Back in October, I took you through a whole list of the odd comparisons between the current college football season and the 2002 season — the one that ended with Ohio State beating Miami for the national championship.

I was nervous about that post, because I was, in effect, looking down the road at what I thought would be a likely outcome for the 2007 season. But I put it up anyway, and am happy to report that things didn’t go horribly awry.

It was odd; we all took the loss to Illinois pretty well, figuring Ohio State had already exceeded its expectations three or four-fold … and then we made it to the title game anyway.

I’ve already talked about the constant abuse my team has had to tolerate in the 51 days that have elapsed since its last game. I’ve talked about the notion that it seems like we are somehow expected to apologize for both our season and for playing in New Orleans tonight, like we’re crashing someone else’s party.

Maybe the pundits would have been happier if there were two SEC teams playing tonight; maybe we should have called off the bowl games and just declared LSU the champs after they beat Tennessee in their conference title game. Seems like that would have been a better result in the eyes of anyone connected with ESPN, Sports Illustrated or everyone else who said we don’t deserve to set foot in the Superdome tonight.

Despite all that crap — despite having to listen to talking heads on ESPN, as recently as this morning, telling me that tonight’s game isn’t the real national championship game — the team that wins tonight gets the crystal football, the one that comes with winning the championship. It won’t be two-loss Georgia, or two-loss Southern Cal, no matter how much Mike and Mike whine; it will be either LSU or Ohio State.

And while I’ve already addressed the idea that my Buckeyes clearly have no business being on the same field as the Tigers, I’m happy to hear that they’re going to play tonight’s game anyway. Because after last year’s debacle, Ohio State has something to prove. And they’re going to do it by taking that crystal football home to Columbus on Tuesday morning.

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In 2003, Jim Tressel ended the season by grabbing the microphone from Lynn Swann and announcing “Now we got the best damn team in the land.”

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In 2008 — in just a few hours from now — he’ll be saying the same thing.