Clearly the Miami Hurricanes didn’t get ESPN analyst Mark May’s memo about the Big Ten’s ineffectiveness come bowl season. The Wisconsin Badgers must not have been listening to Colin Cowherd that morning.

There went John Clay bursting through a seam in the Hurricanes’ defensive line, outrunning three Miami defenders, their vaunted “blazing” speed counting for nothing as he raced past them for a 52-yard gain while their teammates looked on from their spots in front of the heaters in weather that would count as a pleasant spring day in Wisconsin.

Instead of slower players from the “U” chasing him, it was as though the myth of the warm-weather schools’ superiority was hot on his heels.

Clay won.

With Iowa’s dominant victory over ACC champion Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, the Big Ten finished with a 4-3 record in postseason play this season.  

Will it be enough to quiet all of the Big Ten naysayers out there in Pundit-Land? Probably not. But it is impressive enough to give pause to the next “expert” who wants to decry the slow, plodding style of play of Big Ten schools.

For fans in the Midwest, the annual bashing of all things Big Ten is like a rite of passage. They are forced to listen to a seemingly endless litany of reasons why they are inferior to schools in California, Texas and Florida.

Following notorious Buckeye-basher Trev Albert’s unceremonious firing from his job with ESPN’s “College Gameday,” fellow analyst Mark May picked up the baton and continues to underestimate the Big Ten, and Ohio State in particular.

It’s as though once the bowl-election process is over, the names of any SEC teams fortunate enough to be matched up against Big Ten schools are already engraved on the trophies.

As another college football analyst might say, “Not so fast, my friend.” Let’s go to the scoreboard.

First, we’ll take a look at the losses.

Minnesota was trailing Iowa State by one point when they fumbled in the red zone with four minutes left in the game. Michigan State, playing without 11 suspended players, was leading late before succumbing to Texas Tech.

Northwestern, playing a game no one gave them a chance in against an opponent from the mighty SEC, mounted a furious comeback before losing in overtime to Auburn.

Now for the victories.

Wisconsin thoroughly dominated heavily favored Miami in Florida en route to a 20-14 victory in the Champs Sports Bowl. Miami, once the torch-bearer of the “superior” southern schools, looked completely out-matched against a far more physical Badger team.

In the Capital One Bowl, Joe Paterno’s Penn State Nittany Lions outlasted the SEC’s LSU 19-17 in a muddy affair. SEC apologists immediately began to place the blame for the loss at the feet of the groundskeepers, as though Penn State did not have to deal with the clumpy turf as well.

Iowa’s defensive line appeared to be toying with Georgia Tech in the Hawkeyes’ 24-14 Orange Bowl victory. Tech’s much ballyhooed spread option attack was rendered toothless by the Hawkeyes, with the Yellow Jackets’ only score in the first three quarters coming on the defensive side of the ball. They didn’t notch a single first down until midway through the second quarter.

Finally, we have OSU’s 26-17 defeat of the Oregon Ducks in the Rose Bowl. Most outsiders agreed that the Buckeye defense would be able to hold its own against the explosive Oregon offense, but few gave OSU’s offensive unit a chance.

Quarterback Terrelle Pryor responded with two touchdowns and 338 yards of total offense, which included 266 through the air. The Ducks were unprepared and OSU posted its first Rose Bowl victory in 14 years.

No one is disputing that the SEC is probably the best top-to-bottom conference in college football; another strong showing in postseason play (6-4) makes that impossible. But the athletic gap is not nearly as cavernous as the pundits would have you believe and is rapidly narrowing.

One winning record in the postseason does not make a dynasty, but it goes a long way towards regaining national respectability. With three teams finishing in the Top 10 of the final AP poll, the Mark Mays of the world will be less inclined to give Big Ten teams no shot at all next season.

It would take another national title to erase all the Buckeye doubters. With so many returning starters, they may just have the horses to do it.

Knowing the fickle nature of pundits, however, they’ll just re-invent their takes and start talking about warm-weather schools not having the toughness to hang with the “smash-mouth” teams of the Big Ten.

So it goes.