College Football

[lokisnow]

still say Utah should get a share of the National title. :-P

[Rhom]

From what I read this morning... Utah's coach broke with the agreement and voted his team #1 in the coaches poll also.

[Bronn Stone]

Thanks for the kind words, SJohn. The pickem definitely kept me interested this year.

I think USC-Florida would have been a great match. Not sure who would have won - probably the Trojans - but not in a blowout.

SC-Texas or SC-Oklahoma would have been ugly - perhaps as ugly as the first half of SC-Penn State - before Carroll called off the horses to avoid embarrassing Paterno.

Cal not being ranked in the AP while Michigan State is ranked is a travesty. But in the end, who really cares about the difference between 24th and 26th. The coaches got it a bit better - Cal 25th, MSU 24th.

[Jaime L]

[quote name='AndyP' post='1642330' date='Jan 9 2009, 00.30']I agree, he needs a Bill Walsh type of head coach offensive coordinator to figure out what to do with him. He sort of cries out for someone to re-invent the full back position. I was thinking tonight of John Riggins on some of his running plays, more of a power back but with the threat of him throwing.[/quote]

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. He doesn't neatly fit into any NFL position, but his running style is that of a fullback. And he has shown an impressive ability to grind out first downs in short yardage. Think you make him a fullback, but unlike any fullback currently in the NFL. One that occasionally takes direct snaps and is a threat to pass. If you were to, say, put him on this year's Eagles...he would not only address their most pressing weaknesses, he would make their offense much more multidimensional. Not that Andy Reid is innovative enough to figure out how to use him, but all the different things you could do with a McNabb/Tebow/Westbrook backfield, I think, would be unstoppable in the right hands.

[Young Wolf]

[quote name='Jaime M' post='1642625' date='Jan 9 2009, 10.38']snip[/quote]

Who's the n00b ^?

[Jaime L]

[quote name='Young Wolf' post='1642627' date='Jan 9 2009, 10.43']Who's the n00b ^?[/quote]

Hi, nice to meetcha. Jaime M.

Big time Red--, Raider fan. [i]Huge [/i]Raider fan. And USC. Love me some USC. Yes sir.

[Young Wolf]

[quote name='Jaime M' post='1642641' date='Jan 9 2009, 10.54']Hi, nice to meetcha. Jaime M.

Big time Red--, Raider fan. [i]Huge [/i]Raider fan. And USC. Love me some USC. Yes sir.[/quote]

Glad to have another member of the Raider Nation on board. Do you prefer Darth Raider or crazy spiked shoulder pads Raider?

[Kalbear]

[quote]I agree, he needs a Bill Walsh type of head coach offensive coordinator to figure out what to do with him. He sort of cries out for someone to re-invent the full back position. I was thinking tonight of John Riggins on some of his running plays, more of a power back but with the threat of him throwing.[/quote]

Tebow needs to go to Miami. Think of the Wildcat options with Pennington, Tebow, Brown and Williams.

Go ahead. Think about how awesome that would be to watch on a regular basis.

[Jaime L]

[quote name='Young Wolf' post='1642642' date='Jan 9 2009, 10.56']Glad to have another member of the Raider Nation on board. Do you prefer Darth Raider or crazy spiked shoulder pads Raider?[/quote]

Let's be honest. Both are awesome. But, put a gun to my head... crazy spiked shoulder pads Raider.

Maybe sometime we can sit around and talk about how much New England sucks.

[Rhom]

Back on the subject of the gawd awful announcing... I had completely forgotten this little gem last night:

[quote]“If you are fortunate enough to spend five minutes in the presence of Tim Tebow your life is better off for it.”[/quote]

That's an exact quote. Now I'm not some sort of irrational Tebow hater, but I think a lot of the growing dislike for the poor kid that I'm reading across teh intrawebz is due to ridiculous statements like this.

BTW... I heard that when Jesus Christ fixes grilled cheese... he frequently sees Tim Tebow's face in it.

[Bronn Stone]

This n00b Jaime M is a flirty little tart. I think YW's SO should be jealous.

[S John]

[quote name='Billy Clyde' post='1642885' date='Jan 9 2009, 14.29']BTW... I heard that when Jesus Christ fixes grilled cheese... he frequently sees Tim Tebow's face in it.[/quote]

:lol:

I was talking about this with some guys at work today. The Tebow man-love is really grating, but its not really Tebow's fault. He does seem to ham it up on the sidelines a bit at times, but since its not overt I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to intensity. The media loves to pick a guy or two and really hype the crap out of them.

The posters in this thread follow college football somewhere between consistently and religiously, so we don't need to hear the hype. We either already know, or don't buy into it. But, to the casual viewer... the person that only occasionally catches a college game, they are going to have heard of a guy like Tebow and it gives them some incentive to watch. Its not just in CFB either. Greg Oden is another recent example. He couldve been a 'feeding starving kids' major and I still wouldve hated him becuase I was sick of seeing his face and hearing his name. I don't dislike him at all any more, he seems like a decent guy too. Such is the media. But, if it makes you feel any better I heard Tebow got like an 8 on his SAT.

[Gold Storm]

:cry:
I am sad the college football season is over, Oregon State had a lot better year than I thought they would. Granted, and Civil War was sucked ass, but I am still happy on how the season turned out.

Now comes more of the coaching carousel and players declaring for the draft early. Several have already declared (Wells ,Staford, McCoy, and Moreno) and more will follow, I think that Bradford will go pro and Tebow will stay.

[Young Wolf]

[quote name='Gold Storm' post='1642979' date='Jan 9 2009, 15.24']Tebow will stay.[/quote]

If I had to guess, Id guess him to stay. He's probably much the same sort of superstar that Matt Leinart was at USC. Its not like his NFL prospects are jumping off the charts anyhow. Why not stay in school another year and be treated like a god?

YW

[Bronn Stone]

Were I Urban Meyer, I would suggest Tebow stay and convert to another position. Probably an h-back. It would be the best for his NFL future.

[Rhom]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1642995' date='Jan 9 2009, 15.33']Were I Urban Meyer, I would suggest Tebow stay and convert to another position. Probably an h-back. It would be the best for his NFL future.[/quote]

Eh... I dunno. I think NFL types already know what they have in Tebow and I don't think actually changing to another position would help his stock that much. Plus, I'm not sure what else they have at QB... it might drastically hurt their chances of winning next year.

I listened to Switzer and Jimmy Johnson doing a pre-game talk yesterday and one of the questions they were asked was to evaluate the NFL talent of Tim Tebow. Neither of them gave a solid answer on what position he would play (but Switzer pointed out a couple of times the 64% completion rating) but both agreed that the guy is a winner and would be a benefit to have on your team. I tend to agree with that assessment.

[Kalbear]

Okay, I've been thinking about the BCS playoff situation a bit more, and I think I might have something.

There are a few big problems about college football right now that make it difficult to deal with on a practical basis. The first is the money thing. The BCS was formed not because the big schools wanted to get more money, but because the rest of the college football world were trying to make money splitting amongst all NCAA teams equally. This is how it's done in basketball, after all - if you get in, you get a share regardless. The big schools were close to saying screw you to the NCAA and forming their own new league. Instead, we got the BCS.

That's one of the real core problems. The big schools are responsible for a lot of the success of college football and spend money accordingly on that success. It isn't fair to them that they get as much money as other schools who do virtually nothing. This is worse than a salary cap, it's a revenue cap. And big schools won't go for it.

A playoff system has a lot of flaws too. The division system as it stands doesn't lend itself well to a 'champion + a couple' get in. 8 teams is too small of a playoff, especially when you're talking about 6 of those 8 teams being automatic bids based on their conference. 16 is better, but then you have some problems with the regular season - and you still have issues with the at-large teams being able to prove themselves and the bigger conferences having off-seasons and poor performing schools.

And then we have this system, which combines a lot of the worst of everything. The only advantage is that it is contractually obligated to pick a #1 team after the #1 and #2 teams play. As pointed out recently, the computer ranking is idiotically adjusted to match the subjective views of the voters after every season, which is the thing that the computer rankings were supposed to avoid entirely. It's a statistical mess, and the biggest reason is that there are no clear objectives.

So how do we capture the big school's desire for money, the small schools desire for an ability to compete, some kind of system that can produce a clear champion and some way to deal with schools/conferences that do not for whatever reason measure up for automatic bids?

Let's go with something...[i]European[/i]. Let's go with the EPL model. The idea here is that the top league is fed by a lot of other leagues. Every year the bottom x teams are dropped from the top league. Every year teams can compete to get into the top league. They have a round robin at the very top, and the winner takes all.

Now, we don't need to have a small league at the top. But what about 4 divisions of 10 teams? Hopefully geographically close, but that's not always possible. Each year, you have 40 teams that are competing for the title. At the end of the season, the bottom two teams from each division get dropped. Each division has a round robin + 3 games against non-division teams that are not in the championship league. At the end of the season, have a 4 or 6-team playoff. Anyone not in the playoff can be invited to a bowl as per normal. If you like, you can automatically take the best team not in the conferences and bring them in (or the top two) and make it an 8-team playoff.

This utterly obliterates tradition, and for that it could never, ever work. But I think it'd be fun as hell, wouldn't add that many more games (it would actually eliminate quite a few, like the divisional championships), and would allow for good teams to be able to compete more. It would give the bigger schools the ability to stay in the money without splitting their value up, and it would guarantee a lot of competitive games every season by dropping 2/3rds of the schools from most of the competition (and most of which would be the bottom-feeders).

[Ken Stone]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1643097' date='Jan 9 2009, 15.28']Okay, I've been thinking about the BCS playoff situation a bit more, and I think I might have something.

There are a few big problems about college football right now that make it difficult to deal with on a practical basis. The first is the money thing. The BCS was formed not because the big schools wanted to get more money, but because the rest of the college football world were trying to make money splitting amongst all NCAA teams equally. This is how it's done in basketball, after all - if you get in, you get a share regardless. The big schools were close to saying screw you to the NCAA and forming their own new league. Instead, we got the BCS.

That's one of the real core problems. The big schools are responsible for a lot of the success of college football and spend money accordingly on that success. It isn't fair to them that they get as much money as other schools who do virtually nothing. This is worse than a salary cap, it's a revenue cap. And big schools won't go for it.

A playoff system has a lot of flaws too. The division system as it stands doesn't lend itself well to a 'champion + a couple' get in. 8 teams is too small of a playoff, especially when you're talking about 6 of those 8 teams being automatic bids based on their conference. 16 is better, but then you have some problems with the regular season - and you still have issues with the at-large teams being able to prove themselves and the bigger conferences having off-seasons and poor performing schools.

And then we have this system, which combines a lot of the worst of everything. The only advantage is that it is contractually obligated to pick a #1 team after the #1 and #2 teams play. As pointed out recently, the computer ranking is idiotically adjusted to match the subjective views of the voters after every season, which is the thing that the computer rankings were supposed to avoid entirely. It's a statistical mess, and the biggest reason is that there are no clear objectives.

So how do we capture the big school's desire for money, the small schools desire for an ability to compete, some kind of system that can produce a clear champion and some way to deal with schools/conferences that do not for whatever reason measure up for automatic bids?

Let's go with something...[i]European[/i]. Let's go with the EPL model. The idea here is that the top league is fed by a lot of other leagues. Every year the bottom x teams are dropped from the top league. Every year teams can compete to get into the top league. They have a round robin at the very top, and the winner takes all.

Now, we don't need to have a small league at the top. But what about 4 divisions of 10 teams? Hopefully geographically close, but that's not always possible. Each year, you have 40 teams that are competing for the title. At the end of the season, the bottom two teams from each division get dropped. Each division has a round robin + 3 games against non-division teams that are not in the championship league. At the end of the season, have a 4 or 6-team playoff. Anyone not in the playoff can be invited to a bowl as per normal. If you like, you can automatically take the best team not in the conferences and bring them in (or the top two) and make it an 8-team playoff.

This utterly obliterates tradition, and for that it could never, ever work. But I think it'd be fun as hell, wouldn't add that many more games (it would actually eliminate quite a few, like the divisional championships), and would allow for good teams to be able to compete more. It would give the bigger schools the ability to stay in the money without splitting their value up, and it would guarantee a lot of competitive games every season by dropping 2/3rds of the schools from most of the competition (and most of which would be the bottom-feeders).[/quote]

As long as you include a rule that says that Notre Dame can't be dropped if they win at least one game every year, and the winningest team from the former PAC 10 plays the winningest team from the former BIG 10, I think your idea will pass just fine.

[lokisnow]

[quote]As long as you include a rule that says that Notre Dame can't be dropped if they win at least one game every year,[/quote]

I'm still surprised Notre Dame wasn't ranked 25! They WON their BOWL GAME! OMG greatest Notre Dame team ever!?

my predictions for the coming shit storm of Notre Dame love.

March preseason rankings, Notre Dame is ranked 25. people scoff. arguments are made. pundits talk themselves into it more and more.
May preseason ranking, Notre Dame is ranked 13. People start talking about how Clauson COULD be the GREATEST QB to ever play for Notre Dame. Charlie Weis is mentioned with lots of positive adjectives again. "Rebuilding" is uttered a lot to dismiss the last two years.
July preseason ranking, Notre Dame is ranked 7. Every pundit falls over themselves to mention that the Notre Dame ranking is much too low because after all, Notre Dame WON their BOWL GAME! One pundit scoffs and is shouted at a lot for it.

Week 1 rankings Notre Dame is ranked 3 and barely win their game on the last play.
Week 2 rankings Notre Dame is ranked 1 and lose. :-P
Week 3 rankings Notre Dame is ranked 4 and lose.

LOL. :-P

[TheHoundRules]

Who is this Tebow guy you are all talking about? Never heard of him....