior choice. If the individual commissioners were given instructions on how to vote, there appears to be no record of it. This left them at liberty to use any reasoning that struck their fancy. They could cast their vote for the school nearer the equator, or the school in the state with the greater number of cities that rhyme with ‘Hoyt'. My opponent has correctly pointed out this problem already. I contend that the vote of each commissioner should be governed by the spirit of the first two selectors, conference record and outcome in the head-to-head battle. On the field, the athletes struggled to win and the selection process recognized this and rewarded those who accomplished their objectives most often. The final selector should be in the spirit of the first two. But what criteria are nearest this spirit of achievement? 1. The single best criterion would be the team that the commissioners felt was the better team. What criterion could be in better keeping with the whole process? 2. Another criterion, inferior to the first, would pick the team seen as more likely to win the Rose Bowl. For instance, though one team is judged to be better overall, it might be decided that the lesser had, due to quirks of the match up, a better chance of winning. A coach, in the same vein, may choose to play a quarterback he knows to be a poorer overall performer if that quarterback's particular strength will do more damage to a particular defense. 3. A third criterion would be to reward the team that had made it through the tougher schedule. This is a fair criterion, but not a great one. At the time a game is scheduled it is not certain how good another team will be when the time comes to play. Second, a team may seek to schedule a tough opponent without success. Third, The Big Ten then, as now, did not play a round robin, and one team might be unfairly penalized for not having a relatively stronger competitor simply because of where they were in the scheduling cycle. In this way teams might be penalized for things that are quite out of their control. Without a reasonable addition that occurs to me, we may now evaluate the two teams. The third flawed criterion perhaps favors Michigan by a minute amount. The Big Ten team that Ohio State did not play was Purdue(4-4, 5-6). Michigan did not play Northwestern(4-4, 4-7 ). Purdue beat Northwestern 21-10, albeit in West Lafayette. The out-of-conference schedule is likewise close. Ohio State played the Pac 8 #4 while Michigan played the Pac 8 #3 and #7. Ohio State played TCU( 3-8), while Michigan played one extra game against a Navy (4-7) squad that won only one game against a non-military school (Syracuse, 2-9). Perhaps we can say Michigan wins by a hair in a category that should have the weight of a hair in the selection process. A better criterion is which team was more likely to win the Rose Bowl. While this is, in isolation, a mediocre criterion, it does preserve the competition of the sport and given a tie at the top, it is not unreasonable to give it some weight. The largest part of winning is being a top performing team, but since that is itself the first criterion, we shall here examine only those quirky conditions which may help or hinder a team regardless of its ability. Ohio State is a clear favorite, even overwhelming. While I can think of no advantage for Michigan, there are two very good reasons to believe that Ohio State would do better. Ohio State's coach had more experience and had won three Rose Bowls. Though admittedly he had lost his last two, he had a winning record in the contest. Bo had lost his two Rose Bowls (and indeed would lose three more before finally triumphing). Ohio State was a healthy team while Michigan's quarterback suffered a broken collarbone late in the fourth quarter and was doubtful for the Rose Bowl. The choice was between a healthy team with a coach with a winning record in the Rose Bowl and a team without their first string quarterback and with a coach who had yet to win a bowl game in two tries. Experience and roster play heavily in Ohio State's favor here. Finally, we come to the overwhelmingly most important criterion: which was the better team? On the day they played, they came to a 10-10 tie… in Ann Arbor. Furthermore, while Michigan quarterback Dennis Franklin missed a few minutes at the end of the game, Ohio State's Cornelius Greene played the whole game with an injured thumb in his throwing hand and did not attempt a single pass. Those familiar with Woody Hayes will point out that Ohio State was not known for passing, and this was rarely more true than in 1973, but Cornelius Greene did pass when he was healthy. The ability to mix in a few passes, at the right times, would have aided Ohio State in the contest. For instance, in the third quarter, with Ohio State leading 10-0, the Buckeyes were facing 4rth and 2 on the Michigan 34. Cornelius Greene ran a busted option for about five and a half feet. Might not a credible passing threat have aided them when they were on the fringe of field goal territory? Which team could be expected to be better come January 1st? Past behavior being the best predictor of future behavior, let's look at the rest of the season. Ohio State had given up 43 (4.3/game) points on the season; Michigan had given up 68 (6.2/game) points. Michigan scored 330 (30/game) points; Ohio State scored 371 (37.1/game) points in one fewer game. They both played Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan State and Iowa, with Ohio State playing Minnesota, Iowa and MSU in Columbus and the Wolverines getting Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois in The Big House. Michigan beat Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois by 29, 36 and 15 points respectively; Ohio State bested them by 24, 30 and 30. Ohio State, at home, defeated Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan State by margins of 49, 42 and 35 respectively, while Michigan beat them by 27, 24 and 31. We are left with this: Michigan has an advantage in a category which should carry no weight, and an advantage that, without a microscope, is indistinguishable from a tie in a category which perhaps should get some small consideration. Ohio State, in a moderately important category, has a great advantage as well as a distinct advantage in what must be far and away the most important category of all: they were the better team throughout the season. Finally, we might yet look at the Rose Bowl outcome to see, ex post facto, if The Big Ten did indeed get it right when they chose Ohio State. The Buckeyes defeated the Trojans 42-21, giving The Big Ten their only Rose Bowl victory of the 1970's. The Big Ten voted to send Ohio State, the better team overall and the fitter team to take on USC, and the Buckeyes proved them right by winning big in Pasadena over the likes of Lynn Swann, Anthony Davis and Pat Hayden.