College Football 2017: Butch Jones' Locker

[Ded As Ned]

21 hours ago, Rhom said:

Not gonna lie... I really hope FSU gets turned down a couple times and they give Mark Stoops a call.

I like the guy, he’s done well for Kentucky... but I think we need someone else.

Please gawd no.You're trolling me right? We just got 2 back to back winning seasons, and you're wanting to burn the house down again!  I just don't get this line of thinking, but it does seem to be popular in BBN. Go watch basketball!  

Kentucky lacks both the tradition and recruiting ability to ever bring in a big-time coach, or any up-and-comer is going to face the same problems. Neither will ever make us a double-digit-wins team in the blink of an eye.  Stoops isn't the best, but I still think he's just what we need.  If Kentucky's ever going to consistently compete for SEC championships, it's a good decade or two of blood sweat and tears away.  

[KingintheNorth4]

If the committee follows the precedent they set last year when they selected one loss Ohio State over conference champion and two loss Penn State, they'll pick Alabama as the fourth team, especially since they have Bama ranked higher than the Buckeyes.

BUT, if they decide to stick to their stated policy of giving preference to conference championships, then they'll pick Ohio State.

[sperry]

Why does Bama deserve to be in the playoff? They're not a conference champion, they have no significant wins, and they don't even pass the eye test. They're basically Wisconsin. Stout, but not historically great defense, and mediocre one dimensional offense.

 

That being said, as an OU fan, I'd much rather have Bama in the playoff in terms of teams I'd like to face.

[Rhom]

4 hours ago, Rhom said:

To quote myself from a few pages back...

We’re totally getting 1 Clemson v 4 Bama and 2 Oklahoma v 3 Georgia

 

[sperry]

I don't think Alabama deserved to get in, but this will be a fun field. Third straight Bama-Clemson matchup, and the classic high powered offense vs. SEC defense matchup on the other side. Any of the championship matchups except Georgia-Bama would be fun.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I dont feel overly vested in any of the 4 playoff teams this year. I guess i'll root for Oklahoma since they won the head to head with the Buckeyes earlier.

[Ramsay B.]

8 hours ago, Rhom said:

To quote myself from a few pages back...

We’re totally getting 1 Clemson v 4 Bama and 2 Oklahoma v 3 Georgia

I was weirdly optimistic that Wisconsin would actually get the job done... silly me. Oh well, let's go Oklahoma!

I did watch the ACC Championship with a big Miami fan so that was fun.

[sperry]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

But in this scenario can you really argue that Ohio State should have gone over Bama on account of technically being conference champ alone?  With an additional loss, and one of them being quite a bad loss to Iowa, I think Bama clearly has the better claim unless conference champ is assigned that much value automatically.

 

I just have a hard time putting a team in that had zero top quality wins and didn't win its conference. Bama's resume is about on par with Wisconsin in my mind, a team that rightfully is getting zero consideration.

[Kalbear]

Yeah, this is a year where there were two fairly obvious picks, one reasonably easy pick, and then a whole host of bullshit. You could make a reasonable case for Alabama, Ohio State, USC or UCF, but a 4-team playoff wasn't going to solve that, and quite frankly it's likely none of those teams are going to go far in the playoff either (including Alabama). 

At this point it's almost certain that it's going to be Clemson and Oklahoma in the final. And the BCS would have picked that as well, and it would have been fine. 

[Bronn Stone]

I really wish the committee paid MUCH higher attention to "number of wins vs. power five conference teams".  As far as I'm concerned, Bama is 8-1 with three byes.  I find U$C's 10-2 with one bye much more compelling.  All of those weeks during the season where you KNOW you can win with your second string and rest the starters as much as you care to make a schedule MUCH easier, yet it is not taken in to consideration.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Anyone have any commentary on the stupendously bizarre, bordering on surreal hiring of Herm Edwards as head coach at Arizona St?  Cause I've got nothing.

[Bronn Stone]

9 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

Anyone have any commentary on the stupendously bizarre, bordering on surreal hiring of Herm Edwards as head coach at Arizona St?  Cause I've got nothing.

It's like a marketing textbook for first-year students puked randomly on a blank press release form.  Can't end well.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Bronn Stone said:

I really wish the committee paid MUCH higher attention to "number of wins vs. power five conference teams".  As far as I'm concerned, Bama is 8-1 with three byes.  I find U$C's 10-2 with one bye much more compelling.  All of those weeks during the season where you KNOW you can win with your second string and rest the starters as much as you care to make a schedule MUCH easier, yet it is not taken in to consideration.

That's more of a 'deserve', not a 'is better' argument. And nothing I've seen from USC indicates to me that they're better than Bama in any kind of fashion.

[Bronn Stone]

49 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That's more of a 'deserve', not a 'is better' argument. And nothing I've seen from USC indicates to me that they're better than Bama in any kind of fashion.

Fair enough.  But I think it is very much easier to look better if you cut down on the wear and tear of a season by playing second and third-rate competition.  it gives you the flexibility to rest up and fully heal much moreso than is possible with a power 5 opponent every week. 

Alabama is the worst of the lot.  The 'permanent rivalry' with Tennessee gives them access to that dumpster fire every year.  And how many non-conference games have they played on their opponent's home fields in the 21st Century?  Three?  Four?  USC plays one almost every year (and always 5 road games vs. power 5 types since they always play 9 conference games and always play ND).  Real road games almost always make a team look worse.

The time has come to ditch the playoff and play a tournament of champions.  8 games, 7 conference winners and the 8th slot reserved ONLY for an independent that meets some criteria or another conference winner if one isn't available.  Guarantee the Power Five and choose the other two or three.  Make all of the conference championship games play-in games, so you effectively have 15 or 16 teams with a shot to win it all.  No beauty contests - everything decided on the field, with the only the second tier leagues even caring about the polls.  If the SEC wants to feast on cupcakes, they can, but they're still only getting one team in.  If they'd rather decide it on the field, they can do that too by adding more games against each other.

Honestly, the other leagues should just announce they're doing this with or without the SEC.  Take the lobbying out of the system, at least for the top dogs.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Bronn Stone said:

Alabama is the worst of the lot.  The 'permanent rivalry' with Tennessee gives them access to that dumpster fire every year.  And how many non-conference games have they played on their opponent's home fields in the 21st Century?  Three?  Four?  USC plays one almost every year (and always 5 road games vs. power 5 types since they always play 9 conference games and always play ND).  Real road games almost always make a team look worse.

And yet Alabama is the only school that has been to every single playoff so far. Alabama is still winning national championships regularly. 

Again, we can talk about deserve vs. actual talent, but it's hard to say that Alabama isn't one of the better schools out there, and MUCH harder to say that they're not better than USC. 

1 minute ago, Bronn Stone said:

The time has come to ditch the playoff and play a tournament of champions.  8 games, 7 conference winners and the 8th slot reserved ONLY for an independent that meets some criteria or another conference winner if one isn't available. 

The time continues to be to say fuck that noise.

 

[Rhom]

56 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The time continues to be to say fuck that noise.

 

I continue to believe that the current system of 4 does not need to change.  When the 4th team actually manages to beat the 1st team in that game, maybe we can talk but making it more likely to get a non champ in by expanding does not make the product better.  (And maybe that will be this year...)

College football is the one sport where every game still has weight.

I love college basketball, but Kentucky will play Virginia Tech, Louisville, UCLA, and West Virginia in the coming weeks and not a damn one of them will matter.  (Well... UofL matters, but just to those of us in state.)

[Kalbear]

Yeah, it's hard for me to say reasonably that the playoffs as represented have not allowed for a legitimate team that could win it all to not be in. Whether or not teams that deserve to be in aren't coming in is another question, but I don't care as much about 'deserve' as 'good'. 

[sperry]

17 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I continue to believe that the current system of 4 does not need to change.  When the 4th team actually manages to beat the 1st team in that game, maybe we can talk but making it more likely to get a non champ in by expanding does not make the product better.  (And maybe that will be this year...)

College football is the one sport where every game still has weight.

I love college basketball, but Kentucky will play Virginia Tech, Louisville, UCLA, and West Virginia in the coming weeks and not a damn one of them will matter.  (Well... UofL matters, but just to those of us in state.)

Way more games have weight when you go to 8, I absolutely hate this argument.

[Bronn Stone]

29 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I continue to believe that the current system of 4 does not need to change.  When the 4th team actually manages to beat the 1st team in that game, maybe we can talk but making it more likely to get a non champ in by expanding does not make the product better.  (And maybe that will be this year...)

College football is the one sport where every game still has weight.

I love college basketball, but Kentucky will play Virginia Tech, Louisville, UCLA, and West Virginia in the coming weeks and not a damn one of them will matter.  (Well... UofL matters, but just to those of us in state.)

The 4th team beat the first team (and went on to the title) in the very first College Football Playoff.  That is one for three, for those of you counting at home.

I took away the exact opposite from this season.  The name on the jersey matters.  There is no incentive whatsoever to play tough games in or out of conference if you can skate in on the reputation of your league.  USC takes on all comers and gets dinged a few times for it every season.  And that perpetually disqualifies them under the current beauty contest scheme.

Under my proposed scheme, league games matter a LOT and there is no penalty for a league choosing to play more of them and determining a genuine champion on the field.   It is true non-conference games would matter much less, but that might well free up teams to be more bold about scheduling them.  Any system wherein a top-tier team gets a huge advantage for playing three cupcakes is an arse-crack system.  And that is exactly what we have.

Play it my way a few years and see if the SEC dominates on the field as well as it has the polls and maybe I'll change my tune.  But all I've seen is they're even better at gaming the system than they are on the field.

[Rhom]

Push notification tells me that Willie Taggart is leaving Oregon to go to FSU.

I'm not a fan of taking a job for only a year, but I guess I can't blame him.  Recent history shows that it is possible to win a national title at Florida State and the recruiting ground is fertile.  

Feels like a pretty meteoric rise considering he only has 8 years of head coaching experience, but I guess Jimbo had zero years as a head coach before moving up.  (20 years as an asst though.)

I worked with a girl long ago in my lifeguarding days who dated him.  (He was a wide receiver at Western Kentucky.)  Met him only once.  Seemed a nice guy, but would never in a million years have guessed that he would have the intellect to move up into the upper echelon of coaching.