The College Football Thread 12/3 - 12/6

[Bored 0]

Since this thread is still going strong not going to bother creating another for the bowls until next week. But here's the TV schedule for the upcoming weekend for the divisions that have playoffs.

 

FRIDAY

FCS Semi-Final: Montana at James Madison, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2

 

SATURDAY

Division II Championship: Northwest Missouri State vs. Minnesota-Duluth, 1:00 PM/10:00 AM, ESPN2

SWAC Championship: Jackson State vs. Grambling State, 2:00 PM/11:00 AM, ESPN Classic

FCS Semi-Final: Richmond at Northern Iowa, 4:00/1:00 PM, ESPN

 

And here's a quick summary of the individual coaches ballots for the final Coaches' Poll from collegebcs.com.

 

# 46 out of 61 coaches had Florida, Oklahoma and Texas in some order in their top three on the ballot. On the fifteen ballots that differed, Texas was the team left out on fourteen of them. Rick Neuheisel of UCLA voted Texas first and Oklahoma fourth.

# Texas received three other first place votes besides Neuheisel's: Gene Chizek (Iowa St), a former Texas assistant, and two coaches from the state of Texas, Mike Price (UTEP) and Todd Dodge (North Texas), who is also a former Longhorn player.

# Texas was also fifth on four ballots, including two from the Longhorns' own league (Texas Tech's Mike Leach and Baylor's Art Briles). Only two Big 12 coaches, Chizek and Texas' Mack Brown, voted Texas ahead of Oklahoma. The other five all voted the Sooners #1.

# USC received nine third place votes. The only Pac 10 coach not to vote the Trojans third was Mike Bellotti of Oregon.

# Alabama received one second place vote (Mark Richt of Georgia) and three 3rd place votes (Tommy Bowden, Clemson; Urban Meyer, Florida; Howard Schnellenberger, FAU). Wisconsin's Bret Bielema wasn't too impressed though. He voted the Tide seventh. There wasn't even a lot of love for Bama within the SEC. Two coaches, OK - former coaches, voted them fifth (Phil Fulmer and Sylvester Croom). Outgoing Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville put them fourth.

# Texas Tech received one second place vote (from Leach) and one third place vote (Hal Mumme, New Mexico St). Leach was the only coach of a top 25 team to vote his own team higher than anyone else did. Urban Meyer voted his team #1, but so did 25 other coaches. No other coach even tied for the highest vote for his own team.

# Frank Beamer of Virginia Tech was the only coach of a team in the top 25 who voted his own team below it's actual ranking. The Hokies are 19th, but Beamer voted them 23rd.

# In the "others receiving votes" category, Bo Pelini voted Nebraska, his team, 22nd. That accounted for four of the Huskers' five points. The other one came from Leach, who needed OT to beat Nebraska this season. Former Husker and Buffalo coach Turner Gill didn't vote for the alma mater.

# Greg Schiano of Rutgers voted his own team 25th. He was joined by Fresno St coach Pat Hill. Hill's team beat Rutgers this year.

# Hill is also responsible for #16 BYU being the highest rated team not to appear on every ballot. He was the only one to leave the Cougars off.

# The votes for Rice came from places you might not expect. No Conference USA coach listed the Owls on a ballot, but Brown put them 24th and Jim Tressel of Ohio St voted them 25th.

# It's not too surprising that the coaches who didn't vote for Ball St at all were almost exclusively from major conferences, but two coaches of non-majors also omitted the Cardinals: Gill, who handed them their only loss, and Todd Graham of Tulsa, who happens to be their bowl opponent.

# You could say that Missouri coach Gary Pinkel doesn't think much of the non-majors. He voted Utah 15th. No other coach had them below 9th. He voted Boise St 16th. All the other coaches had them 11th or better. And he was two spots worse on TCU (17th) than any other coach as well. Needless to say, he didn't vote for Ball St.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

I was all set to go to the bowl, but now I don't know. Don't know if it's worth going to Mobile for the GMAC bowl.

 

It's funny they ended up going to a game that comes after the BCS games. And you should go, they might not go back to a bowl for a while. And 12-1 seasons don't come around much.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

I was all set to go to the bowl, but now I don't know. Don't know if it's worth going to Mobile for the GMAC bowl.

 

It's funny they ended up going to a game that comes after the BCS games. And you should go, they might not go back to a bowl for a while. And 12-1 seasons don't come around much.

 

 

Ya. If I can find some people to go with, I'll probably go.

 

 

 

Also, this thread made someone retire. Awesome.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

Meh on Gary Pinkel...

 

He actually coached at Toledo first (went 10-1 in 2000 then jumped to Missouri). Tom Amstutz took that team to 10-2 the next year and won the MAC Championship & Motor City Bowl... hah. Although Toledo didn't make a bowl game in 2000 either, jeez. What's with 10-1 and 10-2 mid majors getting jobbed on the bowl invites early in the decade?!?

[Maztinho 0]

The Utah game is going to be ugly I think, they are a better team than Hawaii was last year, but they aren't scary good like they where under Urban. They'll play tough for a half, then Bama is going to woodshed them, and woodshed them good. I'm hoping for an upset though just because I hate the Mid-Majors not getting the credit they deserve, but growing up a mile from LaVell Edwards Stadium a Utes pounding would also make me giggle.

 

 

 

[MFer 0]

Looking back, I wasn't overly impressed by Utah when I saw them play Michigan (to be fair, it was the 1st game of the season but still). I actually thought BYU and TCU looked like better teams through the 1st half of the season or so, but obviously Utah went on to prove me wrong. I think they matchup fairly well with Alabama but they'll probably lose by 17 or something like that.

 

Regarding the D-II game, I'm just glad Grand Valley (where Cincy coach Brian Kelly got his start btw) got taken out early (by UMD).

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

How did Alabama stay so high in the rankings? Looking back through their schedule, they had a nice win over Georgia, but the rest of their schedule was mostly crap. Granted, I'm not much of a college football guy so maybe I'm missing something. Did they really have a tougher schedule than the teams like USC, Penn State and Texas Tech? It even looks like Utah played a tougher schedule.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

The Utah game is going to be ugly I think, they are a better team than Hawaii was last year, but they aren't scary good like they where under Urban. They'll play tough for a half, then Bama is going to woodshed them, and woodshed them good. I'm hoping for an upset though just because I hate the Mid-Majors not getting the credit they deserve, but growing up a mile from LaVell Edwards Stadium a Utes pounding would also make me giggle.

 

I don't see the Utah game being that ugly simply because Bama doesn't have much in the way of offensive gamebreakers outside of Julio Jones. They will put up points with long clock-eating drives, but if Utah can score on a few of their posessions I don't see things really getting out of hand. However, it's possible that the Crimson Tide defense completely shuts down Utah's offense and they win "big" along the lines of 28-7 or something.

[Carnival 0]

i would be interested to see how Buffalo got 3 votes in the coaches poll?

 

I'm not complaining, just wondering.

[Urban Warfare 0]

I'm not getting why everyone is shooting down the possibility of a split national champion. Say Oklahoma beats Florida in a close game, and Texas hammers Ohio State as expected. How would Texas not have a legitimate claim to #1 having beat the MNC in Oklahoma?

[Carnival 0]

i would be interested to see how Buffalo got 3 votes in the coaches poll?

 

I'm not complaining, just wondering.

nevermind, here are the coach's ballots.

[2GOLD 0]

I'm not getting why everyone is shooting down the possibility of a split national champion. Say Oklahoma beats Florida in a close game, and Texas hammers Ohio State as expected. How would Texas not have a legitimate claim to #1 having beat the MNC in Oklahoma?

 

Because Florida is the SEC winner and one of the best teams in the nation while Ohio State is that team that got into the BCS because they have more fans equaling more money than an undefeated Boise State. That's not even a shot at Ohio State, it's just who they are this year. Ohio State is not the Big Ten champ and have two losses so it is pretty much set Texas is supposed to hammer them.

 

Florida vs Oklahoma is it. There is no reason to split the title no matter what happens. Splitting the title will just be the voters way of wasting their time trying to stick it to a BCS system that is going nowhere. Texas having beat Oklahoma is now an afterthought. This is the system, we are stuck with it.

 

 

 

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Ohio State is a co-Big 10 champ but lost the BCS tiebreaker to PSU

 

Mid majors got jobbed when there were less bowls, now undeserving mid majors get in (6-6 NIU? Okay.) because there's too many. Go figure.

 

Alabama is still scoring against Georgia.

[Slayer 0]

I can't remember where I heard it yesterday, but now it's stuck in my head because I never thought about it, and now it's really annoying me... the lost potential with a fresh bowl matchup of Texas-Alabama, which seems much more appealing to me than the OSU-UT rubber match we apparently had to have as well as the SEC vs. over-matched mid-major team for the second straight year.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

I can't remember where I heard it yesterday, but now it's stuck in my head because I never thought about it, and now it's really annoying me... the lost potential with a fresh bowl matchup of Texas-Alabama, which seems much more appealing to me than the OSU-UT rubber match we apparently had to have as well as the SEC vs. over-matched mid-major team for the second straight year.

 

I was hearing Texas/Utah in Fiesta and Alabama/Ohio State in Sugar. Unfortunately, I don't think Texas/Alabama ever stood a chance, which is lame. Maybe because then there'd theoretically be THREE games you could conceivably call national championships.

[Slayer 0]

Texas/Utah in Fiesta

Possibly interesting, though I still prefer UT-Bama

 

Alabama/Ohio State in Sugar

Pass... we already know OSU can't play for shit against the SEC

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

The reason a game like Texas-Alabama doesn't happen is very simple: when two bowls lose their marquee teams to the championship game, one of them is not going to let the other take the best two teams left as replacements and then be left with the scraps. It's totally obvious why the Sugar Bowl would want Alabama and the Fiesta Bowl would want Texas, and completely ridiculous to expect either of them to give one of those teams up and be left with Utah vs. Ohio State/Boise State.

[Broward83 0]

I think it was Cowherd yesterday who said that a reason that the Fiesta took Ohio State was to not gain a reputation as a lesser bowl game by taking a mid-major team for a third straight year.

 

In a way it makes sense because while Florida/OU is going to garner huge ratings.. a Utah/Texas or Texas/Boise St wouldn't be a National draw the way Texas/Ohio St would be.

[Damaramu 0]

The Fiesta Bowl didn't take a mid-major last season.......unless something drastic happened with OU or West Virginia's programs that I didn't know about.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

The Fiesta Bowl didn't take a mid-major last season.......unless something drastic happened with OU or West Virginia's programs that I didn't know about.

 

Big east lolol (What do you mean, they usually win the BCS game and might this year too? Big East is a mid major dontcha know!)

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Just thought I would pass along one of the more ridiculous arguments I've heard among this latest round of BCS whining (this didn't come from ESPN, just some random blogger). Apparently it's not fair to give Oklahoma credit for their strong OOC wins against Cincinnati and TCU because those schools are not "traditional strong programs" (which made me chuckle right away since clearly this idiot does not know anything about TCU's history) and so they don't deserve to benefit because of their unexpectedly strong seasons. Instead, teams should receive credit for their OOC schedule based on the "traditional quality" of their opponents, so while those two games would supposedly not count, Oklahoma WOULD get credit for beating 0-12 Washington, Utah would be rewarded for beating 3-9 Michigan, 6 teams would get big props for winning against 6-6 Notre Dame, etc.

 

I seriously wonder sometimes if a lot of people get intentionally stupider when it comes time to discuss college football.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Unfortunately, college football columnists are going to spend the next two weeks writing hilariously oddball stuff like that, since there really isn't anything left to talk about till the decent bowl games start. Fortunately, Boise/TCU being on the 23rd should at least get the real football talk fired up a little earlier than usual.

[CanadianChris 0]

I think it was Cowherd yesterday who said

This is the point at which I assumed that whatever followed was going to be wrong.

[Slayer 0]

The reason a game like Texas-Alabama doesn't happen is very simple: when two bowls lose their marquee teams to the championship game, one of them is not going to let the other take the best two teams left as replacements and then be left with the scraps. It's totally obvious why the Sugar Bowl would want Alabama and the Fiesta Bowl would want Texas, and completely ridiculous to expect either of them to give one of those teams up and be left with Utah vs. Ohio State/Boise State.

Yes, I understand the reason why, I'm just bitching how much it sucks that, because of what you said, instead of one marquee vs. marquee game , we get two marquee vs. bleh games

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Just thought I would pass along one of the more ridiculous arguments I've heard among this latest round of BCS whining (this didn't come from ESPN, just some random blogger). Apparently it's not fair to give Oklahoma credit for their strong OOC wins against Cincinnati and TCU because those schools are not "traditional strong programs" (which made me chuckle right away since clearly this idiot does not know anything about TCU's history) and so they don't deserve to benefit because of their unexpectedly strong seasons. Instead, teams should receive credit for their OOC schedule based on the "traditional quality" of their opponents, so while those two games would supposedly not count, Oklahoma WOULD get credit for beating 0-12 Washington, Utah would be rewarded for beating 3-9 Michigan, 6 teams would get big props for winning against 6-6 Notre Dame, etc.

 

I seriously wonder sometimes if a lot of people get intentionally stupider when it comes time to discuss college football.

 

I think it's not fair to criticize programs like OU for scheduling Washington, since UW was quite good when the game was scheduled, but yeah, this is going overboard.

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Heisman Finalists: Bradford, McCoy, Tebow

 

So, Crabtree and Harrell don't even get INVITED? Three finalists? Is this common?

[Damaramu 0]

Heisman Finalists: Bradford, McCoy, Tebow

 

So, Crabtree and Harrell don't even get INVITED? Three finalists? Is this common?

 

Vince Young, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart went one year when it was pretty much common knowledge that nobody but those three had a shot.

[Slayer 0]

"The Name Quarterbacks from the Sexiest Programs Trophy"

[Psycho Penguin 0]

Jason White over Larry Fitzgerald was a damn CRIME.

[Damaramu 0]

Jason White over Larry Fitzgerald was a damn CRIME.

 

So was Bush over Young.