Let toejam's excuses start flowing like water

Screw_Michigan · Post by **Screw_Michigan** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:34 am

"the refs screwed us! he was out of bounds on that catch!"

stanford about to beat usc, up 24-23 with :40 to play, i believe.

Shoalzie · Post by **Shoalzie** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:37 am

Daaaaaaamn...props to Captain Comeback

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:38 am

FINAL.

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T

If Florida can hang on, let chaos ensue.

Shoalzie · Post by **Shoalzie** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:39 am

Ohio State-South Florida in the championship?

Screw_Michigan · Post by **Screw_Michigan** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:42 am

Shoalzie wrote:Daaaaaaamn...props to Captain Comeback

agreed. rack this dude:

campinfool · Post by **campinfool** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:49 am

Holy crap. Does this mean Cal will win it all?

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:01 am

If Fla beats LSU, Cal will be ranked No. 1.

M Club · Post by **M Club** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:06 am

and south florida #3. fucking wow... if ever there was a year to run the table in a weak big 10...

MuchoBulls · Post by **MuchoBulls** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:20 am

M Club wrote:and south florida #3. fucking wow... if ever there was a year to run the table in a weak big 10...

No chance. If anything, we stay where we are, or drop. BC should jump us and UF will in AP if they hang on. I'll glady take our W today, but we won't survive being -3 in turnover margin when we play team like Rutgers and Cincinnati.

Bearcat92 · Post by **Bearcat92** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:26 am

Shoalzie wrote:Ohio State-South Florida in the championship?

No.

Sincerely,
the Cincinnati Bearcats ;)

Shoalzie · Post by **Shoalzie** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:01 am

Bearcat92 wrote:
Shoalzie wrote:Ohio State-South Florida in the championship?
No.

Sincerely,
the Cincinnati Bearcats ;)

They've got a shot for sure. I can amend that statement now that LSU won and I did forget about Cal...they'll be the #2 in the country when the next poll comes out. With all of the chaos in the last few weeks, there are still 10 undefeated teams left in the country.

Laxplayer · Post by **Laxplayer** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:25 pm

I was at the UCLA-ND game and when they announced the score the ENTIRE place hooted for about a minute.........what a great fucking day.

Jimmy Medalions · Post by **Jimmy Medalions** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:34 pm

We came out like shit, played like shit, and lost like shit. Stanford earned the win. The fraud has been exposed.

SoCalTrjn · Post by **SoCalTrjn** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:57 pm

That game sucked, it was embarassing to sit in the stands and watch, season is over, kick Booty out of LA and start the sanchez era now.... USC will be lucky to end the year better than 8-4

Booty makes Jason White look clutch, and thats no easy thing to do

Laxplayer · Post by **Laxplayer** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:13 pm

I thought Corp was the future......

Jimmy Medalions · Post by **Jimmy Medalions** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:15 pm

Yep. I think Sanchez needs to see the field.

I also think Patrick Turner is a huge bust. Gigantic.

Give it to Stanford, though. They deserved the win and our guys deserved the loss. In some respects this loss is satisfying to me because our older guys on the team are not exhibiting any leadership on the young guys. We needed something like this to happen. Now we'll see if the seniors do their job.

SoCalTrjn · Post by **SoCalTrjn** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:46 pm

I think this team is about to finish the year 8-4 or 7-5

Laxplayer · Post by **Laxplayer** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:53 pm

Man you guys sound like Amish....I mean Irish fans.....

The Seer · Post by **The Seer** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:51 pm

SoCalTrjn wrote:I think this team is about to finish the year 8-4 or 7-5

With all those 5 stars?

Maybe you need new coaching.

SoCalTrjn · Post by **SoCalTrjn** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:52 pm

start with getting rid of Seto

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:32 pm

Wow, USC loses a home game (which was bound to happen) and you're calling for peoples' heads. This was a shocking loss, but it's not going to bring the entire program down. Get a freaking grip.

King Crimson · Post by **King Crimson** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:27 pm

Jason White never lost to Stanford, Schmick.

M Club · Post by **M Club** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:21 am

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Wow, USC loses a home game (which was bound to happen) and you're calling for peoples' heads. This was a shocking loss, but it's not going to bring the entire program down. Get a freaking grip.

seriously, standard reaction in this place to any loss [myself included] is omg we suck our coach should get fired we'll be lucky to make a bowl we're too conservative but why can't he just run the ball on 3rd and 1 i'm going to go bang a hot chick...

Terry in Crapchester · Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:58 am

M Club wrote:
MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Wow, USC loses a home game (which was bound to happen) and you're calling for peoples' heads. This was a shocking loss, but it's not going to bring the entire program down. Get a freaking grip.
seriously, standard reaction in this place to any loss [myself included] is omg we suck our coach should get fired we'll be lucky to make a bowl we're too conservative but why can't he just run the ball on 3rd and 1 i'm going to go bang a hot chick...

Agreed. And not to hijack the thread, but that, in a nutshell, is why college football needs a playoff -- to calm the (over)reaction to a single loss that the status quo engenders. Jmho.

Killian · Post by **Killian** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:28 pm

Terry in Crapchester wrote:Agreed. And not to hijack the thread, but that, in a nutshell, is why college football needs a playoff -- to calm the (over)reaction to a single loss that the status quo engenders. Jmho.

We may need a playoff, but I disagree with this reason. This is why college trumps the NFL, because of the passion that it creates.

Terry in Crapchester · Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:51 pm

Killian wrote:
Terry in Crapchester wrote:Agreed. And not to hijack the thread, but that, in a nutshell, is why college football needs a playoff -- to calm the (over)reaction to a single loss that the status quo engenders. Jmho.
We may need a playoff, but I disagree with this reason. This is why college trumps the NFL, because of the passion that it creates.

I think college will always have that passion, regardless of the system in place. There's a much more intimate connection between a university and its football team than there ever can be between a major metropolitan area and its professional team.

The downside to the status quo is that certain fans go off the deep end with every loss, and your favorite homer board becomes damn near unreadable anytime the team loses. A playoff system would restore some level of sanity to that end.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:50 pm

Terry, what the hell are you talking about? A playoff system will now decrease the number of meltdowns on local internet message boards? Good god, we need a playoff like.. NOW.. then don't we?

Can you imagine how bad a 16-team postseason playoff would've downgraded the past two weeks of the season? Stanford's win over USC would've equated to an NFL preseason game. Colorado over Oklahoma? Whoopity-doo.

I find it funny how you want to see CFB transform into CBB. But this time you've come up with the lamest reason.

Jimmy Medalions · Post by **Jimmy Medalions** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:07 pm

Jimmy Medalions wrote:Yep. I think Sanchez needs to see the field.

I also think Patrick Turner is a huge bust. Gigantic.

Give it to Stanford, though. They deserved the win and our guys deserved the loss. In some respects this loss is satisfying to me because our older guys on the team are not exhibiting any leadership on the young guys. We needed something like this to happen. Now we'll see if the seniors do their job.

^^^ What I said ^^^

Terry in Crapchester · Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:09 pm

L45B wrote:Can you imagine how bad a 16-team postseason playoff would've downgraded the past two weeks of the season? Stanford's win over USC would've equated to an NFL preseason game. Colorado over Oklahoma? Whoopity-doo.

Arguing that a playoff transforms college football into college basketball is lame in its own right. Nobody is talking about more than a 16-team playoff, which would still render college football as the sport with the most exclusive playoff. Throw in the fact that college football's season is the shortest of all major sports, and the games continue to have importance. But one loss doesn't become a life-or-death situation anymore.

If you like the status quo, what do you propose happens this year? Let's just assume, for the moment, that every team loses at least once. You're back to the same argument we have every year.

OTOH, let's take this scenario. LSU loses somewhere along the way in the SEC. Cal loses to USC. Michigan rallies for Lloyd and knocks off tOSU. The season produces two unbeatens, but they're South Florida and Boston College.

You'll have whining in here like nothing else before, and you know it. But that's what we have under the current system. If those two schools win out, most likely they're facing off in the BCS championship game.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:28 pm

Terry in Crapchester wrote:But one loss doesn't become a life-or-death situation anymore.

You see this as a problem, but I see it as one of CFB's defining qualities that makes it a thousand times better than the NFL & CBB. (Although it does make posting on the internet much more painful.)

If you like the status quo, what do you propose happens this year? Let's just assume, for the moment, that every team loses at least once. You're back to the same argument we have every year.

The BCS' major flaw is that it doesn't make room for all the conference winners. There's always a possibility that the major conference winners all end up with the same record. Whether they're all undefeated, all have one loss, whatever. The BCS people pray that this doesn't happen. The system in place should be set up to handle this situation, if it happens.

And it's a matter of where you draw the line of who deserves to play for a national championship. Under the current system, Team A that's not in the top two has to pray that the teams ranked above it lose and drop. Basically, these are circumstances that are out of Team A's control. What can Team A control? Winning all its games and *winning its conference.

IMO, I think that's where you draw the line. Win your conference and you get into a six or eight-team playoff. Allow one at-large spot for those teams that don't play in a conference. Use the ranking system to determine who gets home-field advantage. But allowing 16+ teams just negates the whole point of playing the season. It makes Colorado's win over Oklahoma look like an early season loss for the Colts.

Again I say, under a 16-team format, an upset like Stanford over USC is nothing more than a Sunday headline. After that, it's just a matter of when USC's first-round playoff game is. Nobody remembers that lowly Stanford shocked the Trojans. It's not at all lame to say that CFB would mirror CBB or the NFL under that kind of system.

Terry in Crapchester · Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:17 pm

L45B wrote:The BCS' major flaw is that it doesn't make room for all the conference winners. There's always a possibility that the major conference winners all end up with the same record. Whether they're all undefeated, all have one loss, whatever. The BCS people pray that this doesn't happen. The system in place should be set up to handle this situation, if it happens.

And it's a matter of where you draw the line of who deserves to play for a national championship. Under the current system, Team A that's not in the top two has to pray that the teams ranked above it lose and drop. Basically, these are circumstances that are out of Team A's control. What can Team A control? Winning all its games and *winning its conference.

IMO, I think that's where you draw the line. Win your conference and you get into a six or eight-team playoff. Allow one at-large spot for those teams that don't play in a conference. Use the ranking system to determine who gets home-field advantage.

Ahh, then we agree that the current system should be scrapped. All we disagree on is where the line should be drawn as to who gets to play for the national championship.

Truth be told, I could probably live with your solution, at least for the short term. It would definitely be an improvement over what we have now. But I see two problems with it.

First is the fact that even among the BCS conferences themselves, you don't see such parity that reducing the playoff field to only conference champions will give you an equitable playing field. And contrary to public opinion on this board, that situation can't be remedied merely by excluding the Big East. For example, last year you had Michigan (#3) and LSU (#4) fail to win their conferences, while Oklahoma (#10) and Wake Forest (#14) did win. Year before that, Ohio State (#4) and Oregon (#5) did not win their conferences, but Florida State (#22) did. And what happens to '06 Boise State or '04 Utah under your proposal?

Second has to do with the school I root for. I realize that I'm in the minority on this board on this point, but I believe ND should be allowed to remain independent. I also believe that ND's independence should be neither a benfit nor a hindrance when it comes to playing for the national championship. It's easy to say that you'd create a playoff format that would allow for ND if their season warranted inclusion. The problem is coming up with objective standards for that. Last season provides a perfect illustration.

ND finished #11 last season. That was ahead of one of the BCS conference champions (Wake Forest) and only the slimmest of margins behind a second (Oklahoma). That's an argument in favor of including Notre Dame. OTOH, you had a few schools that finished ahead of ND (Wisconsin and Auburn) who would not have been included in your playoff under any circumstances. So that's an argument in favor of excluding Notre Dame. How do you account for ND in your proposed playoff system? When you're touting a system as restrictive as the one you've suggested, the devil is in the details.

In the interests of full disclosure, one (not the only one, but certainly one) reason why I advocate for a 16-team playoff is the effect it would have on Notre Dame. A 16-team field requires several at-large bids of necessity. A system with several at-large bids proivides the best scenario for ND's independence to be neither a benefit nor a hindrance in terms of qualifying for the playoff.

Now, before anyone gets me wrong, let me say a few things. Obviously, I have to advocate on behalf of the school that has my rooting interests, or at least what I perceive to be its best long-term interests. And I'm in no way saying that ND should rule college football with an iron fist. But I do think that they've definitely earned a seat at the table when it comes to negotiating a system for deterining a champion. I also happen to think that they should not be forced into a conference against their will merely to placate the interests of other schools. For those reasons, imho if you're going to have a playoff with fewer than 16, or at least 12, teams, every bid in the playoff should be at-large. Of course, because of the implications for the BCS conferences under such a proposal, that would rule out a playoff, except perhaps for a Plus One format.

Another reason why I advocate for a 16-team playoff is that imho, the status quo punishes close-but-not-quite-there success while simultaneously rewarding mediocrity. In a BCS conference, there isn't a tremendous difference between a 9-3 season, or even a 10-2 season, and a 6-6 season. Your proposal does nothing to remedy that. Further, in advocating a 16-team playoff there is the fact that I am cutting to the chase. Imho, once the university presidents get past their opposition to a playoff, they would find that a playoff would be a cash cow beyond their wildest dreams. Once that happens, they'll want to maximize revenues from it. That means 16 teams.

It's not at all lame to say that CFB would mirror CBB or the NFL under that kind of system.

I respectfully disagree.

In the NFL, it's not uncommon to see 9-7 or even 8-8 teams in the playoffs. Even in a 16-team field, that would never happen in college football, nothing even remotely close to it. 2 losses would probably be the cutoff point, realistically. Maybe 3, but once you get to 3 losses you would need some help.

In college basketball, the NCAA tournament awards an automatic bid to the champion from every conference. One of the reasons the NIT manages to survive is the fact that every fan of college basketball knows that the NCAA tournament does not represent the best 65 teams in the country. I don't think that even a 16-team playoff would mean automatic bids for the champion of every conference.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:20 pm

I don't get the NFL or CBB comparisons either. As mentioned, you could play .500 ball or thereabouts and still get to the playoffs in the NFL. Not a chance in hell with a 16 team playoff. You wouldn't want to lose more than two games. You lose three, and you're on seriously thin ice. If you lose four, you're probably done unless you started the year ranked highly, and finished with a very good SOS, in which case, you have an outside shot. I think this is a small price to pay for the sport in order to determine a legitimate national champ.

I think it was Wolverine Steve that raised the question in another thread -- How do you determine who's better between an undefeated team who hasn't beaten anybody, and a 2-3 loss team who has played a brutal schedule? A playoff would include, for example, an undefeated Hawaii team and a 2-3 loss Florida team. Win-Win. I can't see how including both, and eliminating doubt, would be a bad thing for the sport.

Anyway, I just don't buy this argument of the games becoming less meaningful. With a 119 (or so) teams vying for a mere 16 playoff berths, that hardly waters down the significance. I'm too big a fan of college football to buy into that horseshite. I can't imagine watching Michigan/Ohio St, OU/Texas, etc., with any less enthusiasm than I do now, simply because two losses is "less damaging" than one loss. That's silly. It's just silly to assume that. If you can't get up for BIG TIME POWER COLLEGE FOOTBALL under the circumstances of a 16 team playoff, then you suck...out...loud. Straight up. You freaking suck. When Saturday afternoons roll around, just flip off the TV and go catch a Ben Stiller matinee or go do some yard work. Me? I'll enjoy the games.

But the main thing I think the anti-playoff folks fail to consider, is that with a playoff, from September to January -- you'll actually have MORE meaningful and MORE exciting games. Think of it in terms of math. From a mathematical standpoint, you'd actually have MORE meaningful games than we have now. And that point has been brought up ad nauseum in this forum.

And I can't fathom how anybody could possibly be opposed to that.