National Game of Interest (Championship Week)

We came into last week with a 9-14 record. We missed our primary pick of tOSU to cover against Michigan (of course), but we nailed both of our bonus picks (Duke and UCLA to cover). That improved us to 11-15, which is better but nowhere near good. There's no way we're going to make up ground this later in the season, so we're throwing our typical analysis to the wind in picking this week's National Game of Interest, the Big Integer Championship Game: No. 2 Ohio State (-5.5) v. No. 10 Michigan State.

The pick: Michigan State +5.5

Why you should care: Spite. With a win, Urban Meyer will almost certainly take another team to the BCS National Championship. Boo.

Rationale: I'm stretching to pick Michigan State because I hate Urban Meyer. Here it goes: Michigan State's offense hasn't been great over the season as a whole, averaging just 29.4 points per game to tOSU's 48.2. But the Spartans have steadily improved since an embarrassing September loss to Notre Dame. They're averaging an 18.75 point margin of victory since then. They also boast one of the best defenses in the nation. Plus, the Buckeyes only beat the Spartans by 1 in last year's contest. Sparty's offense was unquestionably worse back then.

More importantly than any of that is my need for meaning and justice in the universe. Urban Meyer is a liar. He's a cheater. He won at Florida by allowing star players to live without rules or boundaries. (See Chris Rainey and Aaron Hernandez, just to name a few.) He left coaching to spend time with his family and then ditched them as soon the Ohio State job came along. He is absolutely everything that is wrong with modern football. He deserves to lose, and we deserve to watch it.

Go Dawgs!