A College Football Fan

The spice of life.

How 'bout 'em — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:37:44 GMT

Does anyone share my sentiments about the recent dominance of the SEC in college football? (Don't be abashed, I know you're out there.) I know my SEC'ers are too busy wallowing in their own pools of self-love, but I'm getting tired of seeing a SEC team hoist the Crystal Ball at season's end. Not just that, but I'm getting tired of seeing LSU and especially Florida hoist the trophy. I would be more tired of USC hoisting the trophy, but they've only done it once since the inception of the BCS. I'm also tired of seeing a Big 10 or Big 12 (I'm looking at you Ohio State and Oklahoma) choke on the title game like a barely chewed piece of cheap steak. The last time we had two non-SEC teams playing in the championship, the game was freaking great! (the time before that was not so great though, so I guess it evens out) Still, it would be nice to see some variety and a good BCS championship game again. Maybe having another team in the SEC win like Alabama, Ole Miss, or Georgia, or maybe USC vs the SEC champion will give us a good game; who knows. My love of college football overrides my conference pride, and I would love to see some good football going on instead of these stale championship games.

On that note, someone needs to step up in the Pac 10. That's just rediculous that USC has won the Pac 10 title ump-teen times in a row. Also, let's win a BCS game Ohio State and Oklahoma, especially you Oklahoma. You're supposed to be the premier progams in the nation and yet you squander the BCS opportunities that are given to you.

How 'bout 'em out.

Good Ol' Gator Hatin

How 'bout 'em — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:41:12 GMT

If you're like me, and you hate the Florida Gators, the top dog, or someone who is in a position of power talking stupid (think of W) then this video is great. Just a little info: her name is Corrine Brown from the House of Representatives for Florida's 3rd congressional district. (It's the district that contains Gainesville and Jacksonville, how about that?) Click here for the link to the picture of Florida's 3rd congressional district (it's gerrymandering at its finest).

Youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N2uQ7Fg_Uk

Here's the remix too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5tXMLI-OsI

I know that politicians are dumb, but I couldn't refrain from hatin on the Gators.

Duplicate Duplicate considerring many top schools.

How 'bout 'em — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:07:08 GMT

Click here for the link to his profile.

A top recruit for the 2011 NCAA signing class is considerring many top schools. His name is Duplicate Duplicate, and he plays CB and RB for the Adler Football Club in Berlin, Germany. He is interested in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Miami (Fl), UCF, and Virginia Tech; the young football player has received no offers from any school yet. I'm sure we will all await to hear from Duplicate, or Dub Dub as he is known to his friends, as he picks his school in two years.

I was just looking through future recruits for my team because I was bored, and along comes Duplicate Duplicate. I really wonder what the deal is with this profile.

Jeff Owens to return to the Bulldawgs for one more year.

How 'bout 'em — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:53:29 GMT

I found the story originally at georgiadogs.com.

Personally, I think that this is freaking great. I was downtrodden to hear that Jeff Owens would lose his senior year to a torn ACL in the first game of the season. His big presence should help anchor the middle and create mismatches for opposing offensive linemen and open up the blitz.

I'm sure all of the bulldawg nation will say, "Welcome back!"

What's killing the BCS?

How 'bout 'em — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:21:08 GMT

Subjectivity.

You know what that is? That's when everyone, even the computer, has a different conception of how things should be. Being subjective can be a good thing for any art form because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but football is not a subjective art form. Sport is measurable; sport is accurate. Football is played for 4 fifteen minute quarters with a halftime in the middle. Football has a set of easily(?) enforced rules to abide by. In other words, football is objective.

Why is the BCS too subjective? The rankings make it more of an abstract loosely-decided system. Here's an example of that happening at the end of the '08 season:

Texas is ranked ahead of Oklahoma this week because they beat Oklahoma head to head, but wait! Oklahoma is now ranked ahead of Texas because Oklahoma just beat an Oklahoma St. team that Texas already beat earlier in the season but the Cowboys were still tougher opponents than Texas A&M and the Sooners also blew out Texas Tech and they beat Texas, so now Oklahoma is going to the Big 12 championship game and probably the national title because of our kooky rankings. I love how being illogical and stirring the pot is good for college football.

In other words, the events that occurred at the end of the 2008 show exactly how subjective the rankings can be. Even the beginning of 2008 show how subjective the rankings are based: UGA fell in the polls despite being undefeated while USC jumped up in the rankings because of their stronger schedule. Now USC is being held out of the national title game because of their weak schedule? Even OU jumped UGA despite playing a weaker out of conference schedule; what's up with that? (That was a rhetorical question; I was implying that UGA got jumped by one team with a stronger out of conference schedule and another with a weaker out of conference schedule which seems to be a contradiction.) Seeing Oklahoma on the cusp of going to the national title and USC being neglected also indicates an emphasis on interconference strength (which Oklahoma has over USC) instead of out of conference strength (USC has over OU) which I will get to later.

These voters, and computers, are killing the BCS and postseason with all of their subjective rankings. Maybe if they applied an objective standard to the rankings, then it would not be so bad. That's the essence of ranking college football though: there is no objective way that is commonly accepted. To each his own.

This is why I propose an 8 team playoff for major college football to institute objectivity into the sport. Only conference champions would be allowed to dance. The conferences should be made to iron out their stupid conference champion rules: no co-champions. Take a head to head winner for the Pac 10 and Big 11 (a.k.a. Big 10). The Big 10 would also be forced to iron out their pot-hole filled conference schedule to eliminate co-champions. This could be done a few ways by either inducting Notre Dame into the conference, probably not going to happen, or set up a championship game in case two teams who did not play each other happen to have the same conference record at season's end. In any other case, pick the conference champion based on conference record and head to head match ups. As for conferences like the Big 12 or the SEC with a three way tie, do not let the national rankings decide who gets to play in the championship game because we all saw how that ended up this season. Do something like getting the AD's of each school in that conference to vote on a three way tie; I'm sure they can think of something that is better than relying upon the subjective rankings that strangle the sport in the first place. In the case of a 2 way tie, then go with the head to head match-up again to decide. It's not that hard. It kinda seems like the people who decided on the rules for determining a conference champion acted like Elementary School teachers who want everyone to win. Sport is not about everyone being a winner. Someone loses and someone wins. Winning and losing both build character.

Having only conference champions getting an automatic bid into the playoff might hinder good out of conference games, but if money really is a factor in college football, then ABC, ESPN, CBS, NBC, and Fox Sports along with the teams involved can still entice schools to make mucho dinero off of great out of conference games in the regular season along with the playoff and non-playoff bowls. Like I said before, there seems to be a shift in emphasizing interconference strength based on Oklahoma being favored instead of USC even though USC's out of conference schedule was much better and OU has much better interconference strength, so good out of conference games are not being valued anyways.

Keep the bowls around too because I, a common place college football fan, would still love to see interesting match-ups for the 50 or so other teams that deserve to have a postseason. We could also keep the rankings around for argument fodder and to determine the seeding for the playoff, but the rankings would not determine who is in or out of the playoff, except to decide which two conference champions or independents outside of the Big 6 conferences would get to dance.

Instituting a playoff based on the rankings would cause as much controversy in college football as it does in the BCS. The subjectivity should be kept to a minimum when deciding a national champion in an objective sport.

I would greatly appreciate any kind of feedback.

**Note: I posted this on "We need a playoff for FBS/D-IA college football!" group blog, but I cannot get the blog to be public even though the group is public. (I made sure to click on the "viewable to public" option.) Fannation support has not helped me yet even though I have messaged them more than several times.

Another BCS controversey? No Way!

How 'bout 'em — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:54:33 GMT

The original blog is here. I posted it in the "We need a playoff for FBS football!", but fannation does not want to post those blogs up in public space for some reason. I've tried messaging the support staff on the site, but they did not do anything about it.

Sorry for the technical difficulties. Here's what it said:

Which one loss team should inherit the Big 12 South and thus the other spot in the BCS championship game? (Is it just me, or does anyone else get annoyed distinguishing between regular BCS games and the BCS championship game?) Does Oklahoma get the Big 12 South nod with a win over Oklahoma St. b/c they had the biggest blow out against one of the three and the best out of conference schedule? Does Texas Tech get the nod b/c they spent all that time at #1? What about Texas? They barely lost to Texas Tech and beat mighty Oklahoma.

I know that in my playoff idea, an 8 team playoff with only conference champions, it would be just as hard to distinguish between the three teams to potentially select their conference's automatic bid, but a playoff would keep the controversey to a minimum by having 7 other deserving teams in the title hunt instead of 1 other team. The controversial focus would be divided in other words. Having a playoff based on conference champions alone would also iron out any kinks in determining a conference title b/c any controversey would be localized to that conference instead of the whole nation. And we all know how much we love to argue conference supremacy.

In the past few years, the BCS has gotten lucky (except for a few notable years). The BCS will not always be as lucky, and a playoff will happen.

I'm guessing that Oklahoma wins the Big 12 South b/c of the recency effect. I just want the team that is most likely to beat Florida win the Big 12 South. The way Oklahoma's defense handled Texas Tech's spread offense was very encouraging, but Oklahoma's recent failure in the BCS games is not very encouraging. Roll Tide too!

[Now that I see that Texas is #2, I know that the #2 ranking for any Big 12 South team is meaningless until the Big 12 itself crowns their South champion.]

A true Pac 10 champion.

How 'bout 'em — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:27:01 GMT

I just read Bill Plaschke's, a L.A. based sports writer, article about how USC should root for Oregon St. to win out because they need more than just another Rose Bowl. I agreed that it would be nice to see USC up against someone else besides the Big 10's #2 team or even just a Big 10 team (I'd love to see USC's staunch D up against one of the three Big 12 South teams), but one thing caught my glance. Mr. Bill mentionned how Oregon St. and USC would share a Pac 10 title, but this is not true. Since both would have one loss in Pac 10 play, and Oregon St. won the head to head match between them, then Oregon St. would be the Pac 10 champion. I love the Pac 10's round-robin schedule, so let's not go messing it up with splits and ties. If Oregon St. wins out, then they are the Pac 10 champion. If they don't win out, then USC is the Pac 10 champ (provided that USC beat UCLA which is very likely). It's as simple as that. If Oregon St. wins out, then USC will be no more of a Pac 10 champion than Cal in 2006 and Arizona St. in 2007.

Here should be a new rule: anytime someone mentions USC in a blog, they should include an obligatory Song Girl. The same goes for UCLA and their cheerleaders.

Georgia dropped to #2 in both AP and USAtoday rankings.

How 'bout 'em — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:56:47 GMT

By How 'Bout 'Em

Relax UGA faithful. I was mad to hear of this also, but there might be some blessings in disguise for UGA.

1) UGA is still ranked #2, i.e. the other drivers seat in the BCS system. If UGA falls to #3 after being undefeated, then I'll be furious.

2) The target on UGA's back is not quite as big. There's not as much pride beating the #2 team in the nation as beating the #1 team.

3) The chip on the dawgs' shoulder will be so much bigger now. Richt will not need to dig as deep to motivate his team. Shoot, I'm getting fired up just thinking about it.

Has a team ever fallen in the rankings after winning solidly? Not to my recollection. In fact, I even did a throwdown on the subject. #2 has never passed #1 even after #1 struggled in their regular season game while #2 whooped-up the same week.

I just wonder the rationale for it. Was it becuase UGA lost Jeff Owens and Trinton Sturdivant for the season? Was it because USC beat lowly Virginia from the worst BCS conference? Was it because Georgia Southern scored 21 points, gasp, all in garbage time?

Sure Georgia Southern is a FCS team, and sure Viriginia is in a BCS conference and did well in '07. We don't know how good Viriginia will be in '08 though. Beating a mid-level team in the ACC should not count for that much more.

It's gonna be very awkward hearing the Dawgs being announced as the #2 team in the nation against Central Michigan.

I've picked OSU to beat USC for a while anyways, so what'll happen if OSU does beat USC? OSU played a FCS team too on opening weekend. UGA would be a week away from playing at ASU. They've messed it all up.

Ohio State was dropped in the AP poll, which is not an official poll that matters in the BCS, and they played a FCS team also. Is this the pollsters' way of saying, 'Don't play FCS teams!'? If that is the case, then it would've been nice to get some sort of a heads up for the fact that a team could be dropped in the rankings for scheduling and beating FCS teams.

Medal count or urination match?

How 'bout 'em — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:47:06 GMT

I don't like seeing the medal count on websites and newspapers. It undermines the true essence of the olympics. I know some people might say that competition is the catalyst of the olympics, but glory should be the real driving force behind the games. Having a medal count is a foolish attempt to have a "Winner of the Entire Olympics." There's no one winner of all of the events combined. There's a singular gold, silver, and bronze medalist for each sport or "sport." United Statesians need to get off of their high horse and just enjoy each sport's value; quit worrying about who had the most golds or overall medals.

Where'd all the Kentucky fans go?

How 'bout 'em — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:16:38 GMT

That's right UK fans; I'm calling you out. This time a year ago I saw an influx of Kentucky fans. I can't really remember what other teams were unusually hyped before last season (Illinois and Rutgers also I guess). I don't remember too many other Rutgers fans besides RUGator and EastCoastKeith, and I have no recollection of Illinois fans. So where's all the Kentucky fans?