How do you know if any team would lose to any other team? If you did, you'd be making millions betting on them. No one can ... under any ranking system.
USC losing screws up the entire BCS. It probably took them 20 min. to get the BCS computer to stop smoking and throwing out random schools as the number 2 team. Ohio St. Boise St. Ohio St. Yale. Ohio State Colorado. Ohio St. Florida International. Ohio St. McGill University.
It has to be Florida, Michigan really hasn't beat anybody. Florida hasn't beaten great teams either, but they have played tougher teams than Michigan, and the Wolverines already got their shot at the Buckeyes. Ohio State would murder Florida, however.
Of course not. But other teams aren't in the discussion because their on-field performance wasn't at the level of Michigan or Florida. The only reason we're discussing this is because these two teams have performed similarly and are universally regarded as nearly identical in quality.
michigan's game with ohio state wasn't exactly a UT/usc-level barnburner. not once in the 2nd half did michigan ever have the ball with a chance to take the lead. it was an 11 point game with a minute left before michigan scored a mostly meaningless TD (after a pretty bad PI on 4th down saved that drive) to make it 3 points. and this was in a game where osu had 3 turnovers (including the center just randomly rolling a snap) and michigan had none. i thought it was a case of one team being significantly better and the other just catching them on the right day to make it close. now i'm not really saying i think florida would do much better, but they should get their shot. florida beat more top 25 teams than michigan did and even had to win a conference title game in addition to their first 12 games. i guess beating wisconsin is good since they're 11-1 but they seem to be the most under the radar, aren't really that good 11-1 team ever and whooping ND is nice, too. i just don't see much to separate the two schools so, all things being equal, michigan shouldn't get to play osu again. a rematch essentially renders the first matchup meaningless. and what happens if UM wins by 1 on a last second field goal in the title game? who gets the championship? they'd have won the neutral field contest, but less convincingly. the UF/FSU precedent doesn't really work b/c florida won in a dominating blowout in the rematch which somewhat justified their #1 finish. of course, i'm kind of arguing against what i want. the only team i can really stomach winning of the 3 is michigan. i haven't liked osu in a while and florida just won the bball tourney, so they don't need anymore success. michigan is fairly innocuous at this point. either way, usc isn't going to win and that's great.
I don't think the gap is as wide as you make it out to be. First off, sure Florida can lose, so can Ohio State. There are no super teams this year unlike last year when there were two. IMO MIchigan has two quality wins, ND and Wisc. The rest of the big 10 was crap this year. Michigan has their fair share of "near losses" too. They struggled vs. Penn State and almost blew a game to Ball Freaking state, and really didn't blow anybody out of the building save maybe Indiana. Sorry, but "nearly losing" to teams like Tennessee is a different animal. Florida won their conference, and beat a boatload of top 25 and top 10 teams to do it. Their record is on the same plane as Michigans by any objective measure.
Hehe Watch the USC cheerleaders! <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NYwzwcV6fus"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NYwzwcV6fus" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
