Stanford has always had an extremely pathetic fan base. They downsized their stadium from 80k to 50k 3 years ago, and it still never comes close to selling out, even now that they have a decent team.
And the Beavers are bowl eligible! Go Oregon State!
A pretty good day overall. Michigan State beats Western to get to 5 wins. Now a win against either PU or PSU and we can go to the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl! Hey, don’t laugh. If they go, I’ll go. I always wanted to see Ford Field anyway. The hated Wolverines drop one to Purdue. First win for the Boilers in Ann Arbor since 1966. I have no idea when was the last time they beat UM and OSU in the same year. Then ND gets sunk by Navy. This was worth watching even while putting up with the NBC announcers and their constant adulation of Clausen.
Too bad for Iowa. As we all know, one loss eliminates anyone not in the Big 12 or SEC. When a Big Ten team loses its first game, it proves we have cooties and aren’t worthy of the title game. When the Superest Ever Conference produces an upset, it’s proof positive that’s why they’re the Superest Ever Conference. It would have been nice to have seen Nick Satan lose, that’s only somewhat tempered by the pleasure in seeing Miles lose. Course it’s about time for Nick to take his show on the road once more.
Even as a Spartan fan, it hurts me to see RichRod in charge of those Wolverines. I just don’t think he’s worthy and if he has any success, he’ll just cash it in for a bigger check somewhere else. I hope one more losing season will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or that the NCAA investigation gives the incoming AD an excuse to fire him with cause.
Get over yourself. If anyone gets an unearned boost from the BCS, it’s the Big 12. The SEC is 5-0 in the BCS era. Big 12: 2-4. Big 10: 1-2. That one win was a double overtime squeaker with a very questionable call over a Big East Miami. This mythical SEC boost always turns out to be bluster when they win the battle on the field. And they got screwed in 2004, when Auburn went undefeated, Oklahoma got its ass handed to it, and USC got the championship. When, exactly, did the SEC get an undeserved spot in the title game? Please enlighten us. Or alternatively, you can stop bitching about the SEC and come to terms with what an embarrassing mess the Big 10 is this year.
In unlikely scenario-land, thanks to the games yesterday, GT just became the top ranked 1-loss team. Direct all you paranoid scheming to complaining about how the Yellow Jackets of the dreaded ACC are gonna get into the title game over those deserving teams of the powderpuff conferences.
Well said Admiral Crunch.
I wish these Big 10 fans would enlighten me on when the Big 10 won a game against a non-con opponent ranked in the top 10. On another board, a Michigan faithful reminds me of teh Wolverine win over Florida in the Outback bowl, January 2008. Florida was 8-3 at the time and ranked #9 in the AP poll at the time. But in the BCS and Coaches poll were #12.
Ohio State has had their opportunties, failed every time.
The fact is that it has been years since the Big 10 has beat an OOC undisputed top 10 opponent.
Started watching college football in the fall of 2002, didja?
I qualified that statement with…
7 years is a long time.
I’m sorry. You threw me off with your use of the word “every.” I didn’t realize that word has a statute of limitations of seven years.
BobLibDem was basically saying the SEC gets the benefit of doubt. In my mind, they have earned the benefit of the doubt, winning three straight BCS Games.
What has the Big 10 done lately? A 1-6 record in last season’s bowl games, Penn St losing to USC in the Rose Bowl and OSU losing to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl. OSU losing to USC the last two years and losing to Florida and LSU in BCS games. Illinois getting blown out in the Rose bowl two years ago. Michigan three years ago
The last three years the Big 10 has cluttered up the BCS bowls with two teams, losing each and every game. They might start getting some respect when they start winning some big games out of conference
I don’t take issue with any of this. (I did, however, take issue with you saying that Buckeyes have missed on every opportunity to win The Big One. It’s just flat-out not true).
The Big Ten is definitely in a downward swing, and the SEC is in ascendance (although I think they’re a weaker conference this year than in previous years… not that that necessarily means they won’t win another National title, since they’re essentially guaranteed to have one of the two teams in that game). The tier of “Really, really good, if not elite” teams in the SEC is arguably populated solely by LSU this year, whereas in past years Georgia, Auburn, and a random take-your-pick of Tennessee/One of the Mississippi Schools/Arkansas/Auburn was at that level as well. I don’t think, apart from your top two teams, any of the rest of the teams are just a, “Damn, I wish we didn’t have to play them, because we’d have to play balls out perfectly to beat them” team this year. But that’s just my opinion.
Stewart Mandel at SI had an article a few months ago (I think) where he tabulated a great many metrics (win-loss, head-to-head, OOC schedule, draft picks, bowl wins, poll standings, etc.) to show that the SEC is certainly the dominant conference today, but in a time span of… hmm, roughly 1997-2002 (or thereabouts), the Big Ten was dominant.
His take home message is that conference supremacy is cyclical. It seems to me that every conference except the SEC gets this. Like you said, seven years is a long time, and I’d be very, very surprised if the SEC was still dominant in 2016.
- (Championship game played in '08).
BCS Standings December 2007
11 Ohio State 11-1
2 LSU 11-2
3 Virginia Tech 11-2
4 Oklahoma 11-2
5 Georgia 10-2
6 Missouri 11-2
7 USC 10-2
8 Kansas 11-1
9 West Virginia 10-2
10 Hawaii 12-0
11 Arizona State 10-2
12 Florida 9-3
13 Illinois 9-3
14 Boston College 10-3
15 Clemson 9-3
16 Tennessee 9-4
17 Brigham Young 10-2
18 Wisconsin 9-3
19 Texas 9-3
20 Virginia 9-3
21 South Florida 9-3
22 Cincinnati 9-3
23 Auburn 8-4
24 Boise State 10-2
25 Connecticut 9-3
AP Poll and Coaches poll both had LSU 2nd. Who do you think should have picked over LSU?
What is really shameful is that Illinois got a Rose Bowl bid with a 9-3 record.
It was just 3 years ago (I think) that Ohio State and Michigan were #1 and #2, and their game was the Game of the Century. Reasonable people thought they should play a rematch in the NCG.
Of course they both lost their respective bowl games so we see how well that played out, but the perception of Big 10 Bad, SEC Good is fairly recent.
The Terrance Cody all-you-can-eat corndog buffet is over, the Who’s are licking their wounds in Whoville, and the Gators are staring at their feet, kicking dirt, wondering if their star players can survive a matchup against a much more physical team. Maybe Tebow can run it up the middle.
Roll tide.
That was 2006, and ESPN Game Day had the countdown clock for the game starting about 8 weeks prior to the game. OSU won 42-39 and then proceeded to get blown out by Florida in the BCS game 41-14.
OSU beat Texas in the second game of the season. Texas was ranked #2 at the time which I bleieve is the last time a big 10 team won against a highly ranked team. Texas finished the year at 10-3, ranked #13 in both big polls.
LSU lost to unranked Arkansas in Baton Rouge on November 23. Because of this, they dropped from BCS #1 to #7. They then beat Tennessee in the SEC Championship game and jumped up to #2. In the process, they leaped, among others, Virginia Tech (who hadn’t lost since October 25, to then-#2 Boston College) and Oklahoma (who hadn’t lost since a road loss to Texas Tech on November 17).
By what logic, other than “ZOMG the SEC is soooooo tough!” does LSU rise that rapidly after a home loss to an unranked team?
So, to answer your question, I’d say Virgina Tech at least, and possibly Oklahoma.
(And for LSU to get that bounce which ended up giving them a HOME game for the Championship game is even bullshittier).
Both LSU losses that season were in triple overtime. VT got dismantled by LSU 48-7 earlier in the year, and if there’s one team that doesn’t deserve another shot at the NC game, it’s Oklahoma. They’ve lost their last 3, all 3 of which a better team got passed over and went on to win their bowl game. USC, Auburn, and Texas. That last one wasn’t quite as bad, but they don’t deserve any special treatment.
Both Auburn and Oklahoma were undefeated.
Auburn OOC schedule was Louisiana Monroe, The Citadel, and Louisiana Tech.
Oklahoma OOC schedule was Bowling Green, Houston, and Oregon.
IMO, Auburn got what they deserved with that non-conference schedule. And you might consider me a closet Auburn fan. I have some very good friends that are Auburn supporters and I have been to many games at Auburn.
It isn’t about “undeserved” spots, because there is usually no reasonable way to choose. The SEC teams that have been gifted titles were no more or less deserving than many other teams.
Last year USC and Utah had just as much claim (if not more) to the title game than Florida. IIRC, both of Florida’s laughable BCS titles came in years when Florida lost a game and some other team had a perfect season with a BCS bowl win.
LSU wasn’t undeserving either… just no more deserving than many teams that didn’t get invited.
It has become sort of a self fulfilling prophecy now. SEC teams have been given gift titles ahead of equally deserving teams, and now they use that to claim they should be given more.
I’m not too adamant about this one, it’s just that Oklahoma was in a similar situation the year before and got the edge again, and then got stomped. It’s a good example of the SEC not getting special treatment, even when the BCS had been kind to Oklahoma and gotten stung with a split #1 at the end.
Just getting to the title game isn’t a gifted title, they have to actually win the game. The SEC has won every time they’ve been invited. If someone is undeserving, it’s the teams that get in and lose(like Oklahoma!). Everyone wants a playoff except the people in charge of making it happen. If there are undeserving teams getting in to the title game, the title game decides who was less undeserving. And it’s been the SEC every time. Direct the venom elsewhere.