For Oregon, it’s tight end Ed Dickson. The Buckeyes can boast only of safety Kurt Coleman. That’s it. Five Big 10 and five Pac-10 teams have more all-conference representatives than these two league champions.

Forget all-Americans, Doak Walkers, Bronco Nagurskis or any other individual honors. These guys are fighting just to get recognition within their own conference.

The Rose Bowl isn’t a game so often lacking in star power. We’re talking hallowed grounds where the legends have walked. Vince Young, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart are just the recent headliners.

Okay, sure, some of this is dramatic effect playing on (flawed?) conference voting that basically ignored the individual accomplishments of two champions. And I’m sure coaches Chip Kelly and Jim Tressel spent all of one minute caring about such perceived slights.

But it is odd, isn’t it?

Perhaps the matchup we were supposed to get was Oregon State vs. Iowa. After all, both conference runner-ups placed seven players on their respective first teams. That game would have featured 14 first team players. The one we are getting has two.

And with that said, would anyone choose that over Oregon and Ohio State? Okay, perhaps this audience is a highly biased sample, but I’m guessing there’s not a lot of clamoring for a Hawkeyes-Beavers matchup beyond these digital walls of Duck fandom.

Whatever slight fans, players and coaches may have at first felt can be safely buried beneath a rug of rose petals. These teams should carry the all-conference voting as a badge of honor where “team” matters and “individual” is a passing thought.

On January 1, it’ll be Ducks ‘n’ Bucks and that’s all you need to know. The pieces within those two team names are simply an afterthought.

Note: The Pac-10 includes three more special teams players on its all-conference teams. The Big Ten features both a media and coaches team. The Pac-10 uses only coaches’ selections. For a straight up comparison, the Big Ten’s media vote was not considered.