OSU -vs- LSU tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Buckeye_Nut]

USC fans like me were hoping to face Georgia as well. The BCS and NCAA have no credibility whatsoever.

Going back to OSU, IMO the Big 10 should be banned from BCS Bowl Games for the next 5 years.

OSUl is 4-2 in BCS bowls including a national title

Virtually every team in the nation could only wish they had that kind of record.

 

[aberkowitz]

I'm sorry but failing to win your conference does NOT mean that you should be automatically disqualified from participating in a national championship scenario.

In the current model I completely disagree with that statement. If you have to whittle it down to 2 teams to play for the championship, there's noway you can justify picking a team that didn't even win it's conference to play for the championship. If the conferences are going to have championship games, which I think are silly anyway, then the teams are going to have to live by the fact that winning their conference is a prerequisite for making the championship game. This year, UGA didn't even make the SEC championship game- and this was because they couldn't be Tennessee. Did Tenn have a better season than UGA, probably not, but they beat them on the field which is all that matters.

Now, if we go to a tournament-style playoff like EVERY other sport on the planet (even bowling has a playoff!!) then I completely agree with you. There's no reason why 2 of the top 5 (or even top 3) teams cannot come from the same conference in certain years. Happens all the time in sports- Indy and the Pats, Yanks and Red Sox, Duke and UNC, even OSU and UM last year. Under this model, however, we've got to get rid of the conference championship games (which I think are silly excuses for money-grabbing anyway). Under an 8 team playoff system you establish a selection committee, like basketball, that uses a series of metrics (could even be a modified BCS-type standing) to pick the top 8 teams regardless of conference affiliation. No automatic bids and no bowl tie-ins. Also, I say you stop having pre-season AP and Coaches polls- don't allow voting to start until weeks 4 or 5.

Oh yeah- and no more scheduling D1AA teams... if you schedule a D1AA team you're ineligible for post-season play. Could you imagine if the Yankees decided to play Boston's AAA team????

I would think a more entertaining set of matchups would have been:

1. LSU vs. Ohio State
2. USC vs. GA
3. Oklahoma vs. Va Tech
4. West Virginia vs. Hawaii
5. Missouri vs.Florida
6. Kansas vs. Boston College
.

I agree with the top two on the list, but I think you're short-changing WVU. They wiped the floor with OU. I don't believe any of the teams on this list was beating a motivated WVU team, not even OSU or LSU. If Pat White doesn't get hurt in that Pitt game I think WVU would have won the championship game- they just have too much talent.

Also, I wouldn't have given up the UM/Fla game for anything this year- that was the perfect match-up. Plus, no way Florida was in the top 10 teams this season, not with 3 losses in conference play. They tied for the 4th best record in the SEC... that does not translate into a BCS game.

 

[aberkowitz]

OSUl is 4-2 in BCS bowls including a national title

Virtually every team in the nation could only wish they had that kind of record.

4-2 in BCS bowls including a national title... how do you figure that?? They've only played in 3 of the title games (Miami, Florida, LSU) and they've lost two. They've played in 6 BCS bowls total and have won 4, but they've only won 1 BCS championship.

What I find most fascinating about OSU is that during the 10 year war w/ Michigan those teams were almost always in the top 5 going into The Game, but I believe they won a grand total of 2 Rose Bowls between them during that time. after playing each other nothing else mattered!!!

 

[jonnythan]

4-2 in BCS bowls including a national title... how do you figure that?? They've only played in 3 of the title games (Miami, Florida, LSU) and they've lost two. They've played in 6 BCS bowls total and have won 4, but they've only won 1 BCS championship.

If you play 6 BCS bowls and win 4, what's your BCS bowl record?

 

[aberkowitz]

If you play 6 BCS bowls and win 4, what's your BCS bowl record?

Sorry- I guess I misinterpreted Buckeye's comment.... I read that they were 4-2 in games including a title, meaning that they had played in 6 BCS title games. Shame on Buckeye for not using proper grammar or being more clear so that my silly mind could understand him!!!!

 

[Alamar]

In the current model I completely disagree with that statement.

So are you saying that if Iowa [who didn't play either Ohio State or Michigan this year] ran the table against the bottom 2/3 of the Big 10 that you would have knocked out Ohio State for playing for the National Championship???? That is simply wrong-headed thinking.

IMHO the things that should matter are:
1. What was the difficulty of your schedule?
2. How many wins, losses, ties did you have with that schedule?
3. If you had losses or ties then why? [I.E. was your QB injured???]
4. Who were your losses to, when, how was the other team playing, etc.
5. Is your team healthy enough to aquit itself in a Nat. Champ game??
6. What are your signature victor(y)(ies)?
7. Did you have a quality road record && schedule??

If you can't earn your way into the Nat. Champ. game based on the above items then you don't deserve to be there. I would say that "conference championships" should rank about 10th or so on the list and really should only be used to separate teams that appear otherwise equally matched.

If you have to whittle it down to 2 teams to play for the championship, there's noway you can justify picking a team that didn't even win it's conference to play for the championship.

If Team A has a significantly stronger schedule with the same or better record as Team B but team B won the conference due to tie breakers or similar why would you necessarily hold that against team A.

Also note that we've already had teams playing for the BCS title game that didn't win their conferece [Oklahoma] so that whole arguement doesn't make sense even with the current system.

If the conferences are going to have championship games, which I think are silly anyway, then the teams are going to have to live by the fact that winning their conference is a prerequisite for making the championship game.

As far as I can tell there are no written rules indicating that you must win your conference championship to play in the National Title Game. Seeing that Oklahoma got a pass earlier I don't see the logic of saying other teams can't get a pass??

This year, UGA didn't even make the SEC championship game- and this was because they couldn't beat Tennessee. Did Tenn have a better season than UGA, probably not, but they beat them on the field which is all that matters.

This is irrelevant to whether GA is better than OSU, Va Tech, Oklahoma, etc. If GA has an overall better season than the other teams then they should ranked higher ....

I agree with the top two on the list, but I think you're short-changing WVU. They wiped the floor with OU. I don't believe any of the teams on this list was beating a motivated WVU team, not even OSU or LSU. If Pat White doesn't get hurt in that Pitt game I think WVU would have won the championship game- they just have too much talent.

Actually I think that I'm short-changing Michigan. I think that they could have beaten most of the teams in the top 10 with the emotion that they brought to the table.

Also, I wouldn't have given up the UM/Fla game for anything this year- that was the perfect match-up. Plus, no way Florida was in the top 10 teams this season, not with 3 losses in conference play. They tied for the 4th best record in the SEC... that does not translate into a BCS game.

I was thinking that FL could go to the next tier of bowls ... like a Cotton or similar.

I could make an arguement that FL isn't as bad as you would think ....

One loss vs. the Nat Champs LSU.
One loss vs. #2/#3 GA
One loss vs. a Michigan squad that was NOT going to be beaten
One loss vs. Auburn IIRC which is a top 15 team

The only problem with FL imho is that they "signature" victory was a thumping of TN .... not good enough for Top 10 but maybe good enough for top 12 which is about where I think they should be.

As far as scheduling IAA teams or similar I really think that should hurt. Honestly I think strength of schedule is actually MORE important than your final win loss record because W&L don't mean anything without the context of strength of schedule.

 

[aberkowitz]

First, let me state that I made the caveat of under the current system, not what should be or could be.

So are you saying that if Iowa [who didn't play either Ohio State or Michigan this year] ran the table against the bottom 2/3 of the Big 10 that you would have knocked out Ohio State for playing for the National Championship???? That is simply wrong-headed thinking.

I don't believe OSU belonged in the game period, so it doesn't really matter to me, but under the current system conference champion is the way that BCS games are determined. It is the fault of the conferences that they don't have their teams play each other. This is why they invented the conference championship games in order to remedy conferences where not everybody plays everybody else (like the Pac 10).

IMHO the things that should matter are:
1. What was the difficulty of your schedule?
2. How many wins, losses, ties did you have with that schedule?
3. If you had losses or ties then why? [I.E. was your QB injured???]
4. Who were your losses to, when, how was the other team playing, etc.
5. Is your team healthy enough to aquit itself in a Nat. Champ game??
6. What are your signature victor(y)(ies)?
7. Did you have a quality road record && schedule??

If you can't earn your way into the Nat. Champ. game based on the above items then you don't deserve to be there. I would say that "conference championships" should rank about 10th or so on the list and really should only be used to separate teams that appear otherwise equally matched.

Those are great criteria if a selection committee exists (like college bball has), and I wouldn't argue with them, but if there's no selection committee then how do you implement what you stated? There's no way to create a poll or a ranking system that can be that subjective.

Btw- while I agree strength of schedule is important, the problem w/ college football is that it takes 4-5 years to set up the games. Any team that tried to schedule Miami in 2002 after they went to 2 straight BCS games and then had to play them this year would have their SoS harmed. There is no way to prevent that. Also- teams get criticized, and rightly so, for not being willing to play "mid-majors", but what happens if 3 or 4 years from now Boise State or Hawaii or Tulsa are bad again- the BCS school that was brave enough to schedule they would be crucified. I don't have an answer here.... but SoS cannot be the end-all be-all for college football based on scheduling issues.

If Team A has a significantly stronger schedule with the same or better record as Team B but team B won the conference due to tie breakers or similar why would you necessarily hold that against team A.

That works the same way in all sports- the Browns may have had a harder schedule than the Titans, but the Titans made the playoffs. In sports there are tie breakers and there's bad luck... you cannot legislate away bad luck.

The partial way to fix it is to require that all conferences either A) Have a champ game, or B) have all teams play each other during the year (e.g Pac 10 and Big East). The only conference that fails both is the Big 10.

Also note that we've already had teams playing for the BCS title game that didn't win their conferece [Oklahoma] so that whole arguement doesn't make sense even with the current system.

As far as I can tell there are no written rules indicating that you must win your conference championship to play in the National Title Game. Seeing that Oklahoma got a pass earlier I don't see the logic of saying other teams can't get a pass??

Oklahhoma was a fricking joke and even the BCS acknowledged it. Why do you think UGA got dropped in the polls after the SEC championship game- it was the system making sure that they had no way of making a claim to the game. Right now, I don't believe that a team that doesn't win its conference should have a claim to the Champ Game. Like last year- I believe Florida had more of a claim than Michigan...

This is irrelevant to whether GA is better than OSU, Va Tech, Oklahoma, etc. If GA has an overall better season than the other teams then they should ranked higher ....

No way to objectively determine this. Hence why we need a playoff.

The only problem with FL imho is that they "signature" victory was a thumping of TN .... not good enough for Top 10 but maybe good enough for top 12 which is about where I think they should be.

But how do you define signature??? In conference play there are rivalries that can pose more challenges than playing a schedule of the top 10 teams in the country. WVU-Pitt is a great example, Pitt is a bad team... but when it came down to the game that they've been playing for 80 years they stepped up and won. Should WVU be penalized as badly as they were? Maybe/maybe not...

Honestly I think strength of schedule is actually MORE important than your final win loss record because W&L don't mean anything without the context of strength of schedule.

In the end it will always come down to wins and losses. SoS matters to an extent, but you still have to play the game. If you have a playoff then some of these issues tend to go away because you can consider 2 and even 3 loss teams who played tough schedules, but in a 1 vs. 2 or even a ranked plus-one system there's no way a 3 loss team should ever be playing for the championship- it just cannot be justified.

The major point I've been trying to make is that you've got all of these subjective criteria involved in trying to pick the best team, and unless there's humans actively involved in adjusting and manipulating the system to make sure these criteria are updated accordingly, you cannot rely on them. Until we have an NCAA Championship Football Selection Committee, there will ALWAYS be something wrong.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

One item I don't think anyone pointed out was how many injuries the Pac 10 and SEC had during the year. So many star players were hurt and out of the game. I don't think any of OSU's players were out at any point this year. That, coupled with a very timid schedule, slid them into the NC.

Had USC, Oregon, LSU, Michigan, Georgia, or a few others been 100% the entire year, things may have unfolded differently and we might have had better match ups.

 

[aberkowitz]

One item I don't think anyone pointed out was how many injuries the Pac 10 and SEC had during the year. So many star players were hurt and out of the game. I don't think any of OSU's players were out at any point this year. That, coupled with a very timid schedule, slid them into the NC.

Had USC, Oregon, LSU, Michigan, Georgia, or a few others been 100% the entire year, things may have unfolded differently and we might have had better match ups.

To me though that shouldn't be a consideration... at least not for football. Football is a violent game, there will always be lots of injuries and teams need to be able to adjust. It's even easier in college than in the NFL b/c teams have such large rosters. I'm not saying that talent can be easily replaced, but let's not confuse it with college basketball where the loss of 1 star (e.g. top scorer) can completely debilitate a team. Teams like Oregon and Michigan lost multiple players at a time, but that's just part of the game.

 

[jonnythan]

To me though that shouldn't be a consideration... at least not for football. Football is a violent game, there will always be lots of injuries and teams need to be able to adjust. It's even easier in college than in the NFL b/c teams have such large rosters. I'm not saying that talent can be easily replaced, but let's not confuse it with college basketball where the loss of 1 star (e.g. top scorer) can completely debilitate a team. Teams like Oregon and Michigan lost multiple players at a time, but that's just part of the game.

I think he's just pointing out how much stronger the SEC teams are in general that they were able to do so well with so many injuries compared to OSU who had no major injuries.

 

[Alamar]

One item I don't think anyone pointed out was how many injuries the Pac 10 and SEC had during the year. So many star players were hurt and out of the game. I don't think any of OSU's players were out at any point this year. That, coupled with a very timid schedule, slid them into the NC.

Had USC, Oregon, LSU, Michigan, Georgia, or a few others been 100% the entire year, things may have unfolded differently and we might have had better match ups.

GA's problem was that they simply didn't play well enough earlier in the year. Add to that the fact that SC was playing better earlier in the year and it simply wasn't GA's time to be in the spotlight.

I do still think that GA should have played USC in some bowl [Sugar or Rose or whatever ...]

 

[aberkowitz]

GA's problem was that they simply didn't play well enough earlier in the year. Add to that the fact that SC was playing better earlier in the year and it simply wasn't GA's time to be in the spotlight.

I do still think that GA should have played USC in some bowl [Sugar or Rose or whatever ...]

UGA vs. USC could possibly have been the best bowl game of the season.

UGA doesn't lose anybody of significance, right? I know Moreno is a freshman and will be awesome for 2 or 3 more years. That team could be sick next year....

 

[billy p]

The SEC will be fun again this year Lsu & Georgia will be the teams to beat. However IMO two teams I'll keep an eye on are Alabama and Florida both teams had freshman laden lineups and the Gators have a guy named TEBOW!!

God I hope the tide will rise again, its being a long time.

 

[aberkowitz]

The SEC will be fun again this year Lsu & Georgia will be the teams to beat. However IMO two teams I'll keep an eye on are Alabama and Florida both teams had freshman laden lineups and the Gators have a guy named TEBOW!!

God I hope the tide will rise again, its being a long time.

Doesn't LSU lose their QB and top WR?

My major concern about Tebow is that I think he's wearing himself out by his style of play- and as Michigan showed in parts of the game if you can get pressure on him you can almost shut him down. They need to start keeping him in the pcoket to throw a bit more instead of running as many designed QB runs or else his body will just shut down by bowl season.

 

[billy p]

Doesn't LSU lose their QB and top WR?

My major concern about Tebow is that I think he's wearing himself out by his style of play- and as Michigan showed in parts of the game if you can get pressure on him you can almost shut him down. They need to start keeping him in the pcoket to throw a bit more instead of running as many designed QB runs or else his body will just shut down by bowl season.

The Tigers will be fine at the QB position. As a matter of fact they should be even better with Ryan Perrilloux at the helm. He was named the mvp in the SEC title game. Quite honestly he appears to have all the tools, just like Tebow and will give opposing defense's fits with the run option.

 

[Alamar]

UGA vs. USC could possibly have been the best bowl game of the season.

UGA doesn't lose anybody of significance, right? I know Moreno is a freshman and will be awesome for 2 or 3 more years. That team could be sick next year....

IIRC GA doesn't lose anyone of great significance.

However their schedule is rough ... Az St, LSU, TN, FL, Auburn, ... While UGA might be one of the best teams in the country I suspect that USC or Ohio St will go undefeated and someone else will probably slip in with a better record than UGA.