The College Football Thread 11/25 - 11/29

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Yeah, Oklahoma is 2 and Texas is 3. You might be the last person to finally figure it out, but it's official.

[Urban Warfare 0]

Just announced on Fox, it will in fact be Oklahoma.

[Guest Czecherbear]

Wait, Texas beat Oklahoma during the season, but Oklahoma won its division? Ugh, you guys.

[Damaramu 0]

Whoo......I sure did run the gamut of emotions last night and today. I need to have my heart checked out now.

 

Now OU needs to not overlook Mizzou like they've been known to do in the past.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

I did get a kick out of the "65-21, 39-33" sign a fan had behind Stoops and Bradford in the post game interviews.

 

Now, the stupid ass debates unfortunately won't end. This will just add more fuel to the fire. *sigh* Go Missouri.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Wait, Texas beat Oklahoma during the season, but Oklahoma won its division? Ugh, you guys.

Yeah. It's my biggest problem with this, three-way tie notwithstanding. Hopefully Oklahoma loses in the championship game so the karma kind of evens out, and we can say both teams at least got a shot at something.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

How else should it be settled? It WAS settled on the field. Everyone beat each other. I see no other way to fairly decide this.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Once again, I challenge anyone who is complaining about this to propose a superior tie-breaking method for a three-way tie in which the teams are all 1-1 head to head. Like it or not, someone has to win the Big 12 South.

[Bored 0]

Once again, I challenge anyone who is complaining about this to propose a superior tie-breaking method for a three-way tie in which the teams are all 1-1 head to head. Like it or not, someone has to win the Big 12 South.

I'm not saying this would be the right way to do it and like I said when I posted the thread this week I like the Big XII's three-way tiebreak rules compared to the likes of the Pac-10 and MAC. But how about instead of declaring the highest ranked team the conference champ, rather you throw out the lowest ranked team (Texas Tech) and then go back to head-to-head. I think might be slightly more fair but there's a lot hindsight involved in that.

[Damaramu 0]

Once again, I challenge anyone who is complaining about this to propose a superior tie-breaking method for a three-way tie in which the teams are all 1-1 head to head. Like it or not, someone has to win the Big 12 South.

 

I don't understand the whole "Let's discount Tech because they got their butts kicked" way of thinking. That's the justification that these ESPN talking heads are using.

Well you can't discount Tech because if OU had lost last night then Tech would've won the Big XII South outright! But of course, ESPN tried to pose the question of if that was fair or not as well.

Not to mention Bruce Feldman trying to say that if OU had played a close game with Tech they'd had more argument to get to the Big XII title game.

It was a 3-way tie, if it was 2-way tie then the team that won would've won outright.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Once again, I challenge anyone who is complaining about this to propose a superior tie-breaking method for a three-way tie in which the teams are all 1-1 head to head. Like it or not, someone has to win the Big 12 South.

I'm not saying this would be the right way to do it and like I said when I posted the thread this week I like the Big XII's three-way tiebreak rules compared to the likes of the Pac-10 and MAC. But how about instead of declaring the highest ranked team the conference champ, rather you throw out the lowest ranked team (Texas Tech) and then go back to head-to-head. I think might be slightly more fair but there's a lot hindsight involved in that.

 

No, because then sometimes the lowest ranked team will whine. What if they were all 1, 2, 3? Face it. Someone's going to get screwed in a 3 way tie. At least it doesn't happen often. I think this is the first time the Big 12 has had to even use this tiebreaker.

 

[Damaramu 0]

It'd be cool if there were no divisions and OU and Texas just got to play each other again.......

[Psycho Penguin 0]

You'd still have Tech with 1 loss wondering "what about us? We beat one of those teams too!"

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

My answer to the question would be to go with no divisions, with the top 2 teams in the conference playing for the title. This opens up plenty of other problems if you don't play a true round-robin, but I think it's preferable. The only other thing I can come up with would be to use the BCS ranking as a means of breaking 3-way ties similar to how divisional record and other such factors are used above it: if you have three 6-2 teams and two are 4-1 in the division while the other's 3-2, the 3-2 team is lopped off and head-to-head becomes the determinant for the remaining teams. I think that's a little more consistent with the other tiebreak rules, and preserves on-the-field results between tied teams as the most important factor.

 

EDIT: Bored beat me to it. Let me emphasize that the reason I most like the idea of lopping off the lowest team and reverting to head-to-head is that it's consistent with all preceding tiebreak rules. That you go from trying to emphasize head-to-head to ignoring it seems backwards.

 

Also, Dama: I don't think anyone on this board is arguing that Texas Tech should be eliminated just because they got whomped by OU--there are other reasons to make that consideration--so I'd recommend avoiding that ESPN straw man if you actually want to continue discussion on the topic here.

[Damaramu 0]

Also, Dama: I don't think anyone on this board is arguing that Texas Tech should be eliminated just because they got whomped by OU--there are other reasons to make that consideration--so I'd recommend avoiding that ESPN straw man if you actually want to continue discussion on the topic here.

 

Hey I'm just bringing up what I heard. I'd like to see if anyone else has any comments on it (especially what Feldman said), I'm not challenging that anyone is saying that here.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Tech's weak ass OOC schedule would have been their biggest downfall if they lost to OU in an expected classic, but losing 65-21 really put the final nail in their coffin unfortunately. Losing Crabtree and having a 50 percent Harrell didn't help.

[Mike wanna be 0]

So Texas is, with a Mizzou upset or some Florida-over-Alabama-with-really-illogical-voting tomfoolery, going to the BCS title game without even playing for their conference championship. Awesome.

 

For the record, if we went with a top 8 BCS playoff system, we would at present have:

Alabama/Penn State, OU/Texas Tech in a rematch, Texas/Utah, and Florida/USC, with Boise State lurking outside should Florida get blown out and drop a ton of spots (I assume #2 OU would stay top 8 even with a blowout; see Texas Tech).

[Psycho Penguin 0]

So Texas is, with a Mizzou upset or some Florida-over-Alabama-with-really-illogical-voting tomfoolery, going to the BCS title game without even playing for their conference championship. Awesome.

 

For the record, if we went with a top 8 BCS playoff system, we would at present have:

Alabama/Penn State, OU/Texas Tech in a rematch, Texas/Utah, and Florida/USC, with Boise State lurking outside should Florida get blown out and drop a ton of spots (I assume #2 OU would stay top 8 even with a blowout; see Texas Tech).

 

Why does not playing for a conference title matter if the sole reason they're not playing is the BCS ranking to begin with, which they barely lost?

 

Those matchups are terrible.

 

[Mike wanna be 0]

So Texas is, with a Mizzou upset or some Florida-over-Alabama-with-really-illogical-voting tomfoolery, going to the BCS title game without even playing for their conference championship. Awesome.

 

For the record, if we went with a top 8 BCS playoff system, we would at present have:

Alabama/Penn State, OU/Texas Tech in a rematch, Texas/Utah, and Florida/USC, with Boise State lurking outside should Florida get blown out and drop a ton of spots (I assume #2 OU would stay top 8 even with a blowout; see Texas Tech).

 

Why does not playing for a conference title matter if the sole reason they're not playing is the BCS ranking to begin with, which they barely lost?

 

Those matchups are terrible.

What's wrong with it is, say, the Big XII South champion defined as "the team that lost to the Big XII's national championship representative". How do you win a national championship competed for by 120 teams when you can't definitively say you're the best in your six-team division? And doesn't it totally make an even bigger mockery of the BCS polling situation if the poll that knocks Texas out of the Big XII title game is the same poll that subsequently puts them in the national title game?

 

Right now, Texas needs an Oklahoma loss and/or an unconvincing Alabama loss to slip into the top 2 and then one win gives them the national title.

Based on the current "playoff" rankings, however, Texas would have to go through a Utah team I admittedly haven't seen, and two of the remaining six teams (The SEC champion/runner-up in Bama or Florida, Big 10 champion Penn State, Pac 10 champion USC, Big XII #3 Texas Tech and Big XII champion/runner-up Oklahoma) to get the "same" national title.

 

Who deserves it more: a Texas team that beats one unbeaten mid-major conference champion and two other 11/12 regular-season-win teams (including potentially 2 other "BCS conference" champions), or a Texas team that gets lucky next weekend so the chips fall in such a way they get in the national title game, and one lucky win to 'earn' the crystal football?

 

Furthermore they may not be the most "exciting" matchups, but aren't those four matchups as national championship quarterfinals more exciting than the USC vs. Penn State, Bama/Florida loser vs. at-large Utah/Boise State, Texas vs Utah/Boise State, and BC/VT vs Cincinnati matchups we'll probably get in the meaningless "BCS" bowl games?

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

What's weird is in any other year, a 11-1 USC or a 11-1 Penn State would be a hot national title game participant.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

More whining about the system. The system is what it is. Until they fix the system, Texas will be deserving of a shot if OU loses, regardless of whether they won their division or not.

 

Also, they might win the national title in a playoff system too! And how many wild card teams have won the Super Bowl? Enough to say you don't have to be the best team in your division to be the champs at the end.

[Broward83 0]

Brown's politicking: Dama, ESPN gave Stoops the chance to chime in during Texas / AnM ..he chose not to.

 

Discounting Tech / Tie-breaks: The moment Tech lost to OU and dropped as far as they did in the rankings, they were taken out of the talk. Add to it nearly choking against Baylor and others and there's no reason to keep them in the loop. Also, SEC (I believe) would've dropped Tech as the lowest BCS ranked team then reverted back to H2H in which Texas would've beaten out OU.

 

Texas in the MNC: We need Mizzou to show up for a game they should've showed up for last year and for voters to not get gun-shy about putting a team that didn't win its conference into the title game. As it stands, we're going to get the Fiesta or Sugar Bowl...fuck, least its not back to the Holiday Bowl.

 

Penguin: Dude, who the fuck are you? Like, all I've seen you do is start shit and argue for the sake of arguing. Any real "arguing" between say Dama and I is long-standing OU/Texas hatred and Slayer well..he's from Kansas and has to deal with trying to not fall into that fat fuck's orbital space which could be quite a hassle on some days.

[Slayer 0]

Man, I thought I'd be thrilled to see OU go in over Texas, but now that it's actually happened I feel mildly guilty about... it doesn't seem right.

 

As for the triangle situation, I remember back in 2000 when the Pac 10 had a similar situation, with Washington losing to Oregon losing to Oregon State who lost to Washington. Washington wound up with the Rose Bowl invite and I have no recollection how that was actually resolved. I'm sure Bored can chime in on that one.

 

Slayer well..he's from Kansas and has to deal with trying to not fall into that fat fuck's orbital space which could be quite a hassle on some days.

Bashing the Human Planet? I'm down with that

 

I hate UT as I would most of my team's division rivals (though I have no real vitriol for OU due to a couple good friends of mine who are big Sooners fans). I just have extra dislike for Mack Brown is all. Originally I thought he was a good source of comic relief when he was constantly trying to find different ways of justifying why he would keep starting the pretty boy Super Bowl MVP's kid over the guy who could actually play QB. Then he pulled that bullshit with the Rose Bowl in 2004 which earned my enmity because 1) I'm a fan of the traditional Pac 10-Big 10 matchup and wanted to see Cal-Michigan instead and 2) I just thought it was a real fucking cheap thing to do, and so then I just wanted to see him lose as bad as possible... of course that was all for naught when he was fucking hoisting the crystal football the very next year, so the least I can hope for is seeing him limited to just that one

[CanadianChris 0]

The SEC's three-way tiebreaker rule, courtesy of Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com:

 

The Southeastern Conference tiebreaker says that in the event of a three-way tie, the team that is rated the highest will be the division champion unless the second-highest team is within five places in the BCS standings. Then it reverts to head-to-head competition.

 

That seems a lot more sensible to me. Not to knock Oklahoma, because they've got a great team, and would give Alabama or Florida a terrific fight in the MNC game, but I just think Texas should be in the Big XII title game.

[Bored 0]

As for the triangle situation, I remember back in 2000 when the Pac 10 had a similar situation, with Washington losing to Oregon losing to Oregon State who lost to Washington. Washington wound up with the Rose Bowl invite and I have no recollection how that was actually resolved. I'm sure Bored can chime in on that one.

 

...

 

I hate UT as I would most of my team's division rivals (though I have no real vitriol for OU due to a couple good friends of mine who are big Sooners fans). I just have extra dislike for Mack Brown is all. Originally I thought he was a good source of comic relief when he was constantly trying to find different ways of justifying why he would keep starting the pretty boy Super Bowl MVP's kid over the guy who could actually play QB. Then he pulled that bullshit with the Rose Bowl in 2004 which earned my enmity because 1) I'm a fan of the traditional Pac 10-Big 10 matchup and wanted to see Cal-Michigan instead and 2) I just thought it was a real fucking cheap thing to do, and so then I just wanted to see him lose as bad as possible... of course that was all for naught when he was fucking hoisting the crystal football the very next year, so the least I can hope for is seeing him limited to just that one

For the 2000 Pac-10 race it went to overall record where both Washington and Oregon State were 11-1 while Oregon was 10-2 (lost to Wisconsin early in the season), then back to head-to-head where Washington won out by beating Oregon State.

 

The 2004 Cal/Texas situation had been on my mind as well as this might be a little bit of karma for Mack Brown after that debacle. Of course I love Mack Brown because of it for keeping Cal out of the Rose Bowl. After the fact it ended being the right thing to do as Michigan and Texas played a classic while Cal got exposed in the Holiday Bowl against Texas Tech. But it was still a very slimy thing to do by Brown.

[Slayer 0]

After the fact it ended being the right thing to do as Michigan and Texas played a classic while Cal got exposed in the Holiday Bowl against Texas Tech.

I didn't see any of that bowl game. Did Tech actually outplay Cal or did Cal just pull the "We got screwed so we're not showing up" bit like Kansas State in '98?

[Damaramu 0]

This is a pretty decent article by Brad Edwards:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?page=roadtobcs/0807

 

He brings up some good points in the beginning (the voters voting one way one week then suddenly changing it to try and manipulate the BCS the next week), but I think he may just be trying to start a debate that isn't there with the end of the column.

He's wondering if Florida doesn't move up enough after beating 'Bama and if OU and Texas play for the national title. I think it's a pretty ludicrous assumption, Florida will go if they win. I don't see any way they don't.

 

Then he's thinking that Texas would stay ahead of OU and OU may not go to the title game even if they win the Big XII. I don't see that happening either.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

After the fact it ended being the right thing to do as Michigan and Texas played a classic while Cal got exposed in the Holiday Bowl against Texas Tech.

I didn't see any of that bowl game. Did Tech actually outplay Cal or did Cal just pull the "We got screwed so we're not showing up" bit like Kansas State in '98?

 

I thought they just didn't bother to show up, but some will say they got beat.

[Bored 0]

I don't remember what the story was there other than being happy with the result. That's part of the problem with bowl games is you never know if a team is really going to show up and give their best effort as the motivation to play can vary greatly.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

The SEC's three-way tiebreaker rule, courtesy of Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com:

 

The Southeastern Conference tiebreaker says that in the event of a three-way tie, the team that is rated the highest will be the division champion unless the second-highest team is within five places in the BCS standings. Then it reverts to head-to-head competition.

 

That seems a lot more sensible to me. Not to knock Oklahoma, because they've got a great team, and would give Alabama or Florida a terrific fight in the MNC game, but I just think Texas should be in the Big XII title game.

The ACC uses the exact same method as the SEC does, and adheres to the same principles to what I was getting at in my "lop off the bottom" post. I like it. Have to think it's a certainty to be changed for the Big XII after this season (which, of course, will have Texas fans screaming that they should have had it right the first time).