NU’s been improving, with a loss at USC and then Texas last week. The two NC competitors from last year, so nothing to be ashamed of. But I want the WR who fumbled at the end of the Texas game investigated for possible gambling. Had he fallen down, NU would’ve just had to run out the clock. But no…
Back to 1997: Funny thing was, before the bowls, most Husker fans felt they had a better shot vs Michigan than SEC-champ Tennessee with Peyton Manning.
All said, I do agree a split was the best thing to do. I doubt any t-shirts say “Michigan:co-champs” (they don’t in Nebraska) and we did get that spiffy crystal trophy. And thank goodness we put helium in that Mizzou ball!
What everyone- commentators, fans, everyone- is overlooking in the great Irish comeback is the completely boneheaded decision made I assume by the UCLA coach which in hindsight cost UCLA the game. Even without hindsight, it was stupid in general principle even if it did not come back to bite them in the ass:
To wit: Late in 4th, two minutes or so to go UCLA has 4th and 9, clock winding down. Instead of doing what any senisble coach would do, punt with exactly one second on the clock, genius UCLA coach TAKES A DELAY PENALTY, which in essence trades FIVE KEY YARDS of field position for ONE LOUSY SECOND of time! This is stupid in an of itself, because which would be more important, five yards or one lousy second??
Made even more stupid in retrospect, because Notre Dame was called for holding on the punt and turned what would have been a first down and the ballgame into 4th and 4. Sheesh! Outcoached by Weis, totally.
A convert! Woo! Of course you love Cal…they have identical unis to your Mountaineers. I can never tell on a highlight if I’m seeing Steve Slaton or Marshawn Lynch.
I used to kinda like ND – they’ve got an extra helping of Color & Pageantry of College Football. Plus, I was raised Catholic. But since my Bears have started getting good, I’ve been paying more attention to bowl bids and BCS standings (which were largely irrelevant for my first 30 years of fandom); and it’s time for ND to drop the special status. Join the Big East (they could use a heavyweight) and compete with everyone else for TV time and bowl bids.
West Virginia (or Louisville) making the national title game would be a huge travesty for college football in general. Either team would be about the sixth or seventh best team in the SEC this year. But I am looking forward to a 2-loss Notre Dame team (two losses against one of the easiest schedules this side of the Big East) making a BCS bowl and getting humiliated yet again. Like Hank Hill said, it’s a great way to start off the new year.
You know what, fuck the SEC come to think of it. Hayseed motherfuckers. We’re so fucking awesome, we’re in the SEC. I fucking hate West Virginia as those Hoopie bastards are the Enemy, but I think they can beat any team in the country this year. It hurts to say that, but I’m firmly convinced it’s true. Jam your travesty in your sigmoid colon.
Ah, the endless Conference Supremacy argument. OOC record? Your #1 beat our cupcake…big deal. Rankings? All our teams are so good, they beat each other up. On and on…Thanks to Cal vs Tenn, I’ve been hearing this since July.
I think the only measure will be bowl matchups. Let’s see which conference comes out with the best record in January, when it’s best vs best.
I don’t doubt they could beat any team in the country. But you have to do it over and over again to win in a real conference. You have to win at Tennessee, then you have to beat Alabama the next week. You have to beat LSU, then travel to Auburn the next week. West Virginia gets to rest up between their tough games and they only have to bring their A game two or three times a year.
They are. The college pronounces its own name as “Noter Dame”. They’re allowed to do that. They are not obliged to echo the practice of a French cathedral.
Because if they were in the SEC, they would go 5-3 in the conference. A team like Alabama is capable of beating anybody in the country (they are also capable of losing to anyone, that’s just how Mike Shula does things), but they’ve already lost three games (at Florida, at Tennessee, and at an Arkansas team that’s been excellent after getting off to a slow start.) Look at Cal, they are definitely capable of beating any team, but they went 0-1 against the SEC.
No team can be at their best every week, so I don’t think it’s really fair that a team who’s second hardest game is Rutgers gets judged on the same scale as a team playing one of the toughest schedules in the country. If Florida and Auburn both win out and go to the SEC Championship game, the winner of that game will have achieved far more than an undefeated West Virginia team over the course of the football season.
Not if West Virginia (or any other team for that matter) beats them on the football field. If you want to complain about your conference being too tough, move to the Sun Belt.
Yep, Georgia was about 8th in the SEC last year, weren’t they?
WVU doesn’t get to cruise to the national title game…while the Tennessees and LSUs and Auburns and Floridas have already taken each other on (with plenty of time to recover in the polls, I might add…probably deliberately scheduled that way), the hardest part of WVU’s schedule is yet to come. Louisville Nov. 2nd (who if I recall are #6 in the country), Pitt on Nov. 16th (others receiving votes, and a team that’s marked this game down all year) and a resurgent #16 Rutgers December 2nd.
Besides, I know that SEC teams don’t play Mississippi State (which WVU beat handily despite 100+ yards of penalties) or Vanderbilt, do they?
But even that doesn’t shut them up. You’d think West Virginia and the Big East would’ve gotten some respect from the SEC partisans after the Mountaineers beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl (in Atlanta no less) last January but the SEC fans ignore that and still insist they are automatically the best.
As an addendum, Out of Conference Schedules for the mighty SEC
Auburn: Washington St., Buffalo, Tulane, Arkansas St.
Florida: Southern Miss, Central Florida, Western Carolina, Florida State
LSU: Lousiana-Lafayette, Arizona, Tulane, Fresno State
Tennessee: California, Air Force, Marshall, Memphis
No team plays more than one BCS conference team, and only one of the 4 BCS schools being ranked.
WVU: Marshall, Eastern Washington (Buffalo until Auburn stole them), Maryland, East Carolina and Mississippi State. 2 BCS opponents
Louisville: Kentucky, Temple, Miami, Kansas State, Mid Tenn State: 3 BCS opponents, including the then-ranked Miami
Yes, West Virginia beat Georgia last year, but like I was saying, it’s one game. They got up to a huge lead in the first half against an overconfident Georgia team and barely hung on for the win. It was impressive, but I’d like to see them do that for an entire year. I’m a Gator fan, and from my objective analysis, if we played WV ten times, we win at least seven. So yeah, they could beat us, but it would be a fluke, and they would probably have a classic letdown game the next week. If their next week’s opponent is Syracuse, they’ll still win. If it’s LSU, they won’t. That’s the difference between the SEC and the Big East.
beergeek, are those OOC schedules supposed to support your argument somehow? Is playing two BCS opponets really twice as hard as playing one when WV’s two are Maryland and Mississippi State, and Tennessee’s one is Cal? And Southern Miss is a more difficult game than Maryland or Kansas State. All those schedules look pretty similar to me, a few buy games against crappy teams and maybe one game against a powerful team. But if I were WV and wanted to get into a national championship game, I would load up the schedule with powerful teams. Instead of playing Mississippi State, play LSU. Instead of playing Maryland, play Clemson. Instead of Eastern Washington, play Cal. That way you have a schedule on par with the teams from real conferences, and won’t get jumped by a one-loss team should make it through undefeated. We don’t let Utah or Boise State play for the national title if they are undefeated, so why should we let in a WV team that only plays two ranked opponents the whole season?
They are. The college pronounces its own name as “Noter Dame”. They’re allowed to do that. They are not obliged to echo the practice of a French cathedral.