Actually, the MAC teams do play the big boys, but just not enough times. They will play teams from the Big Ten or SEC, but it’s always on the road (except for the magnaminous Michigan State that traveled to Central Michigan). So let’s say Ohio U does get Florida on the schedule and knocks them off. They still don’t go, because they won’t have enough quality opponents on their schedule. Yes it sucks, yes it’s unfair. The only way to resolve this is to have a playoff. Let the giant conferences have an automatic qualifier, but would it hurt to have the MAC and WAC champs have a play-in game to qualify?
College football viewership is growing by leaps and bounds. I don’t think anyone is particularly concerned with its continued popularity.
Dear Notre Dame,
You are NOT back. You are STILL irrelevant.
Your triple overtime “win” against Pitt looks about on par now.
Your MLB has proven he can tackle kids, but not men.
Your vaunted DL got trucked and is vastly overrated.
How you ended up as number 1 in the nation and in the BCS Championship just exposes the joke that is the BCS system. In a real playoff, the Irish get curb stomped in the opening round.
Do what now? Did you look at ND’s schedule? Who did they play? Michigan? Yeah Bama beat them too. Oklahoma? Comparable to LSU. Stanford? Comparable to UGA. Anyone else? Navy, Pitt, Boston College, Wake Forest, USC?
Not that Bama’s schedule was particularly tough all around, but to claim they couldn’t have possibly survived ND’s schedule is ridiculous.
While that may be true Florida and LSU obviously would have lost in the first round since they did lose to teams that would barely make the tournament. Georgia should have been beaten as well. So if we had gone with an 8 team play off this year OU, K state, Florida, Lsu and ND would have been embarrassed in the first round. Oh wait there are 5 teams on that list so since they already beat teams on that list ND, Florida or K state would have to be in the top 4. I think Florida losing to Louisville is worse then the beating ND took and I think K state ND would be a good game so for a team that isn’t back they are at least in the top 5 in the country.
I think any team from the ACC (12) SEC (14) Big 10 (12) Pac12 (12) and Big12 (10) and several teams from the Big East could have gone to last nights game if they had gone undefeated.
Thats 60+ teams.
There are not 240 teams in the FBS.
Did anyone else giggle last night when McCarron and Jones argued a bit, and #91 for ND started to jump up and down trying to egg those two on? Sorry #91, but a disagreement isn’t saving your defense from getting run over by Bama.
“Georgia should have been beaten as well”? This would be the Georgia that lost to Alabama by four points in the last six seconds of the championship of the best conference in college football? As oppposed to losing by 28 in a game that was decided by halftime?
I seriously doubt that the Dawgs could have beaten Oregon or K State - legitimately good teams - but there’s no question that they’re a better team than ND. Stanford would play the Dawgs tough and might beat them. But this game proved that ND had no business playing in the NC.
Give Notre Dame credit, though: if they were in the SEC, they’d scare the hell out of Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
I was actually a bit put off by the early moments of very bad officiating (imho, ymmv). I was thinking, Hey, don’t let refs decide the game! But then it settled down and ND just flat out sucked, with or without bad calls. 24-21 I would have yelled like a Houston Oiler fan. 42-14 was a joke. (Tho, a joke comparable to certain NFL Superbowls I can think of.)
For years I’ve been very vocal about the need for some sort of playoff in FBS. The old system was horrible. The early BCS had flaws. Current BCS is still flawed, but it’s better than the old Bowl/Poll system. There will probably never be a tourny style of play off for college football. Too much money in the bowls.
Congrats to Tide fans. How many 1st round draft picks were on that team?
Actually I was referring to the Georgia that was tied with Nebraska going into the 4th quarter. A Nebraska that was embarrassed in their conference championship game. If that lineman hadn’t gotten hurt for Nebraska it would have been a race to the finish instead of the sackfest it turned into.
Georgia scored 22 unanswered points and won by 2 TDs vs. an 11-2 Nebraska. That game was only a negative for the Dawgs if you failed to actually watch the game.
Congratulations to the Tide; Nick Saban has built something awesome down there. And I hate that. I hate dynasties.
It’s like baseball in the 1950’s, where every team was fighting for the right to lose to the Yankees. It’s just no fun. And due to the highly subjective nature of college football, it’s self-perpetuating. It’s as if the Yankees started every season with a 3 game lead because they won the year before.
So I was hoping for an upset (or at least an exciting game), to return some semblance of parity to college football. Didn’t get it, by a long shot.
(And please, everybody just shut up about Notre Dame and whether or not they “deserved” to be there. They beat 9 bowl-bound teams. Nobody else can say that. Nobody.)
And to make matters worse, there are many obnoxious SEC fans out there (present company excluded, of course) who will stifle all discussions about anything concerning college football with hoots and hollers of Roll Tide and War Eagle and Geaux Tigers (it’s interesting how everybody in the south gets to absorb the success of Alabama, through osmosis) and how everyone else in the country is completely irrelevant. And we now have to wait another year for another chance to get them to STFU.
Well said, jsc1953.
The SEC’s conference pride is a virtue. It reflects well on SEC fans, when contrasted with the mutual contempt that characterizes rival fans in other conferences.
Tell it to the Auburn tree poisoner. Rivalries within the SEC aren’t any different than rivalries anywhere else, and SEC fans only discovered this virtue a couple of years ago, which is where this whole “virtue” starts to become disingenuous. If the SEC pride thing were earnest it would be annoying, but it’s just fans boosting their own schools by the schools they beat (or the schools that beat them) are all super awesome, so their own team is obviously also super awesome. The strength of the conference is obvious, but this stuff got old quite a while ago.
I disagree. The rivalry between teams is the same, such as Alabama vs. Auburn. The difference is shown when SEC schools play non-SEC ones. SEC fans will root for their rivals to win against other conferences’ schools. This is atypical.
It’s older than a couple years, and quite earnest. I’m quite skeptical that such an abstract, conniving plan (make my school look better by making sure everyone thinks our conference opponents are great!) would take off the way SEC pride/loyalty has.
This Grantland article explores the history, and the roots in Southern pride.
In that sense, yes- because it subverts the rivalries (some of which have real history and tradition) to an ever-changing and money-driven conference structure. I don’t see that as a virtue.
And certainly we can all agree everybody loves Southern pride and it has no connections to anything people find unsavory.
It’s not subverting rivalries. Trust me on this one. They are as intense as they ever were, if not more so.
SEC fans root for SEC teams out of conference, with the usual exception of their biggest rivals. I can promise you that Bama didn’t have a lot of suppor from their Auburn brethren last night. Only half of the state of Alabama is celebrating this morning, while the other half mourns.
I just read a stat that I haven’t confirmed, but it’s interesting if it’s true: the SEC bottom 8 teams were 0-30 this season against the top 6.
So, no parity in the SEC. No “top to bottom, SEC is the best”. If true, the top 6 are far and away the strongest (mini-) conference. But the bottom 8 are downright mediocre.
And that gives an easy road to the post-season: if you play 4 OOC games against weak (sometimes FCS) opponents and 3 games against the bottom feeders of the conference…you’re 7-0 before the season begins.
Looking at the schedule and the final records each team played before the final game-
Alabama played these teams
Michigan 8 5
W Kentucky 7 6
Arkansas 4 8
Florida Atl 3 9
Mississippi 7 6
Missouri 5 7
Tennessee 5 7
Mississippi St 8 5
Louisiana St 10 3
Texas A&M 11 2
W Carolina 1 10
Auburn 3 9
Georgia 12 2
ND played these teams:
Navy 8 5
Purdue 6 7
Michigan St 7 6
Michigan 8 5
Miami FL 7 5
Stanford 12 2
Brigham Young 8 5
Oklahoma 10 3
Pittsburgh 6 7
Boston College 2 10
Wake Forest 5 7
Southern California 7 6
Record of Alabama’s foes: 84-79 For Notre Dame: 86-68
Alabama played 7/13 games against winning teams, Notre Dame 8/12
The only patsy that ND played was Boston College, Alabama had Florida Atlantic, Auburn, and W Carolina.
I think ND earned its spot.