I think this is a great post and mirrors my thoughts almost exactly. And yes, asahi, Notre Dame does have strength of schedule. They have beaten good teams. They are deserving of inclusion in the playoff. They very likely won’t win, but they certainly deserve to be there.
As a sidenote, is it just TV rights/money that’s the obstacle to Notre Dame just joining a damn conference already? Or that ND wants to be “special” in some way? I don’t follow college ball nearly as much as the NFL, so I am curious as to the reasons why they don’t or won’t join a conference.
yes for Notre Dame it is about the money from TV. Conferences would make them share that NBC FB money. As most people know ND has a national following mostly because of Catholics are fans of them. That’s why they have their own NBC deal. As a kid I lived very close to Rutgers and around there it was overrun with Notre Dame fans and very few Rutgers fans except their alums.
Notre Dame has an exclusive contract with NBC for NBC to televise each of their home games. They don’t have to share the NBC money with anybody else.
If they were to join a conference, they would most likely lose the NBC contract, and would have to settle for getting a slice of whatever TV contract their conference has.
Makes sense, and is what I figured. There are a LOT of Catholics in these parts, and LOTS of Catholic high schools in the greater Cincinnati area that have excellent high school sports and for many of the athletes, especially the football players at these high schools (like Elder, Moeller, Saint Xavier, La Salle, etc) going to ND on a scholarship is the dream.
Still plenty of cupcakes in FBS - and how many teams are begging to play Alabama (or Michigan, or Clemson), knowing (a) they will be on the receiving end of a 70-0 drubbing, and (b) there’s no chance of their hosting Alabama in return, for no other reason that the payday would go a long way toward funding the school’s other sports? I am half-expecting a sign at, say, the Kent State-Robert Morris women’s lacrosse game on 2/16 saying, “Today’s game brought to you in part by funds from that 63-10 drubbing our football team got from Penn State.”
So I read that the 74-72 win by the Aggies over LSU was the highest-scoring college football game of all time, but wasn’t there a 222-0 game around a century ago in college football that surpasses that?
He might be more realistic than the UM fans and boosters. While I was out of the state by that point, I was joking with my friends after the hire that they should probably wait to erect the statue in Ann Arbor till he wins his first game.
I present the case of Gary Moeller. His record in five seasons as head coach at Michigan was 44-13-3 (.758 winning percentage). He was 3-1-1 against Ohio State and 4-1 in bowls. Harbaugh is 38-13 (.745), 0-4 against OSU, and 1-2 in bowls through all but the bowl of this fourth season.
Moeller had the disadvantage of following a great streak that kept expectations high. He also dipped to 8-4 in his last two seasons. He wasn’t the third-highest paid head coach in college football or losing annually to Ohio State, though. The boosters kicked in truckloads of money to hire Harbaugh dreaming of a Saban-like dynasty. They bought Moeller-like overall performance plus losses to rivals.
Look at where the teams rankings are NOW, not where they were when they played. LSU is not a #3 team, as it turns out. By comparison, Michigan is #8 in the nation, compared to #14 at the time.
I layed out the Notre Dame schedule and its strength above. Although 'Bama plays top teams, it also plays several “cream puff” games. Notre Dame has no cream puffs on its schedule. So the overall result is that the strength of the OVERALL schedule is much better. This is the fact being persistently ignored.
In my mind, if you’re an SEC team playing a 12-game schedule, and the SEC insists upon limiting conference games to 8, then a good schedule would be one game against a Group of Five so-so, one game against a Group of Five top flight team, one game against a Power Five so-so, and a rivalry game, so long as the rival has managed to keep up their end of the bargain (still plays quality football). Clemson v. South Carolina is an example.
This, of course, is a far cry from the actual scheduling that most SEC schools follow. In Alabama’s case, their four non-conference games involve The Citadel, the Ragin’ Cajuns, Arkansas St., and Louisville (which I will credit them with scheduling, because back when they did, Louisville was playing decent footy). Since their rivalry game is a conference game, they don’t have to spend a non-conf. game on that, which makes their schedule all the more ridiculous.
Oh sure, a team that gives up 63 points in regulation is a #8 team in one of its worst ever drubbings at the hands of a team they’ve had circled on their calendar all year long - and not to mention this isn’t exactly the best the Buckeyes have ever been. :rolleyes: Yeah, LSU’s not #3, but Michigan’s #8? :rolleyes:
Notre Dame is going to get torched. We can save the nation the pain and we can spare Notre Damsels the embarrassment of getting humiliated on national television come playoff time.
UM’ Athletic Director: Hey, Jim, listen, I’ve been talking with some people and we think maybe we can help you out with some recruiters. Maybe you should consider changing offensive coordinators, go with a different offensive philosophy. You know, spread the ball more.
Harbaugh: I’m the shit. Don’t tell me how to run my fucking team.
UM AD: Let’s try this again. Uh, it’s not your team. And you actually, uh, how do I say this, answer to me.
Harbaugh: Nope, you’re wrong. I’m a fucking genius. I’m Jim effing Harbaugh, and I’m a legend in my own mind. Here’s a bag of dicks. Enjoy!
(UM goes 7-5, loses to Penn St 55-21 and Ohio State 63-28)
Harbaugh, knowing he’s getting fired, starts marketing himself to other teams not so privately. Spends a weekend in Baton Rouge. Spends another weekend in Eugene. Spends another weekend visiting with Mark Davis and the Oakland Raiders.
Poetic justice: Ends up as an assistant to Lane Kiffin.
According to the “official” NCAA Football Records Book, the most points scored in an NCAA game by both teams since the NCAA started keeping “official” records in 1937 is 161 when Abilene Christian beat West Texas A&M 93-68 in 2008. LSU-A&M set a new Division I post-1936 record.
72 is also the second-most points scored by a losing team (and another new Division I record); Chandron State beat Abilene Christian 76-73 in 3 overtimes in 2007.
GT coach Paul Johnson is retiring . A rare coach now that runs the option as the primary offense. If the new coach is not an option guy he will have a bunch of players that are not used to running a standard offense.
Ah OK, thanks.
Wonder if, had the LSU-Aggies game gone to something ridiculous like 20 or 30 overtimes, the officials would have suspended the game due to player exhaustion? Is that allowed?
Disallowing extra point kicks in the third and later overtime period is part of trying to avoid that. Since the two point conversion is a lower probability play that rule was seen as decreasing the odds of things lasting that long. Presumably, the team with the less talented bench starts to show exhaustion issues first and that ends the game. This wasn’t the first 7 OT game but going that deep is rare and we haven’t seen 8 OTs yet. There’s no end without someone winning though.
East Carolina fires their coach Montgomery . In 3 years he won 4 conference games. They don’t have a full time AD now but I guess they will hire a new coach anyway.
The “Fighting Illini” of Illinois: Why do they stink so bad?
Yeah, Urbana-Champaign isn’t the greatest place for young people, but is it any worse than Columbus, Ohio or Ames, Iowa, for example? They have Lovie Smith who has NFL credentials and even made it to a Super Bowl once. What’s the deal? It’s like they don’t even belong in the Big Ten anymore. Maybe the MAC.