All season long I've been dogging the Big Ten. All year I have trashed that conference as being the most overrated league in college football. (I feel the same way about college basketball, but that's a different article). Now, as the BCS national championship game rests just hours away, the Big Ten has a chance to do what no editor, stranger, opponent, fan, friend, client, law enforcement official, or woman has ever been able to do: shut me up.

At least for a while.

Yup, I truly believe that SEC football and Big Ten football may as well be two different sports. I don't think that Ohio State deserves to be in the BCS title game tonight in New Orleans. And I don't know if they have a chance to beat the LSU Tigers when the teams meet at 8:30 p.m. tonight in the Superdome. LSU opened as a 4.5-point favorite but the line is currently available at 3.5. The total is set at 48.0.

My two biggest knocks against the Buckeyes heading into tonight's game against LSU are No. 1: they simply lost too much from last year's team for them to be expected to be even more successful from last year's squad. You don't just lose a Heisman Trophy winner and a slew of other high-round draft picks and get better the next season. And No. 2: Ohio State has exactly one decent win this season, and that was over a Penn State team that turned out to be not very good. Ohio State struggled with Washington (the same indicator that I used to determine that Georgia was going to wax Hawaii) and they beat Michigan when the Wolverines were all banged up. Ohio State's only loss actually came at home against the only team that really plays a similar style or has similar athletes to SEC clubs, and that was Illinois.

Besides their performance this season there is an awful lot of history and circumstance stacked against Ohio State:

- The SEC is 6-2 straight up in bowl games and, not counting the wacky line in the FSU-Kentucky game, 5-2 against the spread. Conversely, the Big Ten put up yet another putrid bowl performance, posting a 3-4 SU, 3-4 ATS mark this winter.
- Ohio State is 0-8 SU against SEC teams in bowl games. Now they are supposed to roll into Louisiana - the home of the Tigers - and beat an exceptional LSU squad.
- LSU is healthier now than they have been at nearly any point of the season. Their two most important players - Glenn Dorsey and Matt Flynn - have had time to get over their nagging injuries and will be ready to cap their college careers in style.

Last year I didn't think it was a scheme issue or bad luck that led to Ohio State getting blasted 41-14 against Florida in the BCS Championship. The Buckeyes didn't deserved to be on the same field as the Gators because their athletes were second-tier. Ohio State may have been able to close the gap over the past 12 months, but I don't know I they did so enough to win this game outright.

Now, all of that being said (and I think you know who I like tonight) there is definitely some value on Ohio State. Does this seem like I'm making a Bush-esque flip-flop here? Probably. But there are some trends and indicators that do give you OSU fans and backers a shred of hope tonight in the Superdome.

First, no one thinks that Ohio State can win this game yet the line is moving the other way. It's obvious that the public action (to the tune of nearly 60 percent) is coming in on the Tigers. Also, an ESPN poll showed that 78 percent of the pubic likes LSU to win tonight. Yet we have a reverse line movement because the spread has dipped from 4.5 to 3.5 - crossing a key number in the process. That should be a huge red flag to any veteran handicapper.

Next, the underdog has been an easy bet in the previous BCS championship games. The puppies are 5-2 ATS over the last seven title games, including four of five straight up winners. For all I bash the Big Ten, Jim Tressel is the man. You know he will have his team motivated and you know he's playing up that underdog, us-against-the-world angle. Will that be enough to overcome a talent deficit? We will see, but it has been before.

Finally, LSU isn't exactly a juggernaut and their style may play right into the hands of the Buckeyes. The Tigers like to run the ball and let their defense win games. That's the type of game that the Buckeyes want to play. Further, after a 3-0 ATS start to the season LSU has been a pathetic 2-7-1 ATS since Sept. 22. In many ways, this team has been an underachiever (although Florida came into last year's championship tilt on a 2-8 ATS run). The Tigers were run over in their upset loss to Arkansas and were upset by an inferior team when they lost to Kentucky. Two losses are indicative of weakness, not greatness.

In the end a wager on this game comes down to one of the quintessential handicapper dilemmas: do you back the more talented home favorite on short odds and hope that the better team prevails, or do you listen to the numbers, go against the crowd, and play the emotion and motivation in the hopes that you can cash in over the squares.

Carpe diem, my friends, and good luck.