2009 NCAA Football Thread

[rams80]

Gameday coming to Chestnut Hill! Makes no sense whatsoever but who cares! Go Eagles! (Let's not embarrass ourselves too much here )

gamedays going to the boston college vs. florida st. game ? why must they pick such a bad game ? couldnt they go to athens, miami, or berkley ?

1-Even if Miami was unbeaten, the show would be in a parking lot at Landshark Stadium. 35 miles away from campus. There would not have been much of a crowd.

2-Berkeley still has two, one loss teams. Plus the cost of transport from State College to CA could be seen as too steep for that game.

3-They will heavily feature the story of LB Mark Herzlich.

4-If CBS has a game, they do their best to avoid that stadium.

5-Can you imagine the opportunities to pimp ESPN-Boston?

[Drew22]

Plus they probably don't want to feature CBS' game of the week.

[dfwabel]

Week 5 AP Poll

1 Florida (55) 4-0 1490

2 Texas (1) 4-0 1420

3 Alabama (4) 4-0 1400

4 LSU 4-0 1225

5 Boise State 4-0 1203

6 Virginia Tech 3-1 1190

7 USC 3-1 998

8 Oklahoma 2-1 979

9 Ohio State 3-1 957

10 Cincinnati 4-0 946

11 TCU 3-0 896

12 Houston 3-0 844

13 Iowa 4-0 788

14 Oklahoma State 3-1 591

15 Penn State 3-1 470

16 Oregon 3-1 462

17 Miami (FL) 2-1 452

18 Kansas 4-0 418

18 Georgia 3-1 418

20 Brigham Young 3-1 349

21 Mississippi 2-1 340

22 Michigan 4-0 271

23 Nebraska 3-1 256

24 California 3-1 206

25 Georgia Tech 3-1 185

Dropped from rankings: Florida State 18, North Carolina 22, Washington 24

Others receiving votes: Missouri 175, Auburn 171, South Carolina 154, South Florida 145, UCLA 41, Utah 25, Wisconsin 20, Notre Dame 7, Arizona State 4, Stanford 2, North Carolina 2

Big Games this weekend

#22 Michigan at Michigan State

#4 LSU at #18 Georgia

#7 USC at #24 California

#8 Oklahoma at #17 Miami (FL)

If you needed any further proof that the media has it's collective head up it's collective ass look no further than Iowa jumping from unranked to #13. Maybe Penn State wasn't really that good to begin with (see Ole Miss and Cal.) I'm not saying Iowa is overrated at #13...actually that's exactly what I am saying.

This is ridiculous. The media decides Penn State is a top ten team based on...well nothing other than the fact that they're Penn State. Penn State beats three cupcakes and cements their top ten ranking in the minds of these morons. Then a good Iowa team comes in and beats an overrated Penn State so the media decides that since Iowa beat a team that they thought was top ten then Iowa must be a whole lot better than originally thought so let's move them from nowhere to #13 in the country. -ing idiots. No offense to Hawkeyes fans but this is absurd.

And just for kicks, how many people here would bet on #13 Iowa to beat unranked Auburn?

The AP poll is much more consistent than the Coaches Poll when looked at along with the computer pools. At least you can see an AP ballot to see how people voted. Neither the Harris or Coaches poll displays ballots.

Comparing USA Today Poll to the AP and other BCS Components

[dfwabel]

Gameday coming to Chestnut Hill! Makes no sense whatsoever but who cares! Go Eagles! (Let's not embarrass ourselves too much here )

gamedays going to the boston college vs. florida st. game ? why must they pick such a bad game ? couldnt they go to athens, miami, or berkley ?

The fact that the home team in 2 of the above locales are coming off of losses utter and complete ass violations in the most graphic sense and the third team barely beat Arizona State probably has something to do with it.

(Also, they are probably doing LSU-Florida next week, which is Georgia's opponent.)

Possibly. Florida@LSU is a CBS primetime game. That has already been announced. The CBS 3:30 game has yet to be named, but it will not be the following: Kentucky @ South Carolina as it will be aired at 11:30 a.m. on Fox Sports Net and Vanderbilt at Army on CBS College Sports.

Games which CBS can choose from are: Alabama @ Mississippi; Houston @ Miss. State; Auburn @ Arkansas; Georgia @ Tennessee

[NEW.ERA]

Gameday coming to Chestnut Hill! Makes no sense whatsoever but who cares! Go Eagles! (Let's not embarrass ourselves too much here )

gamedays going to the boston college vs. florida st. game ? why must they pick such a bad game ? couldnt they go to athens, miami, or berkley ?

The fact that the home team in 2 of the above locales are coming off of losses utter and complete ass violations in the most graphic sense and the third team barely beat Arizona State probably has something to do with it.

(Also, they are probably doing LSU-Florida next week, which is Georgia's opponent.)

Possibly. Florida@LSU is a CBS primetime game. That has already been announced. The CBS 3:30 game has yet to be named, but it will not be the following: Kentucky @ South Carolina as it will be aired at 11:30 a.m. on Fox Sports Net and Vanderbilt at Army on CBS College Sports.

Games which CBS can choose from are: Alabama @ Mississippi; Houston @ Miss. State; Auburn @ Arkansas; Georgia @ Tennessee

It's going to be Alabama @ Ole Miss or Georgia @ Tennessee.

[infrared41]

The AP poll is much more consistent than the Coaches Poll when looked at along with the computer pools. At least you can see an AP ballot to see how people voted. Neither the Harris or Coaches poll displays ballots.

Comparing USA Today Poll to the AP and other BCS Components

So? None of that changes the fact that they're clueless.

[gingerbreadmann]

Gameday coming to Chestnut Hill! Makes no sense whatsoever but who cares! Go Eagles! (Let's not embarrass ourselves too much here )

gamedays going to the boston college vs. florida st. game ? why must they pick such a bad game ? couldnt they go to athens, miami, or berkley ?

1-Even if Miami was unbeaten, the show would be in a parking lot at Landshark Stadium. 35 miles away from campus. There would not have been much of a crowd.

2-Berkeley still has two, one loss teams. Plus the cost of transport from State College to CA could be seen as too steep for that game.

3-They will heavily feature the story of LB Mark Herzlich.

4-If CBS has a game, they do their best to avoid that stadium.

5-Can you imagine the opportunities to pimp ESPN-Boston?

I honestly think 3 and 5 could be big players here, but to be straight with you, I still don't understand this decision one. Someone will say ESPN Boston/East-Coast bias, and I guess this kind of supports that, but they didn't even come to BC when we were #2, why come now? They occasionally come to non-prominent games, but usually they have special meaning (Army-AF, Hampton-FAMU, Amherst-Williams). Herzy is a sad but becoming great story, but I doubt it's enough to carry the show. Plus, there is an even newer ESPN Local site than Boston which needs its own pimping, ESPNDallas. I would go to Texas A&M-Oklahoma State, not only is it relatively close to Dallas, it should be a great game. (Side note: I am actually really enjoying ESPNBoston; even if it stripped the Globe of its best beat writer and could use a lot less Pedro Gomez, the content is great. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.)

Anyway, moronic reasoning or not, hell if I care. Anything that gets the fans into it and at the games, and rowdier than ever. (And that lets people tailgate before 12-freaking-thirty!) I expect that BC gets blown apart, but there is always hope (apparently depending on whether the BYU FSU team shows up, or the USF team), and any national publicity is good publicity.

Edit: name=Here's pretty much the story, I guess. The problems with other locations were bigger than I thought.

The Big Lead tweeted this earlier today:

ESPN Gameday taking a ton of heat already for going to FSU-BC game. enhances East Coast bias, for sure. would rather c them at LSU/Okl/Cal

I agree that BC hosting Florida State is surprising decision. There have been plenty of better BC games that were ignored by GameDay over the years and there are multiple games that deserve the spotlight more than two unranked ACC teams in early October. Yet talking to two different ESPN folks, I got the story on how GameDay at BC came to be.

1. Problems with the other candidates. This is the main reason. There isn't a can't miss game this weekend. The closest thing to a can't miss is Oklahoma-Miami. However, Miami's loss to VT and their move to LandShark aka Dolphins Stadium hurt their chance. GameDay feared hosting the show in front of an empty parking lot. The SEC matchups were appealing but the thought in Bristol was that they've already done SEC games and will do more in the coming weeks. Washington-Notre Dame was considered until the Huskies lost to Stanford. USC-Cal was also considered but Cal's loss and USC's recent (and likely future) GameDay involvement made it a no go this week.

2. The Mark Herzlich story. ESPN is putting together a feature on Herzy. His story is compelling and his early prognosis is very good. If he returns to play next season, ESPN is out in front of what could be a huge general news story.

3. The economy. It is easier and cheaper for ESPN to pull off the show from Boston (their backyard) than it would be from California or even somewhere in SEC country.

4. It has nothing to do with ESPNBoston.com. Some conspiracy theorists are floating the idea that GameDay is part of ESPN's corporate synergy to promote ESPNBoston.com. I am sure ESPNBoston will be mentioned once or twice during the broadcast, but one ESPNer said to me "ESPN.com boston has little or nothing to do with it [The selection]."

[NEW.ERA]

Wrong thread.

[infrared41]

It has nothing to do with ESPNBoston.com. Some conspiracy theorists are floating the idea that GameDay is part of ESPN's corporate synergy to promote ESPNBoston.com. I am sure ESPNBoston will be mentioned once or twice during the broadcast, but one ESPNer said to me "ESPN.com boston has little or nothing to do with it [The selection]."

Hasn't ESPN.com always been ESPNBoston.com? Other than adding Boston to the url I doubt anyone would notice the difference. Maybe ESPNBoston.com doesn't have those annoying links to other teams or something. Oh well. At least they're finally being upfront about it.

[Spammy]

Damn heres a major blow to USC

Stephan Johnson Injury

[-(dp)-]

If that is your first thought on a possibly life-threatening injury to an athlete, I don't know what to think. I hope you weren't talking about on-field, but that is what it sounded like to me. Very unfortunate freak accident, hopefully he can recover. Based on some things I have read, he was spitting up blood and unable to talk. Things weren't sounding good, hopefully the things I was reading were incorrect. My prayers are with him and his family.

[NEW.ERA]

That was a very scary accident hopefully he'll be alright according to ESPN the surgery started a bit after 2pm eastern and ended just before midnight eastern.

That spotter should have always been with Johnson not ten feet away.

[-(dp)-]

I have to admit, I too was in the "Indiana got screwed" camp until I saw this:

To my untrained amateur eye, it sure looks like Michigan player gained possession of the ball first, THEN the Indiana player grabbed hold of it.

I've noticed none of the people saying Michigan pays more, or that they have been getting lucky calls, have commented since you posted these. In fact, nobody has mentioned it at all since then. Here are some more pictures, that are a bit clearer, that I found on MGoBlog:

As a fan, I think it may be worse to have people thinking your team won because they cheated, or were helped by the refs, than to actually lose. People have said this crap about Michigan in more than one game this year, and have been wrong. In the first two pictures, you can clearly see that the ball is in between Donovan Warren's arms, and on this side of the Indiana receivers right shoulder. Is it possible to have possession when the ball is inside neither of your arms? As they go to the ground, you can see that still neither of the IU players arms are around the ball. These show that not only did they not have enough evidence to overturn the call, but there is evidence they got the call right in the first place. The Indiana player might have possession of Donovan's left arm, but not the ball.

[NJTank]

Damn heres a major blow to USC

Stephan Johnson Injury

Forget USC and football, Johnson is lucky to be alive.

[NEW.ERA]

The newest addition to the Bowl season will take place in the winter of 2010 at Yankee Stadium and it will be called the Yankee Bowl.

The game will feature the 4th place Big East team vs. the 7th place Big XII team, first off I thought Bowl games we're meant for warmer destinations for people to go to on their winter vacations and second why have a Big XII team play in a cold climate wouldn't a more reasonable opponent for the Big East would be a Big Ten team wouldn't it?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/ncaa/09/29/yankee-bowl/index.html

[FiddySicks]

If that is your first thought on a possibly life-threatening injury to an athlete, I don't know what to think. I hope you weren't talking about on-field, but that is what it sounded like to me. Very unfortunate freak accident, hopefully he can recover. Based on some things I have read, he was spitting up blood and unable to talk. Things weren't sounding good, hopefully the things I was reading were incorrect. My prayers are with him and his family.

That was my first thought (Well, second actually) too. I didn't realize the extent of the injury though.

My absolute FIRST thought was who the hell was the spotter that let that one happen? I have a buddy who is a backup linebacker for SC, I hope it wasn't him...

[dfwabel]

I honestly think 3 and 5 could be big players here, but to be straight with you, I still don't understand this decision one. Someone will say ESPN Boston/East-Coast bias, and I guess this kind of supports that, but they didn't even come to BC when we were #2, why come now? They occasionally come to non-prominent games, but usually they have special meaning (Army-AF, Hampton-FAMU, Amherst-Williams). Herzy is a sad but becoming great story, but I doubt it's enough to carry the show. Plus, there is an even newer ESPN Local site than Boston which needs its own pimping, ESPNDallas. I would go to Texas A&M-Oklahoma State, not only is it relatively close to Dallas, it should be a great game. (Side note: I am actually really enjoying ESPNBoston; even if it stripped the Globe of its best beat writer and could use a lot less Pedro Gomez, the content is great. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.)

Anyway, moronic reasoning or not, hell if I care. Anything that gets the fans into it and at the games, and rowdier than ever. (And that lets people tailgate before 12-freaking-thirty!) I expect that BC gets blown apart, but there is always hope (apparently depending on whether the BYU FSU team shows up, or the USF team), and any national publicity is good publicity.

Why should ESPN be in aTm/OK State when they will be in Dallas in two weeks for OU/Texas?

[tBBP]

The newest addition to the Bowl season will take place in the winter of 2010 at Yankee Stadium and it will be called the Yankee Bowl.

The game will feature the 4th place Big East team vs. the 7th place Big XII team, first off I thought Bowl games we're meant for warmer destinations for people to go to on their winter vacations and second why have a Big XII team play in a cold climate wouldn't a more reasonable opponent for the Big East would be a Big Ten team wouldn't it?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/ncaa/09/29/yankee-bowl/index.html

Really? I mean...really???

Fourth-place out of eight? Seventh out out of twelve?

May as well be called the Bottom of the Barrel Bowl.

[rams80]

The newest addition to the Bowl season will take place in the winter of 2010 at Yankee Stadium and it will be called the Yankee Bowl.

The game will feature the 4th place Big East team vs. the 7th place Big XII team, first off I thought Bowl games we're meant for warmer destinations for people to go to on their winter vacations and second why have a Big XII team play in a cold climate wouldn't a more reasonable opponent for the Big East would be a Big Ten team wouldn't it?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/ncaa/09/29/yankee-bowl/index.html

The Big Ten currently struggles to fill all of its bowl commitments now. However, if the game is still around the next time Bowl contracts are negotiated, this could change.

[infrared41]

The newest addition to the Bowl season will take place in the winter of 2010 at Yankee Stadium and it will be called the Yankee Bowl.

The game will feature the 4th place Big East team vs. the 7th place Big XII team, first off I thought Bowl games we're meant for warmer destinations for people to go to on their winter vacations and second why have a Big XII team play in a cold climate wouldn't a more reasonable opponent for the Big East would be a Big Ten team wouldn't it?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/ncaa/09/29/yankee-bowl/index.html

The Big Ten currently struggles to fill all of its bowl commitments now. However, if the game is still around the next time Bowl contracts are negotiated, this could change.

But they have no trouble losing the games once they find an available team to send.