College Football Thread - BCS, Bowls, Conference Championship, Coaching Changes

Cafe Society
161

So let me get this straight – we’re supposed to look at LSU’s entire body of work… except for losing AT HOME to an UNRANKED Arkansas team? That they lost to LAST WEEK?

Look, I’ll give a team an off week. Go ahead and lose to a Kentucky team that just isn’t that good. And fine, you can have an off day and lose to an Arkansas. But to do both, and still, for SOME reason, be eligible to be leapfrogged into a HOME national championship game is just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. LSU lost to not one, but TWO not great teams. That should disqualify them, IMO.

Winning your conference is NOT a prerequisite for playing in the big one. And since it is NOT a prerequisite, there is no reason not to move Georgia up two spots. Or hell, bump up one loss Kansas (I know, that’s not going to happen, people have disrespected Kansas as much this year as they’ve respected LSU, both equally baseless).

If you absolutely cannot stomach putting in a non-conference champ into the National Championship, you’ve got VT, Oklahoma, USC, and West Virginia. I think you get one mulligan game. West Virginia lost to two not great teams, so they’re out. USC lost to Stanford, which REALLY uses up that mulligan, but they lost to a Dixonized Oregon, so maybe they should play instead of LSU. LSU demolished VT head to head, so it’s hard to promote them. But what about Oklahoma? They mulliganed against Colorado, and lost to Texas Tech when their QB was out.

So (I’m sort of drunkenly thinking out loud here) I think you can make good cases for Georgia, Kansas, USC, and Oklahoma, not so good a case for LSU, and bad cases for VT and WVU.

(And, obviously, OSU gets in. That’s been a given all along.)

SERIOUSLY, LSU lost last frickin’ weak to an unranked team at home! Argh!

162

I’d add that LSU didn’t look very impressive against Tenn. to that rant.

163

What do you guys think. If Illinois is BCS eligible does the Rose Bowl pass up a marque match up so that USC can steam roll the Illini?

164

They very well could have changed the rule when, I think it was, Nebraska made the NCG without having won their conference. (I really don’t remember, it may have been Oklahoma as well.) With ALL the tweaking that goes into the BCS year in and year out- if they REALLY cared about a non-conference winning team going into the game- they’d have changed it then.

The Powers that be did nothing.

I’m not sure if they thought it was just a flukey thing that wasn’t likely to ever happen again, or if they liked that a team could lose their conference but still be the best team in the land. Got me. Either way precedent is set, and so my guess- Georgia is in.

Were I making the rules nobody not LSU, USC, Ohio St, Oklahoma or Hawaii would be in the discussion at this point. (Maybe VT also) However since the BCS ignores my calls I must abide by the Georgia/Ohio St tilt.

oh, just toss one, eh? Say LSU, OSU and Va Tech win… why do we then just say to Va Tech- ok, good season, even though you won your playoff game you’re out! Better luck next year. A 6 game playoff needs to have a seeded bye system.

Surely the NFL regular season is not ruined. Every game matters in a 16 game season, in a 12 game season even more. You say that they would just blow off losses, but there would still be a somewhat arbitrary system for picking the top 8 or top 6 or top however many teams make the playoffs.

Besides that, we have a 2 loss team making the National Championship game… whoever makes that game gets to have the attitude your fighting against anyway.

Once you take that loss, you don’t know where you will end up in the standings, and there is certainly no guarantee you’ll end up in the playoffs.

165

I certainly hope not. I’m not sure why any of the other available teams qualify as a marquee matchup. If LSU isn’t in the NC game then I can see LSU getting selected to play USC over Illinois, but the Illini are a better draw than every other choice. UGA has a much smaller fan base than the Illini and they have more recent success which I think mitigates the likelihood their people will make the long trip. Illinois preserves the Big Ten v. Pac-10 tradition which is huge, especially considering a massive number of the corporate sponsors and booster who make the game possible are Big Ten sponsors and alums. Fact is that there are a tons of people with hotel reservations, plane tickets and game tickets who will be pissed off if they aren’t seeing a Big Ten team there. And as for the Illini getting steamrolled, that’s what they said about the OSU game too.

166

I’ve always had a 8 team playoff idea. Six BCS Conference Champions + 2 At Large teams (add in similar guarantees for non-BCS conferences that exist now), seed according to BCS standings. If you can’t make the top eight you don’t deserve to play for the National Championship. After the new BCS comes out tomorrow I’ll post .

167

As I’ve mentioned in another thread, I’d go with a 16 team playoff consisting of the 11 conference winners and 5 at-large teams chosen according to the BCS rankings. That way an undefeated team like Hawaii that plays in a “lesser” conference will have at least chance to show it can compete head-to-head with a team with one loss (or two) from a “stronger” conference.

Of course that would probably mean eliminating at least one non-conference game from everyone’s schedule.

168

Hawaii doesn’t deserve a BCS bowl with their schedule. I’ve seen some easy schedules, but look at this:


09/02	N Colorado     W 63-6
09/08	at La Tech     W 45-44
09/15	at UNLV        W 49-14
09/23	C Southern     W 66-10
09/29	at Idaho       W 48-20
10/07	Utah St        W 52-37
10/12	at San Jose St W 42-35
10/28	New Mexico St  W 50-13
11/10	Fresno St      W 37-30
11/16	at Nevada      W 28-26
11/23	#19 Boise St   W 39-27
12/01	Washington     W 35-28

I’ve seen no evidence that Hawaii could have had so much as a winning record if they played in the SEC. The fact that they get a BCS bid is preposterous, especially when it looks like Georgia or Tennessee will be on the outside looking in, if I’m reading the tea leaves correctly. Is anyone prepared to argue that the Rainbows are as good a football team as UGA or UT? I didn’t think so.
I hate these damn arguments about who should play in the Championship Game. I hate that losing in week 4 is OK, but losing in week 10 is a crushing blow. I hate that every coach in America called SportsCenter tonight to get more votes like it was American effing Idol. I hate that everyone blames “the computers.” I hate that all the coaches will vote for other coaches they like to try to get them into the Championship Game. I hate people who say, “every game is like a playoff game,” and then get mad when I try to point out how retarded that is. I hate that there’s no playoff. It offends my sensibilities as a sports fan. Decide it on the field. Why is that so hard? 4 or 6 or 8 teams, 2 or 3 rounds, and boom! There it is. Why has this not happened? (I know the answer: money and inertia. But it’s frustrating as all hell.) Every other sport has a playoff. Every other level of football has a playoff. Hell, every other level of college football has a playoff. But not the Bowl Series Football Division of Football Division, or whatever it’s called. Why?!?! For the love of God WHY?!?! GAAAHHH!!!
CLIFF’S NOTES: Hawaii’s schedule is weak, and I want a playoff. And I vented a little.

169

This stuff just gets so tiresome. How quickly people forget…



**Boise State 2006 Football Schedule/Results**
August 31	Sacramento State 	W 45-0	1-0 (0-0)	
September 7	Oregon State 		W 42-14	2-0 (0-0)	
September 16	at Wyoming 		W 17-10	3-0 (0-0)	
September 23	Hawaii 			W 41-34	4-0 (1-0)	
September 30	at Utah 		W 36-3	5-0 (1-0)	
October 7	Louisiana Tech 		W 55-14	6-0 (2-0)	 
October 15	at New Mexico State 	W 40-28	7-0 (3-0)	
October 21	at Idaho 		W 42-26	8-0 (4-0)	 
November 1	Fresno State 		W 45-21	9-0 (5-0)	
November 11	at San Jose State 	W 23-20	10-0 (6-0)	 
November 18	Utah State 		W 49-10	11-0 (7-0)	
November 25	at Nevada 		W 38-7	12-0 (8-0)	
January 1	vs No. 11 Oklahoma 	W 43-42	13-0 (8-0)

Looks familiar. And especially note that last one…

Also, people have been killing Michigan all year for their “embarrassing” loss to Appalachian State but everyone neglects to mention that App. State dominated it’s league and won the National Championship in 2006 and is firmly planted in the Semi’s of this years tourney and will very likely be favored for the remainder of it’s run. The ongoing elitism that posts like this illustrate exactly why the pollsters are such jackasses.

170

Hawaii’s schedule was weak, no one is denying that. In fact, fans wanted the AD to resign after he got not one, but two Division I-AA teams. But, no point complaining about it now, the players have no choice in their opponents.

Hawaii fans and players know they don’t belong in the big game, despite their record, so there won’t be any lobbying. Just making it to a BCS game is huge for the program. Hopefully, another Boise can occur, but I think Hawaii is “just happy to be there”. However, with this QB and offense, you never know.

One interesting tidbit: Hawaii beat one team that is currently ranked in the Top 25. Ohio State also beat only one (Wisconsin).

Why is the discussion Ohio State vs _____?

Why not LSU vs USC or Oklahoma or something?

171

Absolutely. There is no reason not to do it, and a 16 team playoff is STILL only 13% of the D1-A teams, and that’s lower than any other playoff system there is in major American sports, pro or college. The biggest problem with the BCS crap is that 70% of the entire D1-A football programs are eliminated from national championship contention before a SINGLE GAME has been played. That’s not a good system. “Yeah, you’re in this lesser conference, but because of that, no matter how good your team is, it’s impossible for you to win the championship. Sucks to be you!”

Shorten the regular season by one game (the way it was a few years ago), add a 16 team playoff, having each of the bowl sites host the game and still call it the bowl of choice, rotate the NC game between the big 4 bowls, and the semifinals will be two others, and one of the quarterfinal games will be the 4th. All the really small bowls can still exist and feature such amazing matchups as Houston vs. Navy. Heck, basketball does it with the NIT, and that seems to be OK.

It’s the only way to determine a true champion, and we can stop all this conference supremacy speculation crap and just let it play out.

FTR…Buckeye fan here, and I want LSU…and I want to pound them into the ground. :slight_smile:

172

First off, what a jerk Les Miles turned out to be. Mitch Albom had it down right:

That being said, I hope they have LSU v OSU in the title game. A chance for the Big Ten to shut up those blowhards from the SEC. A chance for Les Show Me The Money Miles to choke on the big one. You can make a case for Georgia but they didn’t even make the conference title game. You can make a case for a one-loss Kansas but they were exposed as frauds last week. USC? Not losing at home to Stanford. Georgia can take the Sugar Bowl spot, Illinois to the Rose Bowl.

Hats off to Pitt for a spirited victory over West Virginia AND the Big East officials who were trying to whistle WV’s way into the title game. Wannstedt and his staff did an amazing job getting the team ready for this one.

173

Painfully obvious, wasn’t it?

I hope LSU makes it, too, but for a different reason: so that three different SEC teams can pound OSU in three consecutive seasons: Florida last year, LSU this year, and Georgia next year. :smiley:

174

The Bucks have a little better schedule next year, going to USC in 08 and home in 09 but they still have Youngstown State and Ohio U. I think we could fix the scheduling of cupcakes by limiting each school to 7 home games. Now with most teams playing 8 conference games, that would mean at least one non-conference road game out of four. So instead of inviting the Sam Houston Institute of Technology to collect a check for visiting and losing to you, you might have incentive to schedule a major non-conference opponent.

175

Another point in LSU’s favor: under the old (pre-overtime tiebreaker) rules, they would have finished the season undefeated, with two ties, in which case no one would be questioning their credentials.

176

And under the old (no forward pass) rules, Navy and Air Force have the most potent offenses in Div 1-A. (They’re 1st and 2nd in team rushing stats.)

What the heck is your point?

(One could also point out that LSU was just as close to having an 8-4 season as they were to this mythical 10-0-2 thing.)

It’s so funny every year watching fans twist and contort to make arguments for how their favourite team should be in the NC game. If there’s one thing anyone should have learned from this season of upsets, it’s that the “elite” programs can no longer dominate the masses the way they once did. Being ranked in the top 10 doesn’t mean you’re really all that much better than some unranked team. There is absolutely no way to tell how matchups between any of the top 25 teams would play out. The only way to pick a champion is on the field.

177

You’re saying that as if you didn’t have that chance last year.

You calling us blowhards is hysterical.

178

pssst. spoke is doing the exact opposite.

How funny is that?

179

WHEN they lost shouldn’t matter. It rightfully doesn’t matter to the computers, and it shouldn’t to the humans.
The fact is this: They lost twice in multiple overtimes to 2 good teams in the toughest conference there is. Never got solidly beat. Never an embarrassing loss to an unranked team like WVa and USC suffered. (OK, UK and Arkansas might not be ranked NOW, but I don’t think that UK’s waning fortunes puts that game in the same category as USC-Stanford.)

My only other nitpick here is Kansas. Sure, they had a good run with weak teams. But when they finally played a ranked team, they lost. They are, at best, the 3rd best team in their conference. There’s no way that you can make the argument that they’re the 2nd best in the nation.

*(OK, I realize that some would say the same about Georgia, but I don’t think that anybody legitimately thinks that UGA is the 3rd best team in the SEC. The reason that the UK-Tennessee game was so closely paid attention to last week was because nobody thought that Tennessee could beat LSU, but a lot thought that Georgia could. It’s a damn shame that UK couldn’t finish off UT last week, because a UGA-LSU SEC-championship game would have offerred a lot more legitimacy.)

180

I really like that if you standardize the regular season to be 10 or 11 games and no more.

I’m probably not even going to watch the national championship game for the first time in years because it holds absolutely no intrigue for me this year. What exactly will it prove? I have no idea who should be in the final game and frankly neither does anybody else. I’m almost positive it’s not the Bucks and they seem to be the only cinch at this point.

The national title game I WANT to see is USC v. Oklahoma. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a Florida fan.