look at the teams out of conference schedules before you say stuff like this please. your are def wrong. Ohio State played at Texas. Michigan and Penn State played at Notre Dame. Even Minnesota played somebody good OOC when the went to Cal.
Go ahead with your Big East jabs but this game is hurting the Big 10 just at least as much (if not more) as it's helping the SEC. Like Arkansas and Tennessee helped the SEC v B10 cause. Well let's see, both Arkansas and Tennessee lost very close games that weren't decided until late. Let's run over what the Big 10's top 2 teams have done in the bowls: Michigan laid a complete egg and couldn't even visualize stopping USC's passing game. The front four of Michigan that was supposed to pressure Booty the whole game and not give him time to throw? One sack. OSU's been outgained 220-65. They've looked disorganized on offense and their Heisman Trophy winning QB is looking like he should be playing at a DII school. Meanwhile, it appears their defense is still in Columbus and didn't make the trip to Arizona. And don't forget these were the two teams that a lot of people thought were the best two teams in the nation after the game they played.
Shouldn't have been high in the first place, but there you go. When a national-TV analyst (Alvarez) actually says that the key to stopping the other team's offense is forcing them to pass the ball with a Heisman-winning QB, maybe your NFL stock is a tad iffy. I completely agree. His stock was never going to get any higher than it was in the period after OSU beat Michigan and when he won the Heisman Trophy. It had nowhere to go but down and this game is only accelerating that fall.
If so, that's the Cingular All-America POY, voted on completely by fans. There are more ND fans than any other school, so you do the math. I don't think that particular award is meant to be taken very seriously. It was the Cingular All-America POY.