Here we sit after 6 weeks of college football. 4 teams from BCS conferences: Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia and Ohio State, as well as (BCS tie-in made easy) Notre Dame are successfully running the gauntlet... undefeated. In the most recent USA Today Heisman poll, the current players resting in the top 2 spots for the award are from West Virginia and Ohio State. So, what does this mean? Maybe Columbus, Ohio, after a year long ordeal of dealing with an NCAA Investigation and subsequent loss of past victories, adored head football coach and swagger, has become the epicenter of the college football world. Drive 5 hours in any direction from Columbus (except North...ha!) and you will find an undefeated BCS caliber football team. Nowhere else in the U.S.A, can this feat be done. Sure, Tuscaloosa Alabama is the capitol of the CFB world and S.E.C country holds the crown jewels of the past 5 seasons in various Southern towns such as Gainesville and Baton Rouge. However there are some pretty interesting story lines developing in a 5 hour drive radius of Ground Zero - Columbus, Ohio.
Brian Kelly may have finally pushed the right buttons in South Bend, while they have super-tests on the horizon with Oklahoma, USC, Stanford and BYU....who would have picked them to be 5-0 at this point? Brian Kelly did take Cincinnati to 2 BCS Bowl games before bolting to South Bend.
West Virginia left what was considered by all the Big Least and just waltzed into Austin, Texas and defeated the Big 12 Big Boy Longhorns. Sure, K-state, Okie State and Oklahoma must be dealt with, but they must also deal with Dana, Geno and the Boys.
Cincy and Louisville are setting up for a possible ESPN College Gameday event Friday October 26 on the Kentucky banks of the Ohio River...though Florida/Georgia or Oklahoma/Notre Dame may take that honor
Ohio State, though not Bowl eligible is putting the CFB world on notice for the final 6 games of 2012 and also for 11 month away 2013 season. Urban Meyer is in his first year in C-Bus and Braxton Miller is just a Sophomore. back-to-back top 10 recruiting classes may have OSU re-primed and re-fueled for another run to a Football National Championship soon. After watching the first 19 games of Braxton Miller's career, I get the feeling that the Buckeyes will have a chance to win any game in which he plays.
People say you never know what team will show up the next week during Fall, OSU could stumble in Bloomington, Stanford could bully the Irish into submission, West Virginia could get outscored at Texas Tech (but they have Tuberville as coach, not Leach), Louisville may get clocked in the Steel City by Pitt, and Cincinnati could get smoked in the Glass City by Toledo........ then this post would look foolish. Or they could all win, and we could enjoy another week of being in the epicenter of the 2012 CFB world, the melting pot, where we Ohio folk share our State's borders with SEC country, Big East, Big 12, MAC, Conference USA and Big10 territory.
Pretty easy to see what a tough job recruiting is in Ohio, with so many "wolves" at the door for Ohio's top talent. West Virginia, Cincy, Louisville and Notre Dame, with all of the sucess they are having, should feel able to sell any recruit on their program, all other Big10 schools, the entire MAC and alot of C-USA mine Ohio for talent. It is a testament to Ohio State's past and bright future (thanks Urban) that Ohio State still is King of the Current Epicenter.
