The 2014 Running Football Thread (College & Pro)

Started by bayonetbrant, February 07, 2014, 10:21:37 AM

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OJsDad

Quote from: bayonetbrant on December 07, 2014, 03:59:41 PM
The question isn't "can they"

It's "should they even have a chance to"

As soon as you think they can, then they will deserve a chance.

Given the rankings that were announced today, do you think either Baylor or TCU deserved a shot.  If only four teams are selected, who should one of those two replaced.
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

Bison

Quote from: bayonetbrant on December 07, 2014, 04:24:13 PM
Quote from: Bison on December 07, 2014, 04:21:59 PM
I think the NCAA basketball tourney really proves the greatness that is American college sports.  On any given day...

Without hitting Wikipedia, who was the best team in baseball in 2001...

College?  Probably LSU.  That isn't the point.  The point is how many of the best as ranked by a poll teams have actually won the basketball tourney?  If the polls are the end all be all then why even have a championship game or a tourney?  I don't recall the pre-BCS days being any more definitive as to which is the best team.  Also you have the Big 12 who have two one loss teams in the top 6 and not a single team in the playoffs?  Lame.  OSU was on the outside looking in prior to yesterday.  TCU as in and did what it needed to do to maintain it's #3 rank.  In the end, I think the OSU selection was a fill the stadium selection that really screwed TCU over.

Bison

Also look at the FCS playoffs.  Great games.  Yesterday NDSU the most dominate team in the FCS for the last 4 or so years almost lost at home to an underdog.  That is the playoff drama the "smart" guys at the big schools don't get.  Entertainment and excitement.  If this is the way they want it, the NCAA just needs to establish 4 conferences and that's it.  Everyone else goes away or to the FCS.

OJsDad

Quote from: Bison on December 07, 2014, 04:37:51 PM
Also you have the Big 12 who have two one loss teams in the top 6 and not a single team in the playoffs?  Lame.  OSU was on the outside looking in prior to yesterday.  TCU as in and did what it needed to do to maintain it's #3 rank.  In the end, I think the OSU selection was a fill the stadium selection that really screwed TCU over.

As a Buckeye fan, I cannot disagree with what you have said here.

Do you think the Big 12 is making phone calls today to get back up to 12 teams or are they going to sit around and have a pity party for themselves.  I think not having a championship game and a clear winner really hurt them the most. 
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

bayonetbrant

#409
College football is one of the last sports where the regular season actually mattered (until Alabama got a 2011 rematch with LSU).  The best teams in the regular season, on balance, tended to win their bowl games / titles, and there wasn't usually a ton of argument about who the better team was for any given season. 

1990 started to really change that when Colorado and GT split.  Colorado had lost a game, tied a game, and cheated to win another game, but the started the year in the top 5 and never really fell out of it.  Meanwhile, an undefeated GT team had to start from outside the top 25 and wasn't even ranked until they were 4-0.  If there's no poll until the first week of October, GT might've been top 5 to start with.
1991, UW and Miami split, and that was one of the few years there was legitimate controversy, since both were pretty dominant and deserving.  Under the BCS, they would've played each other instead of on different coasts in their bowl games.  More than any year, that was a key driver behind the creation of the BCS.

The next "controversy" was '93, when Notre Dame beat FSU head to head, but then lost the next week to BC, and FSU leaped them in the polls and ended up playing (and beating) Nebraska in the '93 title game.  Notre Domers still insist they belonged in that game ahead of FSU.  Maybe they did.  But neither one of them should've been there ahead of the undefeated Big East champion WV Mountaineers, who had wins over 4 top 25 9-win teams on their resume.

Enter the Bowl Alliance and then the BCS - who actually got it more right than wrong most years.  The biggest problem the BCS had was the fact that they continually changed the 'formula' every year.  Any time there was a "controversy" they'd start to juggle the formula, and what the public learned was that if you scream loud enough, then the BCS will change things for you.  Of course, what happened - people started yelling louder.  Suddenly we got bonus points for "quality wins" and somewhere along the way we dropped "opponents strength of schedule".  And while everyone pissed and moaned about including the computers, the truth was that they had to do it because the human polls couldn't/wouldn't agree on who was #1...  which is why you had split champions in 1997 and 2003, even with the Bowl Alliance / BCS in place.
(Interesting note - only 1 team ever beat 2 BCS game participants in a season without ever playing in a BCS bowl themselves.  Let's see if anyone gets the team/year right :) )
Even 2007, when 2-loss LSU beat Ohio State for the title, had some controversy, but not enough to derail the BCS.  Oklahoma had 2 losses and a case could've been made for putting OU into the game ahead of LSU.  LSU fans would've been disappointed but not mad - the case for OU was understandable.  The case for LSU was bolstered this way: quit looking at who you lost to, and focus on who you beat.  And no one had a non-conference victory anywhere in the country as dominant as LSU's 40-point curb-stomping of VT in Blacksburg (who would finish 11-3).

The real problem was in 2011, when "settle it on the field" became a complete joke.  Alabama got a rematch with LSU, after the game had already been settled on the field.  Pure resumes?  Oklahoma State absolutely belonged in the game ahead of Alabama.  They'd beaten better teams over the course of the season.  But that was when the "SEC mystique" was at its most potent, and Alabama got the benefit of the doubt, despite not having the on-field resume.  Just like 20 years earlier, there was a watershed controversy that kick-started the change in the 'playoff process'.

The truth is, a playoff is the worst way to determine who the best team in any given sport is.  Who was the best NFL team in 1998?  Who were the best MLB teams in 2001 or 1997?  Who was the best NFL team in 2007?  Best NBA team of 2004?  Who was the best hockey team in 1997 or 1995?  None of the best teams won the end-of-season tournament in any of those sports in those years.  In some of them, it wasn't even close.

Settle it on the field?  We just spend 14 weeks settling it on the field, and now you're going to make them "settle" it more? WTF did we just play 14 weeks for?

There is no year, anywhere, that you can find any case of anyone outside the top 4 having the slightest claim to being worthy of playing in the "national title game" for college football.  In very, very few instances can you find a case for #4 (like they year Utah was unbeaten).  There are a few more years where #3 might have an argument (2004 Auburn, 2007 OU, 1993 WVU) but more often than not, the top 2 teams are pretty clear-cut. 
Honestly, more often than not, the top team is pretty clear-cut, but we have this infatuation with bowl games and insist that someone prove it again and you get the occasional upset (2005 Texas over USC, or 1986 PSU over Miami) but more often than not you get games like 1999 when FSU shellacked VT and only Vick's semi-heroics even kept it respectable.  Or Nebraska drubbing Tennessee 42-17 in 1997.  Or the 2006 UF beatdown of Ohio State.

The BCS really did a pretty good job of getting the teams right, except for 2011.  But God help you if you're not fully drinking the playoff kook-aid in every sport in America.


The NCAA basketball analogy?  Who was the best basketball team in 1983?  1985?  1991?  It wasn't the team that won in any of those years.  In fact, in a one-and-done like the tournament, it's rarely a wire-to-wire winner.  Great, you won a tournament.  You couldn't accomplish jack-squat for the 4 months leading up to it, but you got hot at the right time, and happened to be the best team for 3 weeks.  Yay you.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

Quote from: Bison on December 07, 2014, 04:37:51 PM
Quote from: bayonetbrant on December 07, 2014, 04:24:13 PM
Quote from: Bison on December 07, 2014, 04:21:59 PM
I think the NCAA basketball tourney really proves the greatness that is American college sports.  On any given day...

Without hitting Wikipedia, who was the best team in baseball in 2001...

College?  Probably LSU.  That isn't the point.

BASEball - MLB.  Not college, and not basketball.

Who was the best MLB team in 2001 (and it wasn't even close).
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

OJsDad

So Brant, what you're saying is that the team that everyone knows is the best gets beat during a playoff game, then maybe they really are not the best. 
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

bayonetbrant

No, what I'm saying is that there's no way a #8 team would be in the conversation.  It's rare that #4 even needs to be in the conversation.

If your argument is "let them settle it on the field" then screw the regular season, draw up a 128-team bracket and start playing knockout games on Labor Day weekend - last team standing wins.  All the upsets you could possibly want.  Why have conferences?  Why have a regular season?  Anyone can win the tournament if they get hot, so the hell with it, let's just have the tournament, and who gives a shit what's happened in the 4 months leading up to the tournament?  I mean, if the tournament - excuse me, the "playoff" - is all that matters, then just hold the tournament and dispense with the actual season altogether.

But it you're going to have a regular season, shouldn't it mean something?

Over half the NHL gets in.
Over half the NBA gets in.
We're trending that way in the NFL.
MLB had it pretty good, and the way they've added the Wild Cards have actually made it meaningful - the only example you could find of an expansion actually having a worthwhile contribution, but that's because of the unique way pitching plays into baseball over the other sports.
College football came down to a final 2.  We've doubled that - with absolutely no meaningful gain outside of the wallet.  And you guys want to double it again before we've even played with the 4 yet.

I reiterate - they've already had their chances for out-of-left-field upsets - we call it the "regular season".  Cheapening it by establishing some "everyone gets a ribbon" playoff doesn't make the selection of a tournament winner any more meaningful.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

MetalDog

There should be 4 16 team superconferences.  Play a fifteen game schedule, once against every team in your league, then a championship game and a 4 team tournament to determine a national champion.  And before anyone screams about, "They are STUDENT athletes!," let's all just agree to what is apparent, they are athletes brought to play games and bring millions to their schools.  Period.  If they get an education along the way, good on them.  Otherwise, do what you are there for and stay out of the REAL students way.

And the Yankees were the 'Best' team of 2001.  Damned Diamondbacks!!!
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

bayonetbrant

Quote from: MetalDog on December 07, 2014, 05:45:21 PMAnd the Yankees were the 'Best' team of 2001.  Damned Diamondbacks!!!


bzzzzzzzt   ---  not even close.  Like 20 games not even close
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

MetalDog

My mistake.  The Mariners won 116 that year.  The Yanks went to the World Series and Curt Schilling earned my enmity for the first time.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

bayonetbrant

as far as the teams actually in the playoff?

Not a huge fan of any of them, but...

I'd like to see 'Bama shellack Ohio State.  That's mostly due to my hate of Ohio State, but while Nick Saban comes across as evil to a lot of "my" people back in Louisiana, any time I've ever heard him talking about football, like the ESPN specials, he's really a solid, genuine dude who happens to be an excellent coach, so I don't mind seeing him win 1 game.

Other side?  I'd be fine with either, with this caveat:  if Oregon is going to be FSU, I want them to win the title so they finally get one.  Otherwise, I want FSU to win so it reflects better on the ACC.

And while I'd like to see a competitive and entertaining game in the Rose Bowl, I want 'Bama ahead by 45 at the half and looking for volunteers from the crowd to play linebacker just to keep it competitive.

So give me the FSU-Oregon winner over 'Bama in the final, and I'm happy :)
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

GDS_Starfury

Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


Bison

I'm not getting your point honestly Brant.  (I do understand)  If we are just going off of Conference Championships, the playoffs should be 11 teams if you count the independents.  If every FBS conference doesn't hold weight, than the NCAA needs to tell them so and cut sling load.

The Big 12 needs to go to 12 teams now.  I don't think they have any choice, but who do they pick up and not get hit with "weak" teams in the conference.

OJsDad

Quote from: Bison on December 07, 2014, 06:38:49 PM
The Big 12 needs to go to 12 teams now.  I don't think they have any choice, but who do they pick up and not get hit with "weak" teams in the conference.

I think their best two options are Cincinnati and Boise State.  Both would bring respectable teams to the Big 12. I don't think they will be able to entice any Big 10, SEC, ACC or PAC 12 teams.  Especially if Texas is still giving the rest of the conference the finger. 
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.