Troy was dang good.
We got trapped by them. Not a fun game to watch.
Okay, well then let’s address the rather ridiculous point that the article you quoted was making.
Football is ALWAYS different from sports with larger numbers of games played. The top teams in football routinely manage to win at the rate of 80% or more. This is true in the NFL, NCAA, CFL, etc. It is due in large measure to two things inherent in the sport. First of all, there are a relatively limited number of games. If you look at MLB in any year after only 12 games were played, you will often see teams with only a couple losses, and teams with only a couple wins (which really doesn’t compare given that they will have played against only 3 or 4 teams by then). Basketball is the same way. It’s the lengthy nature of the seasons in those sports (162 games for baseball over 6 months; 82 over 6 months for basketball) that tends to raise the bottom and depress the top compared to football. And even then, the NBA often has its top teams in the 80% range, and bottom feeders under that magical 30%.
But even more importantly, the article you quote ignores something fairly basic about the nature of the game. Even in the NFL, on any given Sunday, you don’t see 30% of the games ending up in “upsets”, if by upset you mean a lower “ranked” team beating one that is better. This is because only the bottom team in the league can potentially manage all its wins against higher ranked opponents. So that sets not the floor, but the CEILING for average upset results in a league. A team that goes 5 - 11 may well have three of those wins against teams that were ranked below it in the standings, and, thus, contributed only 12.5% upset rate to the composite for the league. Your quoted opinionator conveniently forgets (hell, probably hasn’t got a clue about it) this fact.
As an example, look at the NFL this last weekend. There were only four “upsets”, and of those, only the Giants loss involved a team near the top of the rankings. This is less than 30%, and compares to the sort of result you see in college football on any given Saturday.
In short, in ANY sport, when you focus only on the top teams, you don’t see much in the way of “upsets.” This is true even in sports where the top teams have winning records that don’t reach into the 80% + range. To castigate college football because we focus on 25 out of 120 or so teams, and then we don’t see 30% of their games end in upsets is to show nothing more than a complete lack of understanding of the statistics regarding such matchups in other sports, let alone the true dynamics of what happens in college football (ask yourself: how did IU feel about beating Purdue two weekends ago??).
Now, let’s get to an even MORE basic trouble with the premise that was offered in the article you linked: the concept that a sport, to be watcheable, should be competitive top to bottom. Nothing further from the truth is imagineable. Indeed, if there is a criticism that can be leveled at some modern professional sports (baseball, are you listening?), it is that the concept of mediocre teams winning the whole shebang deligitimizes the concept of the competition. Competition SHOULD be about rewarding the better team. If a game is a 50/50 tossup regardless of skill level, what is the point? That’s gambling, not sport. When a team like the Patriots manages to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl, that’s exactly what we want to see happen/. It rewards good players, good coaching, and good effort. When a team like the Colorado Rockies is in the World Series, they not only should lose it, they probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Now, if it was always predictable, that would be bad, too. Why play the game, then; simply measure the skill levels and mail in the results. But fortunately, in sport, upsets happen. Underdogs win. The Rockies DO make the series. When that happens at an unpredictable and relatively low rate, it makes things interesting. But we certainly don’t want a whole bunch of teams with percentages running from 40 to 60 in a sport like football; how could one ever get excited?
In the top-25 last week, there were 5 upsets. In addition, two teams who were not upset only won in relatively dramatic fashion, staving off upset bids (Tennessee and Clemson). Out of 14 games, that’s a pretty good rate of upsetdom.
Which leads us to your comment about two teams at the top, which were really three teams. Three teams at the top during the course of seven rankings shows that the system has some dynamism.
If the bowl system is so great, why didn’t any of the others copy it?
Look, bowls are fun but are not at all adequate for determining a champion, IMHO. We may just have to disagree.
I never once claimed that the Bowls are. In fact I’ve gone out of my way to explain that crowning a champion isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the paramount goal. College football has gotten worse as a collective sport since the introduction of a “National Championship” system.
The difference is, in following a professional sprt like MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, etc., you follow all the teams. “Following the sport” in college necessitates following the top teams. For lack of a better selection, this means following the top 25. And lets face it, ranked teams only rarely play each other in college football even considering the number of games played, so the top-25 games week in and week out aren’t going to be all that competitive.
A win like Appalaichan State over Michigan is remarkable because it almost never happens; unless ranked teams are playing each other, the higher-ranked team almost always wins. If you doubt this, tell me: How many people who were not fans of Michigan or A-state specifically tuned in to see that game? The answer is “not many”, because not many people believe such an upset can happen. I’m not going to invest time in college football games where the outcome is pretty well known in advance, but I’ll give just about any NFL game a chance regardless of the opponents. I watched that awful Miami-Pittsburgh game Monday–even though Miami is winless and Pittsburgh is a playoff team–because upsets in the NFL aren’t so rare that I believe the outcome of the game to be essentially pre-determined (Miami did lose, which I guess was expected).
Colloege football as a sport is designed to focus on just the top teams; no one outside of the region is focusing on Conference USA, the Sun BElt, or any non-BCS-league. Even in BCS games, do you think anyone who lives more than 30 miles from Indianapolis cares who Indiana is playing week in and week out? Yes I’ll bet Indiana was glad to have their upset win over Purdue, but does only winning twice in 11 years really make it that much sweeter? I’ll bet if you ask any alum, the’d prefer winning it a little more often than 18% of the time versus the one-time thrill of an occasional upset. And if you ask anyone outside the MidWest, they’d say “Huh? Indiana plays football?”
This is simply ridiculous. First off, the Rockies won 90 games, tied for most in the NL; by no stretch of the imagination were they “mediocre”. Second, we have no idea how competitive college football “really” is because the teams with a decent chance of winning it only rarely play each other. Schools have altered their pre-season schedule to eliminate tough opponents, and when a conference like the SEC does get competitive, the system penalizes them for it. The Big 12 last week had three teams* in the top 5 BCS, but does anyone seriously believe this is a more competitive conference than the SEC? The Big 12’s top-ranked teams simply have benefitted from not playing each other until late in the season, a quirk of scheduling that looks more like musical chairs than a real competition.
This is exactly the situation in college football; they DONT play the games (at least the top teams don’t in the regular season), and the voters “mail in” the results by BCS ballot.
The 1-AA tournament shows exactly what the excitement in college football could be. The current system is one that:
[ul]
[li]shut out a dominant USC team in 2003, favoring an Oklahoma squad that lost 35-0 in their conference title game,[/li][li]shut out an undefeated Auburn team in 2004 because, apparently, they didn’t play enough “quality” opponents in the SEC,[/li][li]shut out Boise State in 2006 because, apparently, of the status of their program in 1966.[/li][/ul]
Maybe, just maybe, with a playoff (1) more top teams would schedule tougher games, in the hopes of securing at-large bids, (2) there would be more competitive games late in the season. Until then, you ain’t getting me to watch the latest Big-Ten-vs.-MAC-designated-loser pre-conference matchup, and unless Michigan is playing Ohio State, who outside the midwest will watch a Big Ten conference game? This is a sport worth following nationally?
Wow, you are actively trying to prove your ignorance here. I’m pretty sure the folks in Bloomington and West Lafayette are eager to know who won that game. And for that matter, the 50 million or so people in Big Ten country all had more than a passing interest. See we are football fans, and we like to know who wins the Old Oaken Bucket and Illibuck and Paul Bunyan’s Axe.
For that matter I wager that real fans across the country are pretty interested to hear about such things. Maybe in SEC-land they are a bit more provincial, it is the south after all, but I’ve watched my fair share of Ole Miss-Miss St., Washington-Wazzu, USC-UCLA, Army-Navy, Florida-Georgia, Iron Bowl and Maryland-Virginia games. I’m always interested to hear what Vandy and Utah and SDSU and Texas Tech are up to. Hell, some of the greatest games I ever saw were the old SDSU-BYU battles in the early 90s. Had I been as close-minded as you seem to think all college football fans are I’d have missed out.
Perhaps this is why the SEC thinks it’s so damn special, apparently thats all they are aware exists.
I agree–because it has exposed the canard that the regular season in college football is meaningful, and the public is growing less and less patient with a system that rewards entrenched financial interests in favor of a system overwhelmingly preferred by fans.
Look, we all knew college football was really about rewarding a small group of powerhouse teams. The previous system kept the smaller schools–even from established conferences–out of the big money pretty well. But at some point teams got a little tired of living off the crumbs from the rich guy’s table, and so the BCS was invented–not to make the system any fairer, but to lend an aura of legitimacy to the oligarchy. The contortions this supposedly “objective” system has undergone prove how ridiculous the charade has gotten, and made it harder to believe the lie, no matter how much representatives pontificate about “tradition.” “pageantry,” and “student athletes”. We all see the man behind the curtain, no matter how loudly he says “Pay no attention”.
There are a lot of injustices inherent in college football–pay the goddamn players already; they’re basically university serfs–and a good step out of this quagmire would be to end the BCS charade. Just cut the bowls out entirely, have a 16-team playoff on home sites, and make up an NCAA-owned bowl game for the championship. Let the Rose, Orange, Fiesta, and Sugar make do with #17 or below.
That’s great! I haven’t bashed their scheduling though, like others have with OSU. You better hope that Ok. State, Arizona State, Colorado, and Louisville are at the top of their game when you play them though, or everyone will badmouth your favorite team for scheduling weak opponents.
And to add fuel to the fire–I wouldn’t exactly consider the games with Ok. State or Colorado to be tough ones–unless you scheduled Colorado in the mid 90’s.
Please re-read the post; do you think folks outside the immediate area (fine; West lafayette is more than 30 miles from Indy) follow Indiana fooball week in and week out? And please spare me the phony tradition of things like the “Ol’ Oaken Bucket” and “Paul Bunyan’s Ax”. I’m all for trophies, but the only folks who care about these particular items are the ones who win it. This is not the 19th century anymore.
You may be impying I either live in the south or follow SEC football. My posts show my true location–I live in Chicago–and the fact is the SEC is playing the best college football in the nation.
For a guy with username Omniscient, yo sure do miss a lot.
Yeah, clearly that’s what “the fans” want. :rolleyes:
I agree. I watch games from teams all over the country. Some of the games in the SEC have been riveting this year. If you normally just discount a Kentucky-LSU matchup, let’s say–then you have the priveledge of missing out on one of the most entertaining games of the season.
I watch primarily Big Ten football, because I live in Ohio. However, I still enjoy watching pretty much any game that is on when I’m not enjoying my Buckeyes.
Watching Hawaii this year has been great. USF trying to make a run? Good stuff. I just enjoy football in general–it doesn’t have to be top ranked teams or a major rivalry for me to watch. Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I think most true college football fans are the same way.
Um, yes. I Care!. I am neither an alum of Indy nor Purdue and I have no ties to the state of Indiana. Do folks in the Bayou or PNW care about IU football week-to-week, maybe not, but I wager they care about Tulane and UL-Monroe, Ole Miss, Oregon State and Wazzu, whatever their “Indiana” is. And ESPN runs an obnoxious Rivalry Week segment and spends plenty of time discussing said trophies, so it’s fair to assume that there’s plenty of fans outside those campuses that care enough to tune in.
Gee, that’s original…
Even as a homer, I wouldn’t say the OSU one was a major toughie. The holes in our defense unfortunately make the ones in the University (sic) of Oklahoma’s player/work supervision program look small.
We managed to throw away a shot at the Big XII south championship with an abysmal 4th Q against Texas, and some bad playcalls late in the 4th vs TAMU. Oh well, that’s how football works - if we had won those, we would have been in the drivers seat going into last weekend. But we weren’t. We’re still going bowling, and that excites me.
Did you type that knowing that Colorado won the Big-12 in 2001? Seriously?
Really slowly here…THATS…THE…POINT. Local folks care about these teams; there isn’t much of a national audience for it, which makes it tough to care about the entire sport of college football AS A SPORT. Until, of course, I want to watch good football on New Year’s Day (oops, there’s another “great tradition” gone by the boards; just when do they play these sacrosanct bowl games nowadays?).
ESPN has a vested interest in promoting trophies like “Paul Bunyan’s Axe” because it’s the only way the can trick an audience outside those two states into watching a game like Minnesota-Wisconsin. Look, if you have to explain to me why it’s a rivalry, I guess I really have to question why I should care unless I have an interest in one of the teams. ESPN doesn’t have to explain why Yankees-Red Sox or Notre Dame-USC is a rivalry; once you know who’s playing, you know it will be a better-than-average matchup.
If these silly remnants of yesteryear football really fire up casual fans, then tell me (without Google), who won the Hearland Trophy the past five years? Who plays for the Bronze Boot? How about the “South’s Oldest Rivalry?” And what is awarded to the winner of the USC-Notre Dame game?
I take it from this you hear that kind of crack alot. I’m not surprised; but it should tell you something 
Seriously I did. Winning your conference once since 2000 began doesn’t really qualify you as a tough opponent to schedule. If it does, then everyone better get Northwestern on their schedule–such a tough game that would be. Don’t think so? They won the conference in 2000, so obviously there are a rockin’ team.
I was going back to a time that everyone would recognize as a period that Colorado was consistently very good.
Why do you insist that there is no national audience for these games? Because you say so? I know plenty of college football fans who would be happy to watch any game that’s on–just because they like the sport of football.
And do you honestly think ESPN gets more viewers for a Minnesota-Wisconsin game by promoting Paul Bunyon’s Axe? I don’t think that would "trick’ a lot of people into tuning in.
Come on. That’s not the only good season they’ve had since 2000, and it is dishonest to insinuate that it has been. With the exception of two years, they had been a solid & consistent football team by the time we scheduled them in 2002 off-season.
You just aren’t getting it. The point is that College Football is bigger than just the top-25 teams. As a collective people care about the bottom tier of teams for all sorts of reasons, including but not limited to old traditional rivalries. They don’t all care about all the same teams, but people care about the entire sport. Not just those 15 or 16 traditional powerhouses. There’s a 119 teams in the FBS and no one can watch them all. Comparing that to “watching the entire NFL” is a strawman. The point is that people passionately care about teams outside of the usual suspects and a pure playoff would marginalize them even more than they currently are, which in the long run is bad for football.
That logic is circular. Do they feature it to get viewers or do the viewers demand the features? At the very least you should notice that more than half those games aren’t shown on ESPN and therefore the vested interest argument becomes fairly silly.
The Heartland is Wisconsin-Iowa, but it’s only be going on for like a decade, not exactly “of yesteryear”. The Badgers won this year, not sure about past years. Notre Dame-USC play for a Shillaleigh. You got me on the other two, but being a Midwesterner it’s not a big shock I don’t know the more obscure southern ones. The fact that I know the Iron Bowl, the Egg Bowl and The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party I think validates the entire concept somewhat.
I was at a bar in Columbus over the Thanksgiving holiday, and the Arkansas-LSU game was on. People in the place were probably just as nutty cheering for the Razorbacks as anyone in Arkansas itself, because a LSU loss put the Buckeyes one step closer to being in the National Championship game. I imagine people are going to be rooting for Oklahoma this weekend as vociferously (and maybe Pitt, but no one gives them a real chance).
In a playoff scenario, the two games just mentioned – Arkansas vs LSU and Missouri vs Oklahoma – don’t matter much at all, and not a damn to Columbusites (or Morgantowners or Kansans or… you get my drift). I know it’s trite, but with the BCS system, every game really, truly matters. EVERY game, not just the ones you’re playing in. The elite teams aren’t playing to move up from a five seed to a three seed; they’re playing for a shot at the Big Game, and they’re rooting against those standing in their way. REALLY rooting. With a playoff, the Arkansas/LSU game would be of interest to only Arkansas and LSU fans. I’ll take the drama we have now over the anticlimactic baseball regular season, where maybe there’s two or three teams jockeying for a final spot or two, but most teams know they’re in (barring a historic, Mets-like meltdown) weeks out.
Of course, I’m a Buckeye, so maybe I like the BCS system because it likes us