2010 NCAA Football Thread

[IceCap]

A lot of people agree that there should be a playoff system, but no one can agree on what that system should look like. So the BCS, flawed as it may be, gets a lot of support for simply having an established system in place.

An established system that creates controversy every year because it leaves great teams out but lets cupcakes like UConn in.

Not that I disagree with you, but this season seemed pretty controversy free.

I'll take just about any form of a playoff over that.

Of course you would. So would I. So would a lot of people. The problem is that no one can agree on one. Every time people try to discuss the possibility of a playoff it devolves into an argument over what kind of playoff system should be used. As people are arguing the BCS is just sitting there, minding its own business with a ready to go system. So after everyone's tired of arguing about playoff formats without reaching a consensus the ready-to-go nature of the BCS seems appealing.

[RyanMcD29]

At least they wouldn't be keeping better teams out that way, as long as there's a couple at-large teams in the field.

True, that's why I say a playoff's better with 8 auto-bids (6 BCS plus 2 non-BCS conference champs) and 8 at-larges. I'll save any other playoff talk for now.

Actually, thanks for reminding me that in the next week I got a paper on the BCS controversy to write up

[dfwabel]

Remind me again why people defend the BCS?

Because it was better than the century old previous system which was decided by the polls and not by two teams on a field. Even if there was not a BCS, there would have been a reporter looking at the bowl's non-profit status and the salaries/perks given to executives compared to lack of proceeds given out. if it can occur to the United Way in 1992, it can occur to anybody with an interested writer and access to public record.

The schools may lose money, but I'm sure the NCAA/automatic qualifier conferences/BCS Illuminati make a pretty penny.

After their expenses, Ohio State reported a profit of $288,867 and Arkansas reported a profit of $5,525.

The TV money gets split equally among the conference members first, then "additional" money goes to the BCS participants which is used to cover travel expenses.

At least they wouldn't be keeping better teams out that way, as long as there's a couple at-large teams in the field.

With a sample size of just 12-13 games, and using polls and computers to decide, it is still hard to determine "better team(s) left out". When winning/losing one score games is so random, I will never jump to that conclusion.

The Tressel story is a bigger NCAA spring football story to me. He should have been fired.

Bruce Pearl is losing his job for the same thing, lying to the NCAA; Jim Calhoun seems to be getting of much easier. Heck, UCLA got rid of Jim Harrick, the only coach they have had since Wooden to win a title, then "Wendy's Manager" should be out at well.

And Harrick got popped for falsifying a dinner expense report, meanwhile it was OK that his son sold a SUV, whose title was in his name to the sister of Baron Davis, who happened to give it to Baron because the sale price was "at market value". While he was fired before we would know if that was OK under NCAA rules, it was him lying to three times the then AD and the UCLA NCAA faculty representative who queried Harrick about the meal's attendees, which got him ousted. Just like what may occur to Pearl and neither involves playing possible ineligible players.

[rams80]

To be fair, Pearl has lied to NCAA investigators before. It's just been a couple of decades since.

[HedleyLamarr]

A lot of people agree that there should be a playoff system, but no one can agree on what that system should look like. So the BCS, flawed as it may be, gets a lot of support for simply having an established system in place.

An established system that creates controversy every year because it leaves great teams out but lets cupcakes like UConn in. I'll take just about any form of a playoff over that.

Boise State is not a great team. Let's get that out of the way.

Secondly, no matter what system gets used, there's gonna be controversy. The bigger the postseason format, the more teams that feel they're worthy enough of being included. Look at the final polls, for instance....how many teams can make an argument that they're the 8th/12th/16th-best team in the country? A whole lot more than those that can say "We're #2!".

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season. There's a reason why the 2010 college football thread is 163 pages, and the college basketball thread is only 30 pages. Figure it out.

[Lights Out]

Boise State is not a great team. Let's get that out of the way.

Come on now. Since when is a mediocre, 8-5 UConn team more deserving of a BCS Bowl appearance than 12-1 Boise State? And Boise would have given Oklahoma a better game too. Practically any other school would have, compared to how UConn rolled over. I'm not saying Boise was the best team in college football but they were certainly better than the Huskies.

And even besides that, Temple had the same record as UConn and even beat them, but got left out of the postseason entirely. West Virginia was ranked higher than UConn at the end of the regular season and they were left out of the BCS. There's really no defending UConn's inclusion in that Fiesta Bowl.

Regardless, Boise won their crap bowl, there will be a new season before we know it, and it's not worth dwelling on last year anymore. I'm just wondering how a system that supposedly picks the best matchups could possibly come out with UConn vs. anyone as a good bowl game.

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season.

So? Nobody complains about the top NBA teams taking the second half of the regular season off. Shouldn't the playoffs be more exciting than the regular season anyway?

[dfwabel]

Lets use three point games.

If a NCAA football team is 12-1 overall, but 3-1 in three point games over one year, how good are they if they lost that game by 2 points?

That is random and will still be random. Close games like the loss to Nevada are random. If you are a great team, one does not have close games,

[Sport]

Secondly, no matter what system gets used, there's gonna be controversy. The bigger the postseason format, the more teams that feel they're worthy enough of being included. Look at the final polls, for instance....how many teams can make an argument that they're the 8th/12th/16th-best team in the country? A whole lot more than those that can say "We're #2!".

It's far better in my opinion to keep the 13th or 17th best team that has little to no chance of winning, out of the tournament than it is to keep the 3rd best team out when it's often that they were only excluded because of conference politics.

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season. There's a reason why the 2010 college football thread is 163 pages, and the college basketball thread is only 30 pages. Figure it out.

A. College football will never adopt a 64 team tournament so the regular season will never devolve to the meaningless regular season that college basketball has. College Basketball and college football are two different animals.

B. there's still going to be few enough teams in a playoff that the regular season would still hold a lot of meaning. This would be especially true if the tournament excluded at-larges and only took conference champions.

C. I'll argue that the College Football regular season is not good. Only a handful of teams are involved in the race and there's really only a few games a year that are truly meaningful. One loss and the rest of the season becomes a meaningless exercise in playing out the schedule. With a playoff, especially a small exclusive one, the whole season is still important, and the number of teams in the hunt increases, and we'll get more intense games at the end of the season because teams with one or two losses will still have a shot. There would be more games with more on the line throughout the season.

D. the number of exciting playoff games would equal the number of exciting BCS bowls and they would be even more intense because the prospect of being truly eliminated would be in play. I don't understand how any fan of college football wouldn't love to have that.

[Jigga]

A lot of people agree that there should be a playoff system, but no one can agree on what that system should look like. So the BCS, flawed as it may be, gets a lot of support for simply having an established system in place.

An established system that creates controversy every year because it leaves great teams out but lets cupcakes like UConn in. I'll take just about any form of a playoff over that.

Boise State is not a great team. Let's get that out of the way.

Secondly, no matter what system gets used, there's gonna be controversy. The bigger the postseason format, the more teams that feel they're worthy enough of being included. Look at the final polls, for instance....how many teams can make an argument that they're the 8th/12th/16th-best team in the country? A whole lot more than those that can say "We're #2!".

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season. There's a reason why the 2010 college football thread is 163 pages, and the college basketball thread is only 30 pages. Figure it out.

Not that your point isn't correct, but never confuse what's popular on this board with the what's popular in the entire sports landscape. I doubt hockey and wrasslin' rate as high with the general population as they do here.

[Lights Out]

I don't understand how any fan of college football wouldn't love to have that.

Well, the current system helps his team's conference every year, so that's how.

[Sport]

I don't understand how any fan of college football wouldn't love to have that.

Well, the current system helps his team's conference every year, so that's how.

It helps my favorite team's conference too, but still think there's no way that a playoff wouldn't completely blow away the current system.

[Lights Out]

Yeah... it only seems to be SEC fans who defend the BCS so much. Unsurprising, because the SEC wins the National Championship every year. If they didn't, I doubt there would be nearly as much love for the BCS among SEC fans.

[infrared41]

A lot of people agree that there should be a playoff system, but no one can agree on what that system should look like. So the BCS, flawed as it may be, gets a lot of support for simply having an established system in place.

An established system that creates controversy every year because it leaves great teams out but lets cupcakes like UConn in. I'll take just about any form of a playoff over that.

Boise State is not a great team. Let's get that out of the way.

Secondly, no matter what system gets used, there's gonna be controversy. The bigger the postseason format, the more teams that feel they're worthy enough of being included. Look at the final polls, for instance....how many teams can make an argument that they're the 8th/12th/16th-best team in the country? A whole lot more than those that can say "We're #2!".

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season. There's a reason why the 2010 college football thread is 163 pages, and the college basketball thread is only 30 pages. Figure it out.

I could not agree more with my esteemed colleague. The bolded part says it all.

[rams80]

A lot of people agree that there should be a playoff system, but no one can agree on what that system should look like. So the BCS, flawed as it may be, gets a lot of support for simply having an established system in place.

An established system that creates controversy every year because it leaves great teams out but lets cupcakes like UConn in. I'll take just about any form of a playoff over that.

Boise State is not a great team. Let's get that out of the way.

Secondly, no matter what system gets used, there's gonna be controversy. The bigger the postseason format, the more teams that feel they're worthy enough of being included. Look at the final polls, for instance....how many teams can make an argument that they're the 8th/12th/16th-best team in the country? A whole lot more than those that can say "We're #2!".

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season. There's a reason why the 2010 college football thread is 163 pages, and the college basketball thread is only 30 pages. Figure it out.

I could not agree more with my esteemed colleague. The bolded part says it all.

I'd just like to point out that the NFL regular season thread was about 40 pages longer than this thread, with another 50 added for the playoffs. Clearly we were able to keep the interest going there.

They only play 12-13 (14 in some freak eventualities) games in a given season. Losing is still going to be very damaging to the playoff chase.

[HedleyLamarr]

Yeah... it only seems to be SEC fans who defend the BCS so much. Unsurprising, because the SEC wins the National Championship every year. If they didn't, I doubt there would be nearly as much love for the BCS among SEC fans.

[slightly shotgunned]

An established system that creates controversy every year because it leaves great teams out but lets cupcakes like UConn in. I'll take just about any form of a playoff over that.

Boise State is not a great team. Let's get that out of the way.

Secondly, no matter what system gets used, there's gonna be controversy. The bigger the postseason format, the more teams that feel they're worthy enough of being included. Look at the final polls, for instance....how many teams can make an argument that they're the 8th/12th/16th-best team in the country? A whole lot more than those that can say "We're #2!".

Thirdly, if college football ever has a playoff, it'll become what college basketball is now: No one caring much about the regular season. There's a reason why the 2010 college football thread is 163 pages, and the college basketball thread is only 30 pages. Figure it out.

I could not agree more with my esteemed colleague. The bolded part says it all.

All it says is folks around here don't care much for college basketball. I count myself among them. Thing is, the two seasons are not comparable. Games are more meaningful in football, not because there's not a huge playoff at the end, but because the margin for error is microscopic in comparison to Basketball. Unless you increase the frequency and number of games played, that won't change in a playoff system.

[HedleyLamarr]

Yeah... it only seems to be SEC fans who defend the BCS so much. Unsurprising, because the SEC wins the National Championship every year. If they didn't, I doubt there would be nearly as much love for the BCS among SEC fans.

(This is why I don't like posting from my phone...it chunked my post.)

Anyway, the SEC doesn't win national championships....individual schools do. As a Georgia fan and alum, do you honestly believe I'd ever pull for Auburn or Florida or Tennessee to win a game? (Ouside of Georgia benefitting because of a rival winning, that is.)

Face facts....the BCS is the best system for the little schools to get a fair shake. Under the old system, TCU would never get a chance to play in the Rose Bowl. In a playoff system, Boise State no longer gets to negociate paychecks to come play at some BCS-conference school's stadium, a paycheck that doesn't get split amongst members in BSU's conference....as the NCAA assumes control of schedule-making, as that's the power they'll get to have once they have control of the postseason. Would you prefer BSU to have about as good a chance to play for a national championship as they have now....and starving themselves financially in the process?

[Lights Out]

The claim that BSU would get a better chance at a title through the BCS is laughable. We're talking about a system with more undefeated teams than it knows what to do with. TCU got to go to the Rose Bowl but they should have gotten a chance at a title at least through a plus-one game.

And as far as the financial aspect goes, beyond the fact that big schools and mid-majors alike lose money every year on the bowl system, the Butlers and Gonzagas and Richmonds of the world do not appear to be struggling financially with basketball as their bread-and-butter sport, and basketball has a tournament system. Furthermore, they have no problem winning in said tournament (and neither would BSU in a football tournament based on their track record against elite programs) which can bring money, exposure, and recruits to the school. Even if a playoff hurts Boise State financially in the short term, in the long term, the increased exposure a playoff would bring could help BSU afford a normal football budget as opposed to the current freakishly-tiny one.

[IceCap]

I'm wondering. Is it possible that the allure of a playoff will be lost if implemented? Like people say "TCU should have at least gotten a shot." Well what if, in a playoff, they get a shot at the number one ranked team and get dismantled? I mean the automatic qualifier conferences are automatic qualifiers for a reason.

[Lights Out]

Well, at least TCU would have had a chance at winning the title in that hypothetical. That situation would be TCU's own fault for not playing well enough rather than the fault of the system.

The Seahawks got routed by the Bears in this year's NFL playoffs. Nobody wanted a BCS-style system to be brought to the NFL then. George Mason got routed by Ohio State this weekend. March Madness hasn't lost its allure. Why do you think that is?