Does anyone else

[Guest MikeSC]

He's got a point. ESPN didn't exactly make the "switch to ESPN when the MNF game starts to see the end of Giants v Saints" a secret.

[Red Baron 0]

I don't see how the NHL playoffs are a joke. Sure there are 16 teams entering the playoffs, and it has been for a long long time, but it doesn't mean that there are upsets to be occured. I'm sure if it was a one game win or lose then yes it would be a joke, but if you don't have the essentials of winning the cup, your not going to go far. You gotta play each and every game. If your goaltending has been questionable throughout the season, or your a soft team, you aren't going to go far when the playoffs come around.

[iggymcfly 0]

College football is nowhere near the level of the NFL.  The level of play isn't as good, nor is the talent for obvious reasons (they aren't pros), but as someone who follows a team that until recently wasn't in the BCS (Louisville) I can tell you the inherent pointlessness of college football.  Last year my team went 11-1 and the lone loss was a last min. affair at Miami.  By year's end we were truly awesome and if there was a real tourney who knows what we could have done.  But since we had that 1 loss and weren't in a BCS league, we didn't even get to a notable bowl game...just a pat on the head and sent down to Memphis for the god damn Liberty Bowl as usual. 

 

How about Utah and Auburn?  Those teams both went undefeated and yet neither even got a shot at winning the national title...in favor of seeing Oklahoma tank a major bowl game.  I don't know if either team could have beaten USC, but I'd like to think either could have stayed within 35 points.

 

College football is the only sport where teams can go undefeated and not have shit to show for it.  It's the single most political, arbitrary, BS filled sport.

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If you think you were pissed last year, just wait until the end of this season. I honestly believe that USC, Texas, and Louisville are all going to be undefeated, and I think you can guess which one of those three won't be making it to the Rose Bowl. In fact, the way it's set up, an undefeated Louisville would likely be going to the Fiesta Bowl to face the very worst BCS team remaining. It will be just like it was for Utah last year except that no team as crappy as Pitt is likely to qualify for a BCS game this year.

 

The lack of a playoff does piss me off, as an 8-team tournament at the end of the year with every team that currently qualifies for the BCS involved would be absolutely huge, and is the only fair way to determine a national champion. However, even with the flaws in that manner, I still can't bring myself to care about the NFL anywhere near as much as I do about college football. I think that in about four or five years, they're going to throw us a bone with a de-facto four team playoff matching the top 2 teams after the bowls, but a real playoff is still a long ways off.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Seeing Louisville only barely beat Kentucky... good. Keep them the fuck out of the title game.

[The Czech Republic 0]

But they won...

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

If you were sarcastic, then haha. If you were serious, well the voters do take in account how easily a team beats their opponent and the quality of said opponent. Kentucky is not setting the world on fire, so it won't look good for Louisville to barely beat them. It sends a message to the voters that they're just a little bit better than a crappy team.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I really dislike that line of thinking. Some team just matchup better than other teams, which is why there's always such debate whether what team gets seeded against who in the NFL playoffs. There's no other sport that's as crucial with matchups as football is.

 

We've all seen really shitty teams get the better hand of some great teams.. witness the Dolphins beating the Patriots last year in the regular season, when New England was still looking for and craving homefield advantage. The Dolphins clearly weren't a better team than say, the Colts, Steelers, or Eagles, but they matched up well enough to beat them.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

The difference is that the college football voters actually dictate who is seeded and who is not. Pro football doesn't. They operate by records and tiebreaking scenarios.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Also, college players need to wear some freaking socks. They look incomplete without them.

 

Anyway, college football is basically ridiculous in how it organizes itself.

[Guest MikeSC]

I don't see how the NHL playoffs are a joke. Sure there are 16 teams entering the playoffs, and it has been for a long long time, but it doesn't mean that there are upsets to be occured.

Playoffs should be a reward, not something mediocrity can easily achieve.

 

And a terrible team beating an "elite" team isn't exactly a positive thing.

I'm sure if it was a one game win or lose then yes it would be a joke, but if you don't have the essentials of winning the cup, your not going to go far. You gotta play each and every game. If your goaltending has been questionable throughout the season, or your a soft team, you aren't going to go far when the playoffs come around.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Which makes the regular season pretty pointless.

If you think you were pissed last year, just wait until the end of this season. I honestly believe that USC, Texas, and Louisville are all going to be undefeated, and I think you can guess which one of those three won't be making it to the Rose Bowl.

Considering that Kentucky gave them a good fight --- it'd be hard to justify placing Louisville over another undefeated team with any semblance of a schedule.

 

I'd love an NCAA playoff --- but it isn't happening.

[Art Sandusky 0]

The Giants must've won their division that year somehow because there's no way a 7-9 team ever made the playoffs in the NFL as a wild card. Wouldn't it be statistically impossible?

 

I enjoy college more than pro, but it's more because there's SO MUCH MORE of it, plus it's got a fifty year head start on the NFL in terms of establishing traditions and regional attributes, something the NFL lacks for the most part. It's also much more chaotic (how many times in the last five years have NFL fans rushed the field and ripped down the goalposts after a massive win?) but upsets still seem bigger.

 

When you think about it, college football is the shit that causes brawls in the parking lots of bars in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, while the pros (minus the Cowboys, Panthers, and Redskins) are left for yuppies to argue about in big city "pubs" while drinking their $8 whatever-meisters.

[The Czech Republic 0]

When you think about it, college football is the shit that causes brawls in the parking lots of bars in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, while the pros (minus the Cowboys, Panthers, and Redskins) are left for yuppies to argue about in big city "pubs" while drinking their $8 whatever-meisters.

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Minus the Packers, Bears, Packers, and Packers.

[CanadianChris 0]

The Giants must've won their division that year somehow because there's no way a 7-9 team ever made the playoffs in the NFL as a wild card. Wouldn't it be statistically impossible?

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There've been a few 8-8 teams, but a 7-9 team has never made the playoffs since they went to the 16 game schedule.

 

It's not impossible, though. They actually came close to having a 7-9 team make it just last year.

[Guest Ether]

If you were sarcastic, then haha. If you were serious, well the voters do take in account how easily a team beats their opponent and the quality of said opponent. Kentucky is not setting the world on fire, so it won't look good for Louisville to barely beat them. It sends a message to the voters that they're just a little bit better than a crappy team.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Louisville played Kentucky in the first game of the year at Kentucky. If Louisville wins all their other game like they did last week then no one will remember the week 1 game, just as everybody seemingly forgot how USC struggled against Stanford and some other teams after the Orange Bowl.

 

It doesn't matter anyways. Even as someone who will defend the Big East, I would agree that I would take an undefeated USC and Texas over Louisville (or Pitt, would they have been in that position) to play in the BCS title game.

[Guest Ether]

I don't see how the NHL playoffs are a joke. Sure there are 16 teams entering the playoffs, and it has been for a long long time, but it doesn't mean that there are upsets to be occured.

Playoffs should be a reward, not something mediocrity can easily achieve.

 

And a terrible team beating an "elite" team isn't exactly a positive thing.

I'm sure if it was a one game win or lose then yes it would be a joke, but if you don't have the essentials of winning the cup, your not going to go far. You gotta play each and every game. If your goaltending has been questionable throughout the season, or your a soft team, you aren't going to go far when the playoffs come around.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Which makes the regular season pretty pointless.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

To think that it used to be 16 out of 21 teams that made the playoffs in the NHL. All you had to do was not come in last place (unless you're were an unlucky Penguins team stuck in the 6-team Patrick division, where you had to beat two teams while watching a team with less points than you win the Norris division). Now good teams are actually missing the playoffs in the NHL.

 

The problem I feel now is that seeding has become irrelevant. Too many 6 and 7 seeds have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals as of late. Sure, it's a good story when it happens once every ten years, but it really destroys the importance of the regular season.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Yeah, #3 Carolina (which really was more like a #8), #7 Anaheim, #6 Calgary. And they all lose to the better team anyway.

[Guest Ether]

Yeah, #3 Carolina (which really was more like a #8), #7 Anaheim, #6 Calgary. And they all lose to the better team anyway.

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True. But the NHL would probably have been better served, and least from a marketing standpoint, to have some more #1 seed v. #1 seed matchups. What the NHL often has is the equivalent of the Patriots v. the Vikings in last year's Super Bowl.

 

Of course, the NHL would probably screw up the marketing anyway - like they did with Tampa Bay-Calgary - so I guess it's irrelevant.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

If you were sarcastic, then haha. If you were serious, well the voters do take in account how easily a team beats their opponent and the quality of said opponent. Kentucky is not setting the world on fire, so it won't look good for Louisville to barely beat them. It sends a message to the voters that they're just a little bit better than a crappy team.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Louisville played Kentucky in the first game of the year at Kentucky. If Louisville wins all their other game like they did last week then no one will remember the week 1 game, just as everybody seemingly forgot how USC struggled against Stanford and some other teams after the Orange Bowl.

 

It doesn't matter anyways. Even as someone who will defend the Big East, I would agree that I would take an undefeated USC and Texas over Louisville (or Pitt, would they have been in that position) to play in the BCS title game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes but Louisville is a Big East school. It will take a lot of convincing wins for the voters to deem them more deserving than what I will admit are the two most overrated teams this year (and I love USC!)