NCAA Football 2012 Season Catch-All

sheared wrote:
Stele wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Two SEC teams in the title game again. I called it. It's happening.

I can't believe I have to cheer for ND to keep this travesty from happening.

If this happens after the year we had, BCS goes away, and the playoff starts next year.

I've thought about it, and as fun as a 16 team playoff sounds, we just can not go there. It would make days like yesterday almost meaningless, except for the middle of the pack crowd. I want to see the games at the top have meaning instead. Everyone fighting for the top four spots (until the selection committee messes it up the first time).

A couple of games like that is not worth this broken system nor does it make up for all the messed up final games. These games would still be important cause would go toward a team's "score" for final 16 selection, including possibly affecting conference champ games.

Gumbie wrote:

Goodbye Derek Dooley.

Expected but ouch, they're not even going to let him coach against UK.

Especially if the playoffs ever got to 16, the first round would probably be hosted at home. Days like yesterday might drop teams from home-game to away-game for the first round of the playoffs. Would still be a huge deal.

And great games are great games, no matter what. Imagine how many more great games we would have in the playoffs.

DSGamer wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:

So you're predicting that USC beats ND? I only ask because that's the only way it's even remotely conceivable.

Yes. I think they will.

I find it funny that all of us west coasters think that USC should actually be favored against ND, while most of the rest of the country probably thinks (maybe hopes?) otherwise. Listening to the Pac-12 network during our humiliation Neuheisel was basically saying its in the bag for USC regardless if Barkley plays.

For me and my cheering of the Pac-One-plus-Eleven, my football season is over, and just like the last 50+ years, Cal didint' win its conference. As is my tradition I will not watch any more college football after Cal's final game, so who wins the Pac-Eleven, the rose bowl, NC game is irrelevant. In fact, the worst possible outcome, furd and fUCLA battling for the rose bowl is the very likely scenario and it makes me sick to my stomach which gives me even less incentive to care. Part of me wants fUCLA to win just so we can say we humilitated them and they lost to the 3rd worst team in the conference, but aside from that I'd care less.

The only thing that matters now is who coaches Cal next year. As much as the alumni are calling for heads, I'm just not sure Cal can afford the buyout and subsequent hire of a good HC. Charlie Strong's name is mentioned here (as well as everywhere else), and he was 2nd choice behind Tedford 12 years ago and expressed his disappointment, but my guess is we're out of the running now. Best bet is a west coast assistant or non-major HC, which of course means a few more years of rebuilding. Back to the old drawing board for Cal.. sigh.. With the playoffs and restructuring of the BCS stuff next year our 50+ year wait for the rose bowl may stretch on indefinitely... I seriously think only the cubs have had it worse than Cal when it comes to fandom.

Stele wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

Goodbye Derek Dooley.

Expected but ouch, they're not even going to let him coach against UK. :?

Strategic decision to avoid padding his dismal win record, imho.

It should be a game to watch. Two teams fighting for their first (and only) SEC win for the year. Could have been even more exciting if it was both coaches final game. Instead it's just Joker vs the interim guy.

Stele wrote:

It should be a game to watch. Two teams fighting for their first (and only) SEC win for the year. Could have been even more exciting if it was both coaches final game. Instead it's just Joker vs the interim guy.

They should just fire Joker so it could be two interims. For the Tennessee AD it makes sense: you don't want to give Dooley a chance to potentially notch another win, giving him an argument that things are not as bad as they obviously are. Whatever, it was time for him to go.

USC could very well beat ND. It'll be a tough game. Their strength seems to be the passing game (I haven't really seen them play this year). ND's weakness on defense is its secondary, although they tend to play dropback zones that keep everything in front of the LBs. If they do that, and as long as they can keep up their excellent tackling, they might be okay on D.

On offense...well, they've averaged >200 yards rushing per game, and that's been stronger in the second half. So, perhaps ND has a shot.

Also, just think of how this would all look if Ohio State weren't on probation.

firesloth wrote:

They should just fire Joker so it could be two interims. For the Tennessee AD it makes sense: you don't want to give Dooley a chance to potentially notch another win, giving him an argument that things are not as bad as they obviously are. Whatever, it was time for him to go.

Joker is fired already. They just are letting him coach the final 2 games still. Unless they had intentions to hire someone that's currently not coaching, it's not like they could hire anyone until the season is over anyway, so might as well let him finish it out and try to get 2 wins.

I thought this was funny/sad:

ESPN.com wrote:

Tennessee faces some financial issues as it chooses its new coach. The university's athletic department posted a $3.98 million budget deficit for the 2011-12 fiscal year in part because of buyouts it was paying to Fulmer, former athletic director Mike Hamilton, former men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl and former baseball coach Todd Raleigh.

Now add Dooley.

That's a lotta ex-coaches still getting paid.

karmajay wrote:
sheared wrote:
Stele wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Two SEC teams in the title game again. I called it. It's happening.

I can't believe I have to cheer for ND to keep this travesty from happening.

If this happens after the year we had, BCS goes away, and the playoff starts next year.

I've thought about it, and as fun as a 16 team playoff sounds, we just can not go there. It would make days like yesterday almost meaningless, except for the middle of the pack crowd. I want to see the games at the top have meaning instead. Everyone fighting for the top four spots (until the selection committee messes it up the first time).

A couple of games like that is not worth this broken system nor does it make up for all the messed up final games. These games would still be important cause would go toward a team's "score" for final 16 selection, including possibly affecting conference champ games.

What I would say is that we need a playoff system that mimics what makes the basketball tournament great. That means 16 teams, but 11 different conference champions, and five at-large bids. This provides meaning to winning your conference, while still providing interest in days like this. But just using the rankings to pick teams is annoying and dumb.

I think even going with 8 automatic bids and 8 at-large would be a nice plan. The key is getting more lower tier conferences involved. This actually expands the market and gets even more fans interested.

Otherwise, we really do need to see the Big Four Conferences expand to 16, and using their conference championship games to feed into a four team playoff. That makes the playoffs essentially 8 power teams picked by their ability to win their divisions and not the bias of pollsters.

If we do see the four mega conferences, I would happe they take the next step and just eliminate playing teams out of those 64 altogether. I'd even go the next step and give the NCAA or whoever actually runs the Big Four, the power to schedule so what we have is an NFL like league with schedules based on where you finish for balance.

But really, the eight or eleven conference plan is what I think would make for the most fun, with cinderella performances and the ability of certain schools to be the "Gonzaga" of NCAA football.

The current system obviously sucks, and if the SEC succeeds in forcing the BCS to allow teams that failed to win their conference in to the final four, then the next system will be equally flawed. Although, unless the Big 12 expands so that they also have a conference championship game, I don't think anyone can blame the SEC, or the other conferences, from calling BS on that. They would be risking their best team losing in the CCG, while the Big 12 team would already be slotted.

40+ minutes since Carlbear's post, and still no strongly-worded denial from Stele that Strong could get hired away. He must have missed it there in the meat of a long post.

Or since the current bowl allocation has Big 5 and Next 5, maybe 10 conference champs from those conferences, and 6 at-large? That still means mostly the Big 5 are getting two teams in.

I think the WAC is mostly dead with all the realignment stuff.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

40+ minutes since Carlbear's post, and still no strongly-worded denial from Stele that Strong could get hired away. He must have missed it there in the meat of a long post.

You are correct sir. I missed it. But without reading it, I'll state again, YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!

He's got Teddy "Heisman" poised for a run next year, he's not going anywhere. :p

Sorry man, Heisman's locked up for the next 3 years.

Here in SECland, everyone is screaming about ND and they don't deserve to be #1. I am going against that and think they very much deserve it! Here is why:

1. ND consistently plays among the toughest schedules in the land and this year is no exception.
2. They have beaten every team that has been put in front of them.
3. They do not play powderpuff teams like Samford, Sam Houston State and Woffard like every other major team does every single year.
4. Who else would it be as the last undefeated major team in the land??

Folks here are saying ND would lose 4-5 games if they played in the SEC. I say that is hogwash. ND's defense is scary good and their offense is really coming into it's own. They can play with and beat anybody. But the simple fact is they aren't in the SEC. Every team can't be in the SEC. They are independent which I greatly respect which means week in and week out they can schedule anyone. If they played in the SEC, would wins over Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Arkansas really count for much? I think they are fine right where they are.

Hey, I like the SEC as much as the next guy. If it was BYU or Boise State we were talking about, I'd be screaming with the best of them as their schedules are a joke. But this is ND.

They are #1 and have earned it.

Deal with it.

Man, what a great post Coolbeans. I want to think about that a bit before I respond. I'd love to hear what others think, too.

I agree that an undefeated major like them should be #1, no question.

I disagree with the general idea that they play a harder schedule than other teams. We played Sam Houston, one of the top FCS teams. They play some crappy FBS teams.

http://www.teamrankings.com/college-...

There's one man's strength of schedule rankings. Pay no attention to who is number one, and look at who is forty - Notre Dame.

I still think they're #1 while undefeated, mind you. But it's not like they have a particularly hard schedule.

NOTE: The stats on this page include data ONLY from games involving two FBS schools.
Fedaykin98 wrote:

I agree that an undefeated major like them should be #1, no question.

I disagree with the general idea that they play a harder schedule than other teams. We played Sam Houston, one of the top FCS teams. They play some crappy FBS teams.

http://www.teamrankings.com/college-...

There's one man's strength of schedule rankings. Pay no attention to who is number one, and look at who is forty - Notre Dame.

I still think they're #1 while undefeated, mind you. But it's not like they have a particularly hard schedule.

I'd like to know what metric are they using for this. Sam Houston State, SMU, South Carolina State, and Auburn? That's almost half their games!
Look at #2: San Jose State, Duke, Cal and Washington State.
3 is a bit better as USC didn't have any cupcake teams. Sadly, they also lost 4 games so far.

The site looks more like a betting site covering the spread. I think that's questionable science at best. I stick with my original thought that ND has among the tougher schedules in the land. I'm not saying they have the absolute toughest, but it's up there.

I would say that what makes a given schedule "hard" in the college football world of needing to be undefeated or nearly so is the number of top teams that one is playing. If you've got games against 4 of the top 12, I'd say that's harder than a schedule where you play 2 of the top 25 - in the college football sense of needing to be undefeated. **those numbers completely made up out of my head, not meant to represent any particular teams**

Now, that's just my opinion, but it seems to me that when we're talking about who is #1, or #2, or numbers 1 - 4 in a couple years, the hardest matchups are what matter more than something like the average ranking on your schedule. Average is still meaningful, in that you get beat up over the course of a season, but imho the really tough contests are a bigger deal.

EDIT: Just in case my earlier link wasn't super useful, here's a survey of a bunch of different SOS rankings, updated in October: http://www.fbschedules.com/2012/10/s...

Not really trying to keep this going, and again, I do think the Irish deserve to be #1 at this point. They build a serious schedule, regardless of the numerical ranking - I just didn't feel that their schedule was any harder than that of many other teams, FCS matchups or no.

Next topic: An Alabama - Notre Dame championship would give every football fan in America at least one team to hate on, maybe two!

Well, here's the most important aspect of this week's BCS rankings:

NotreDame becomes the 1st school in the BCS era to rank No. 1 in the current BCS standings AND No. 1 in the NCAA Grad Success Rate ratings.

Two other things:

IMAGE(http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000XpFtHlk8ut0/s/650/Grace-1-sign.jpg)

This sign gets lit whenever one of the ND teams is ranked #1 in the country. I've never seen it lit for football! (I have seen it for hockey, women's soccer, women's basketball...)

Also, unfortunately Matt Barkley ruled out already for the game next week. I'd rather see everyone at full strength. Although, this is Lane Kiffin...maybe he'll spring him on ND.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I would say that what makes a given schedule "hard" in the college football world of needing to be undefeated or nearly so is the number of top teams that one is playing. If you've got games against 4 of the top 12, I'd say that's harder than a schedule where you play 2 of the top 25 - in the college football sense of needing to be undefeated. **those numbers completely made up out of my head, not meant to represent any particular teams**

Now, that's just my opinion, but it seems to me that when we're talking about who is #1, or #2, or numbers 1 - 4 in a couple years, the hardest matchups are what matter more than something like the average ranking on your schedule. Average is still meaningful, in that you get beat up over the course of a season, but imho the really tough contests are a bigger deal.

EDIT: Just in case my earlier link wasn't super useful, here's a survey of a bunch of different SOS rankings, updated in October: http://www.fbschedules.com/2012/10/s...

Not really trying to keep this going, and again, I do think the Irish deserve to be #1 at this point. They build a serious schedule, regardless of the numerical ranking - I just didn't feel that their schedule was any harder than that of many other teams, FCS matchups or no.

Next topic: An Alabama - Notre Dame championship would give every football fan in America at least one team to hate on, maybe two! :lol:

This seems to be the only one that matters out of all those :

NCAA (vs. FBS & FCS, games played only)

Kentucky
Iowa State
Stanford
West Virginia
Arizona
Syracuse
UAB
California
Buffalo
Washington (tied w/ Buffalo)

This NCAA ranking is based solely on the winning percentage of past opponents. Kentucky’s past opponent’s (Louisville, Kent State, WKU, Florida, South Carolina, and Mississippi State) have a combined 24 wins and only one loss. Iowa State’s past opponents (Tulsa, Iowa, Westerm Illinois, Texas Tech, and TCU) have 17 wins and three losses.

Bold is mine. Who would have though Kentucky has had the toughest schedule so far!

They should do that ranking while taking out the result against the team in question. That is, since EVERYONE beats Kentucky, those teams that play Kentucky have a statistically higher winning percentage than ones that didn't. Those teams that played, e.g., Georgia, will tend to have a statistically worse winning percentage.

Maybe they do that already...

firesloth wrote:

They should do that ranking while taking out the result against the team in question. That is, since EVERYONE beats Kentucky, those teams that play Kentucky have a statistically higher winning percentage than ones that didn't. Those teams that played, e.g., Georgia, will tend to have a statistically worse winning percentage.

Maybe they do that already...

You'd think one of the math guys would try that.

Someone has done it...I don't remember which survey it was. I don't know if this particular one did so or not.

Look at Cal! I will say it again that Cal would be better than 3-9 (though probably no better than 5-7) had it played an SEC schedule. Saying Bama or LSU is better than Oregon and Stanford is irrelevant because we would have lost either way by 70, but I'd take Tennessee, Vandy, Ole Miss, Auburn and Arkansas. Cal could win 2 or 3 of those 5, make noise with one silly unexpected upset, and play a 4 game non-conf schedule vs. at least 3 cupcakes instead of the 3-game non-conf schedule we play in the Pac.

So Maryland and Rutgers to the Big 10(14). Are they Leaders or Legends?

I really don't see what the Terps get out of this.

Badferret wrote:

So Maryland and Rutgers to the Big 10(14). Are they Leaders or Legends?

I really don't see what the Terps get out of this.

More money out of a TV deal? I'm not sure, either. The motivation for Rutgers is pretty obvious, though. Good move on their part.

Badferret wrote:

So Maryland and Rutgers to the Big 10(14). Are they Leaders or Legends?

I really don't see what the Terps get out of this.

$24 million per school for TV rights, up from the ACC's $17 million.

Maybe some other stuff with bowls too, I don't know.

And the Big10 TV rights are due to renegotiate in 2017. So at that time they will have had 14 teams for 2 years, and can probably squeeze more money out of that contract.