Far too many Trolls have written me to ask a variation on this question: "I haven't seen any Steelers games this year. What happened? I mean, seriously, what the fuck?"
My standard answer: "Nothing that a heart transplant wouldn't fix."
Sometimes your team isn't very good, and you learn to live with that. This year is something new, though. At the midpoint of the season, the Steelers were 2-6 and the only team ranked in the top six in the league in both offense and defense. This cannot happen without serious stupidity, bad luck, or bad breaks, and the Steelers had plenty of each. The way they were losing games was no less epic than the way they won them last year. They routinely outplayed opponents, then gifted them the game in the most moronic way imaginable. Even if you tried to predict the worst possible outcome of a crucial play, they'd snap the ball and show you how much more imaginative than you they are. Picks for touchdowns, ricochets for touchdowns, fumbles for touchdowns, penalties that nullified touchdowns. Roethlesberger had three interceptions that bounced off receivers' hands in one half, two of them returned for touchdowns. That stuff happens in football, yes, but not every week, and every game is turning on some such fluke. Their concentration is poor, the coaching ineffective. Theories about causes abound, from Roethlesberger's offseason accident and surgeries, to a lame duck coach, to a Super Bowl hangover. I believe them all. The team is an embarrassment to themselves. They play with no pride. Heart donors wanted.
Stank Troll Gretchen asks if I wanted a rematch with Michigan in the championship game. Hell yes. We can't beat Michigan enough. Alas, now I'll be rooting for them to eviscerate USC in the Rose Bowl. For once, the Wolverines are on the side of good and light.
A hearty congratulations to the University of Florida, who won a much-deserved shot at my Buckeyes in the championship game. I wish their fans luck finding tickets. Tempe is going to be quite scarlet. Florida, meanwhile, has a chance at doing something that I don't think has been done in my lifetime: championships in football and basketball in the same year. (Further, OSU and UF are 1 and 2 in football and 3 and 4 in basketball, so a "rematch" in March is even possible.) Ohio State, meanwhile, already the only team in history to have beaten two #2 teams in a season, will now try to beat a third. History will be made either way.
Which, I might add, is two more #2 teams than USC and its media sweethearts have faced in their three-year "dynasty" period. Yes, yes, I know, they had to face the mighty Cal-Berkeley every year. Truly terrifying, they. They should start calling that game "The granddaddy of them all."
As much as I would have liked to have seen Ohio State paste USC 55-3, I'm delighted that the media conspiracy to hype them into another undeserved championship scenario was thwarted by (chortle) UCLA. I watched the ending of that game over and over, just to see the look on Pete Carroll's face. "Fire my publicist!" the look said.