iggymcfly

That would be absolutely hilarious. I know it's more of a wrestling thing than a football thing, but that would actually get me really excited to watch the game. Nothing like a little old-fashioned heel heat to get people into a football game.

On the first part, that's completely wrong. The top 12 provision is only for at large-teams, as if there aren't two at-large teams in the top 4, or one at-large team in the top four and one mid-major in the top 6, the bowls can pick any top 12 team they want. As for the Orange Bowl, if OU and Auburn both lose and Cal doesn't, Cal will almost certainly pass both of them and play for the nationl title. The polls always drop teams that lose so Cal would likely be a comfortable 2 in both polls, and they're already ahead of Auburn in one of the computer rankings. However, if Cal isn't eligible for the Rose Bowl, either due to qualifying for the Orange Bowl or due to Texas passing them for fourth, then the Rose Bowl berth will likely go to Utah. First off, ASU would only be eligible if Texas isn't in the top four, and even if they were eligible, a two-loss team that got third-placein their conference isn't very attractive no matter what conference they're from. Finally, for Damaramu's original question, if Auburn passes Oklahoma for number two, and Texas passes Cal for number four, this is how the BCS bowls would likely look. Orange Bowl: USC vs. Auburn Rose Bowl: Utah vs. Michigan Sugar Bowl: Miami vs. Texas Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Boston College

He's got 13 TDs, and the vast majority of them were on plays that other players wouldn't make. For instance, Cedric Benson has 18 TDs, this year, but with the offensive line, and support from the passing game, his backup could probably have gotten about 15 or so of those just as easily. But most of those long kick and punt returns, and even long catches, are plays that only he could make. His speed's incredible, and he makes tacklers miss like no one else in the game right now. I'd say that without Reggie Bush, USC probably would have lost to Virginia Tech, Stanford, and Cal this year, and wouldn't even be in BCS contention.

If I'm going to get a big burger, I'm certainly not going to go to fucking Hardee's to get it. I have no problem eating a 3/4 pound burger, but if I'm going to do that, it actually has to be good.

THURSDAY Maryland at Virginia Tech SATURDAY South Carolina at Clemson Iowa State at Kansas State Virginia at Georgia Tech Michigan at Ohio State UAB at Army Ball State at Central Michigan Rutgers at Navy Middle Tennessee at Troy Kansas at Missouri Arkansas at Mississippi State San Jose State at Tulsa Colorado State at Air Force Auburn at Alabama Wisconsin at Iowa Oregon at Oregon State Florida at Florida State Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Maryland/Virginia Tech Game? 36 Tiebreak #2: How many yards passing will Maryland's Joel Stathan have against Virginia Tech? 134

The thing is that Ortiz actually carried the Sox to a lot higher level than the Angels could reach. Guerrero got them into the playoffs sure, but once the playoffs got going, you could see that they were nowhere near the quality of team that the Red Sox were. I'd say that Ortiz was actually the most valuable player in the American League this year. Of course, no one could really tell for sure by the end of the season, so I can see how Vlad got the MVP, and I can also see why they have to vote before the playoffs. It's just that after they went through clutch time, Ortiz's value showed itself to be a lot stronger, in what was an extremely close MVP race throughout.

Wow, this thread's only a page and a half? I was expecting 10 or 20 at least. I don't actually have Halo 2 myself, but I'm living in the dorms, so I've played it a decent amount, and we can play over the LAN whenever without having to worry about paying for X-Box Live. I'll agree that the online multiplayer is definitely what separates it from other games, but the single-player's pretty damn good too. It flows a lot better than most games, and you can just get lost inside it without coming out all the time with loading screens, going into a menu to start a new level every ten minutes, etc. And there are plenty of tight parts in the actual game, I'd say they're much better than the cut-scenes. One thing I will say though is that if you're playing it on a lower difficulty than Heroic to start with, you're cheating yourself. Finding creative ways to overcome the difficulty factor is a huge part of what makes it interesting, so I'm sure if you just mow down enemies on a lower level, it might seem kind of pointless.

Nah, the idea of a conference title game is to have teams that haven't played each other if it all possible. The last thing you want to do is guarantee a rematch. Besides, this is just a temporary problem as Kansas State's just having a down year, and should be back next year. Also, Callahan will turn Nebraska back around; it's just gonna take him four or five years to get the right personnel to the pass the ball. The only long-term correction the Big 12 needs to make is to upgrade the South by getting rid of Baylor and adding TCU in their place.

I haven't followed the WWE much the last few months, and if I didn't post on here for Sports all the time, I probably wouldn't have even noticed that there was a PPV, but I have to say these PPV cards are getting worse and worse every month. Bradshaw vs. Booker T was the Smackdown ME? Are you kidding me? They take the worst heel champion in recent memory, and put him against the least respected main event heel as of about a month ago for the title. This shit doesn't even make sense to me. And then for the Raw main event and overall main event of the show, you've got a few main eventers, and a couple jobbers in an eight-man tag for control of Raw? What the fuck? I swear, it's getting to the point where a typical PPV is what a Raw or Smackdown used to be, and the only thing that reaches the level of what used to be a run of the mill, shitty PPV, is Wrestlemania.

It's just guesswork, but looking at these rankings for a minute, I'd say the final computer rankings will probably end up something like this: USC: 4 firsts, 2 seconds Oklahoma: 2 firsts, 2 seconds, 2 thirds Auburn: 2 seconds, 4 thirds If this were the case, the lowest and highest rankings would be dropped, leaving the teams with the following points: USC = (25+25+25+24)/100 = .99 Oklahoma = (25+24+24+23)/100 = .96 Auburn = (24+23+23+23)/100 = .93 This would require Auburn to have 3% more points in the polls than Oklahoma in order to make the Orange Bowl. .03*3150= 94.5. This means that if my (fairly unscientific) prediction of the final computer rankings holds, Auburn would have to gain 97 points in the polls, or for instance pass Oklahoma in 48 ballots, and USC in 1.

Since there seems to be a lot of mystery on the computer rankings, I did a little research and found each individual one. Here's the actual scores to show how close the teams are in each of the 6 rankings. Also, where available, I am putting the previous week's ranking in parenthesis to show what kind of gain Auburn made with the Georgia win, and give an idea how they might gain over the rest of the season with a better schedule. Sagarin Rankings: 1. Oklahoma 100.42 2. USC 100.38 3. California 93.96 4. Auburn 92.81 5. Utah 92.11 Massey Ratings: 1. USC 5.18 2. Oklahoma 4.96 3. Auburn 4.75 4. California 4.65 5. Utah 4.55 Colley's Rankings 1. Oklahoma .987 (.990) 2. USC .961 (.978) 3. Auburn .937 (.897) 4. Texas .887 (.879) 5. Arizona State .883 (.876) Billingsley Report 1. Oklahoma 331.72 (326.32) 2. USC 319.16 (318.29) 3. Auburn 311.50 (298.67) 4. Texas 292.95 (290.73) 5. Michigan 288.99 (284.33) Anderson & Hester Rankings 1. Oklahoma .844 (.848) 2. USC .840 (.847) 3. Auburn .827 (.818) 4. Utah .805 (.805) 5. California .786 (.789)

Nah, USC's in. The polls still count for two-thirds, and the Trojans have a huge lead one UA and OU that won't be made up. It's only because the Sooners and Tigers are in a virtual tie in the polls that the computer rankings get factored in so strongly. Also, a lot of the computer rankings make a big deal out of a team's best win, so a win by A&M would help Auburn somewhat.

Sometimes I think that even if the BCS standings were determined solely by points scored minus points against, people would complain that they're "confusing." I'll give one good effort here to explain this as clearly and concisely as possible. It's really simple actually. Two thirds of the ranking is total points in the two polls. It's not the rank, it's the number of points. So, for instance this week, Oklahoma had a total of 2971 points while Auburn had 2969. Now, yes, the separate component that measures SOS has been eliminated. This is the number where they took your rank in SOS based on a very simplistic formula, and multiplied it by .04 to make up a component of your final score. It has nothing to do with the computer rankings. The computer rankings still count for one third of the total score. And since they don't take into account margin of victory, some variety of strength of schedule is the only way that they can separate undefeated teams from each other. Right now, the calculations in 5 of 6 computers say that Oklahoma's played the toughest schedule out of the three major unbeatens, while all 6 say that Auburn's played the weakest. However, Auburn's schedule will get strengthened considerably by playing Alabama and Tennessee, while Oklahoma's will get weakened considerably by playing Baylor and whichever shitty team comes out of the North. If the schedules are far apart enough now that those two games won't affect them much, then Oklahoma should hold on and go to the Orange Bowl. However, if they're close enough that a couple big wins can make the difference, than Auburn could overtake Oklahoma in some of the computer rankings. If they do it in close to half of the computer rankings, and make up some ground in the polls, or actually pass Oklahoma in half of the computer rankings, they'll get the Orange Bowl berth instead.

I was looking over the Heisman candidates last night, and I'll agree that White has the best stats of any major conference QB this year. The only thing that bothers me in terms of giving him the Heisman this year, is that in the biggest game of the year (Texas), he played far and away his worst game, and it was only due to tremendous efforts by Peterson and the defense that OU got the win. Also, you were right that Peterson doesn't really get in the end zone. He's only got nine touchdown all year, and unless he runs for five or six TDs in the last two games, he probably won't get the Heisman either. The player who's not on many Heisman lists that would probably get my vote is JJ Arrington from Cal. He's got the highest ypc average of any back with a decent number of carries at 6.9 which is way ahead of Benson and Peterson. He hasn't really had a bad game all year, and he's the only candidate that I can't really find a flaw with. My Heisman list right now looks like this: 1. JJ Arrington 2. Adrian Peterson 3. Jason White 4. Alex Smith 5. Reggie Bush

There's no way that Auburn's going to be make up all of this deficit in the polls. They just have to hope that the final two games affect the strength of schedule enough that Auburn can jump Oklahoma in 2 or 3 computer rankings and that USC jumps them in the other ones. Then, the few points that Auburn will gain in the polls might be enough for them to move into #2 in the BCS. Remember, last year at this time LSU was ranked #4 in the BCS standings.

Well, I didn't bother to post my top 25 last week, since no one seemed to be paying much attention the week before, but after Auburn's big win, there was enough of a shakeup that I figured, my rankings and the rankings in general would be worthy of discussion this week. (Previous week's rank in parenthesis) 1. Auburn 10-0 (3) Well, color me impressed, converted, whatever. The Tigers absolutely dominated an excellent Georgia team, and showed they truly are a step above the rest of the SEC. They're still pretty close to 1 and 1A with USC, as their bodies of work are pretty much even. However, it's the way Auburn's winning right now that gives them the edge. They really haven't been challenged since the LSU game, and when you're playing in the deepest conference in America, that's an accomplishment. . 2. USC 10-0 (1) The Trojans are still an excellent team, and in most years, the way they've been playing would be enough to keep them in the one slot. However, there have been chinks in the armor as of late, as they let teams like Arizona and Washington hang around for a quarter or two, and they let Oregon State stay in the game into the fourth. Games like the ASU blowout suggest that they can still turn it on when they want, but for now, they're just a hair behind Auburn. . 3. Oklahoma 10-0 (2) It's a shame for the Sooners to fall out of Orange Bowl position without losing a game, but under the current system, that's about all that can happen right now. They've played a weaker schedule than the other two competitors, and lack the signature wins that USC and Auburn achieved against the likes of ASU, Auburn, and Tennessee. The fact is that even in the Big XII, Oklahoma seems like they need a little luck to get by mid-range teams like Texas A&M and Oklahoma State, and even the Texas win lost a little luster after the Longhorns insipid performance against Kansas. . 4. California 8-1 (4) Cal holds onto fourth for now, but really seems to be losing ground as of late. The near loss to Oregon was followed by a fairly mediocre performance against the Huskies. Luckily, with a rivalry game ahead followed by a trip to Southern Miss, we'll get to see what the Golden Bears can manage when they're really motivated. . 5. Utah 10-0 (5) The Utes look more and more impressive from week to week, as they're not just beating all the teams on their schedule, they're dismantling them. They've beaten every team they've played by at least two touchdowns, and have been averaging 54 points a game over the last four weeks. They turned in another impressive performance this week, leading a good Wyoming team by a score of 38-7 before bringing in the scrubs in the second half. They don't jump Cal due to a few question marks on the defense, but if this were last year when every team had a loss, Utah would be a contender for the national title. . 6. Michigan 9-1 (9) The Wolverines were the beneficiary of poor performances by a lot of top teams this week, as well as seeing one of their common opponents topple previously undefeated Wisconsin. Now, all they need is a win over Ohio State and they can punch their ticket for the Rose Bowl. . 7. Texas 9-1 (8) The Longhorns had a terrible performance this week, needing a conversion on 4th and 18 to beat arguably the worst team in the Big XII. Still, at this point in the season, it's hard to drop a team for a game they didn't lose, and as long as they keep winning, Texas is still a top ten team. . 8. Louisville 7-1 (10) The Cardinals keep on winning in impressive fashion, but to really move up, they need a better win than North Carolina. The fact that they probably could have beaten Miami on the road if Lefors hadn't got hurt is the only thing keeping them this high. . 9. Tennessee 7-2 (11) The Vols took a much-needed week off to see if Erik Ainge can start to get healthy, and they'll need him if they want to have any chance of knocking off the Auburn juggernaut in the SEC Championship. . 10. Miami 7-2 (14) The Canes showed that they're still legit against Virginia, and that when they get up for the game, they cna play with anybody. The problem is that they didn't get up for a couple weeks, and it cost them any chance at playing for the national title. . 11. Georgia 8-2 (7) Not such a good week for the Bulldogs, as they discovered that Auburn was their "daddy", so to speak, and they lost any chance at playing in a BCS game. However, the way Auburn is playing right now, there's really not much shame in losing to them, and if the Bulldogs were playing in the Big 10, the Big East, or maybe even the Big XII, they could be undefeated right now. . 12. Florida State 8-2 (13) The Noles need losses by Miami and maybe Virginia Tech to get to a BCS game now, and are probably wishing they'd gotten up a little better for Maryland. They have the talent to be in the Top 5 right now, but just can't seem to get the motor running to play good football week after week. . 13. LSU 7-2 (16) The Tigers really have been impressive, mowing down most of the SEC, including another nice win last night over Alabama. Also, the one point loss to Auburn on a leaping call looks even better now, even if the Georgia demolition looks a little worse. . 14. Wisconsin 9-1 (6) The Badgers got absolutely blown out of the water by Michigan State, and confirmed what I'd expected all year long: They're not that good of a football team. They've coasted by on one of the easiest schedules in America, but they're really not a top ten caliber football team. . 15. Virginia Tech 7-2 (15) The Hokies took the week off and remained in the same spot, so I guess that's good. They still have two major tests remaining against Virginia and Miami to either fall off, or skyrocket to the top. . 16. Arizona State 8-2 (18) The Sun Devils picked up another nice win this week over Washington State and are still among a handful teams of that can say they haven't lost to anyone outside the Top 5. . 17. Boise State 9-0 (12) I know I said it's hard to drop teams when they win at this point in the season, but there have to be exceptions. The Broncos were playing San Jose State who's legitimately one of the worst teams in the country, and they gave up 49 points and won in double overtime. You just can't tell me that Boise State could handle the grind of getting up for big games week after week in a major conference, and come out anything close to unscathed. . 18. Boston College 7-2 (24) The Golden Eagles picked up a huge win over West Virginia this week, and pretty much punched their ticket to the Sugar Bowl. Even though they play in the Big East, BC is pretty legit, as they don't have any really bad losses, and they also beat Notre Dame in South Bend. . 19. Iowa 8-2 (21) The Hawkeyes have played pretty good football since the Michigan loss, winning six in a row. Of course, the state of the Big Ten accounts for a lot of that, but Iowa's still earned their way back into the Top 20. . 20. Texas A&M 7-3 (22) With another solid win over Texas Tech, the Aggies are finally starting to erase the stain of the Baylor loss, and show that they belong as an upper-level team. . 21. Oklahoma State 7-3 (23) Well, a win over Baylor's not that impressive, but it's still a lot better than what happened to the team ranked a spot above them. . 22. Virginia 7-2 (19) The Hoos actually played fairly well in the loss to Miami, but when Akron is the only team you've beaten that has a winning record, you know you have some problems. . 23. West Virginia 8-2 (17) The Mountaineers lost their Big East title and BCS berth against Boston College, and now have to settle for the title of worst two-loss team from a major conference. . 24. Notre Dame 6-4 (20) Nobody wants to rank the Irish after a loss to Pittsburgh of all teams, but the fact remains that they've beaten two top 12 teams, while the other teams in this vicinity haven't even beaten anyone in the Top 25. . 25. Georgia Tech 6-3 (NR) The Yellow Jackets don't have any big signature wins, but they don't have any bad losses either, and a 6-3 record in the ACC's an accomplishment. If they really want to get respect, however, they're going to have to pick off Virginia or Georgia.

He wasn't neutralized. He had one of the best big games that any back's had all season. Who gives a shit if White made some throws in the red zone after OSU had to start filling up the box because Peterson was running all over them. If OU had a good fullback that they gave the ball to when they were inside the 2 and he only ran for 50 yards, but got 3 touchdowns, would he be the deciding factor in the game? Of course not. With the declines in the defense and receiving corps, OU would be lucky to be 8-2 right now with Adrian Peterson.

That might be valid if the Sooners had Peterson last year. However, since they didn't, it proves nothing except that the offense depended on White last year, which pretty much everyone already knew. Also, I'd really like to know how Jason White was the deciding factor in the OSU game. Adrian Peterson ran for 249 yards that game. Jason White completed just over half of his passes, and had less yards passing the ball than Peterson did running it. Yeah, White might have made a couple big plays in the 4th quarter, but Peterson was the dominating force that ripped up the OSU defense.

I like how the person who goes to OU, and focuses on them all the time is impartial, but everyone else is "bias."* *= I'm pretty sure he was going for the adjective biased, and not the noun bias here.

I probably won't actually convince you that Oklahoma isn't in the Top 2. I don't really expect to. But I'm certainly not biased against them. I thought OU was #1 at the beginning of the year, and I was one of the only people who didn't complain when USC got left out of the title game last year. I do have one more thing about this stupid "division" thing you talk about that's driving me crazy. The Pac Ten has 10 teams, and there's one of them that USC doesn't play. The Big Ten has 11 teams, and there are two of them that every team misses. The Big XII has 12 teams, and the teams from the south each miss three from the North. It's almost the same. You never hear Cal complain that the conference gets dragged down by Washington State, and they're really better than the rest of the conference. You never hear Iowa say that their conference is getting dragged down by Indiana even though they don't have to play them. The fact is that the Big XII South plays 3/8 of their conference games against the North. It's almost as many as they play against each other and it's obviously grossly inflating their records. If the Big XII North was even decent, and they could win 1/3 of their games against teams not named Baylor, there would only be two ranked teams in the South, and the conference as a whole would probably be even more recognized for shitty football.

Texas Tech's not in the Top 25, nor do they deserve to be. They've coasted through the shitty Big XII to a few wins, but they still lost to New Mexico early in the year. As for that toughest division comment you always throw out there, that's an utterly pointless statement. There are only 6 divisions in college football, and two of them are in the MAC. And the Big XII South didn't even do well in non-conference play as A&M, Tech, and Baylor all lost to mid-majors. The only reason they look good is that the top five teams are 13-0 against the shitty North. If you really want a vaild comparison, take the teams Oklahoma played and make them a "conference." It wouldn't be as tough as the Pac-10 or the portion of the SEC that Auburn played.

Well then how come they trailed in the third quarter against 4-6 Kansas State who's much worse than OSU, and is probably worse than Stanford as well. Also, how do you get off saying that OSU and Texas A&M are better than Virginia Tech. Va. Tech's in first right now in the ACC, and if they win out, they'll play in the Sugar Bowl. Compare this to the team that lost to BAYLOR, and the OSU who's only decent win all year is the UCLA game.

And if OU goes undefeated, it's either because they're better or because the Big XII sucks dick this year and they won't make the national championship where they have to play a team like LSU. Although I have to say, I'm not totally convinced that a let down Oklahoma team that was mad it didn't get to the national championship would be able to beat a jacked-up Utah squad.

God damn it. OU did not play Texas on the road. They played in Austin which is halfway between the two campuses, and the crowd was evenly split. Just because they played one more tough road game doesn't mean that you should totally discount that the other teams were dominant, whereas OU's been playing teams close all year. Auburn was even dominant when they played on the road against Tennessee, and when USC played at VT, they did better than OU did at A&M or OSU.

Damaramu, is this the article you're mentioning? Because it really doesn't look to me that it agrees with what you said at all. A lot of the computer rankings count facing a Top 5 team and a bottom 5 team the same as facing two .500 teams, so Auburn's getting killed for their weak non-conference schedule. That, along with no margin of victory component is the reason that Auburn is currently low in the computer rankings. However, as the article says, Alabama and Tennessee will help Auburn's schedule a lot more than Baylor and Nebraska will for Oklahoma, so there's still plenty of time to play catchup. Remember, LSU didn't pass USC last year until the very end of the season. One last thing, Damaramu, no one's really convinced by your comparisons that unconvincingly try to show this year's third place OU team is better than last year's third place OU team. You can try to say that Oklahoma shouldn't be punished for playing teams close, but there has to be some means of comparison. When there are three undefeated teams that have all beaten three top 25 teams, you have to start looking at how they did it. When you do that, the teams that managed to blow out championship contenders at halftime are going to be looked at more favorably than a team that's been within one or two possessions of losing against every decent team they've played this year..