NCAA college football 2017-18: Official thread

Every champion that doesn't play through a bracket of conference winners deserves an asterisk. It's the least legitimate means of deciding a champion this side of boxing.

Impressive opening drive from OU. UGA's defense is going to have to do much better or this is going to be a blowout.

Yeah UCF should have been the 4-seed.

Hopefully Clemson kicks Alabama's ass and next year they'll get left out finally. Hell they already got a free "championship" back in 2010 when LSU beat them at Alabama but the BCS thought they were smarter than the computers that had OK St ranked higher.

Stele wrote:

Yeah UCF should have been the 4-seed.

Hopefully Clemson kicks Alabama's ass and next year they'll get left out finally. Hell they already got a free "championship" back in 2010 when LSU beat them at Alabama but the BCS thought they were smarter than the computers that had OK St ranked higher.

Hold on - weren't computers a significant factor in the BCS? Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the BCS was simply a formula. The committee couldn't override the selections, because there was no committee. Yes, there was a human element in the form of poll voters, but you can't use "the BCS thought they were smarter than the computers" to describe the poll votes that were cast before the selection even happened.

Now, if I'm mistaken about the nature of the BCS, clearly I've just wasted a bunch of words and everyone's time.

If you know your team is going to go 5-7, isn't every game already sort of meaningless? Wouldn't it be better if every FBS school had an opportunity to play for a national championship? Some programs might go away but I would argue there are too many FBS teams now.

I get the money thing to a degree, that's why this old-fashioned, cobbled together BS system continues to be used. Hard to fight entrenched money. But it is still a bad system (better than the old days though, I think).

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Hold on - weren't computers a significant factor in the BCS? Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the BCS was simply a formula. The committee couldn't override the selections, because there was no committee. Yes, there was a human element in the form of poll voters, but you can't use "the BCS thought they were smarter than the computers" to describe the poll votes that were cast before the selection even happened.

Now, if I'm mistaken about the nature of the BCS, clearly I've just wasted a bunch of words and everyone's time.

Original BCS was AP, Coaches and 6 computers as a 3rd "poll". After Cal was screwed out of the Rose Bowl, the AP dropped out because coaches would not reveal their votes (not hyperbole, look it up), and it was replaced by some new poll... the Harris(?) or something like that. I'm not sure how those 3 systems were weighted, but if it was 1/3 each, then human subjectivity still comprised of 2/3 of the final result.

This game is amazing, any way you slice it!

Whee free football

In a playoff bracket you really just need to worry about winning your conference so it is not like this big deal about strength of schedule and all that other junk. Just win your conference and your in.

Also any argument (besides making bowls richer) is moot when all the other college football division do it.

Congrats, ferret!

I'm holding my other congrats out of consideration for anyone who is paranoid about jinxes.

Alabama is very, very, very good.

Alabama is awful to watch. It's literally like watching a boa constrictor eat a rabbit.

And congrats to Grump and the entire manta family!

Prederick wrote:

Alabama is very, very, very good.

Alabama is awful to watch. It's literally like watching a boa constrictor eat a rabbit.

Remember the scene from Saving Private Ryan where the guy gets stabbed to death very slowly and inevitably?

Well, that’s end of paying attention to college football until August.

Overtime is the best time to take the ball out of your Heisman QB's hands.

I'm very much hoping that this all-SEC National Championship will be what's needed to trigger a 16-team tournament. It probably won't be but I'm still hoping.

Now with that out of the way...

Roll Tide!

Of course, I didn't like (at all) the way we closed out the fourth quarter. If that was a close(r) game, I'm not sure we would have been able to put it away.

Edit: From Reddit:

Committee: Soooo… we were right. And because we were right, we have decided to switch to an eight team playoff. From now on, at the end of the season, the champions of the ACC, B1G, XII and PAC-12 will face off against Bama and the next three best SEC teams. The G5 has been thrown down the memory hole.

I LOL'd chuckled.

That was fun to watch. Like the Mississippi State game...

Now we have the real SEC championship. Silly Auburn.

But wait, Alabama wasn't one of the four best teams I thought.

That said, I'm still good with expanding the playoffs.

Bama's crockpotting of Clemson was the most anticlimactic end to a superb day of football one could imagine. Thankfully, as soon as the Pick 6 happened I knew the game was over and was able to go to bed and get some sleep for the return to work.

I agree with Prederick 100%, Bama is very, very good and nearly impossible to watch. I can appreciate good, defensive football, to an extent, but that's not what I get from Bama.

While I am not in any way excited about the national championship* game, I guess I can hope for a Georgia win. Sorry Grump and Manta, but anyone but Bama runs strong in my veins, especially with them backing into the title game (again). I fully realize that one of the reasons that we have a playoff is to try to get the "best" teams to settle it on the field, and I grudgingly admit that Bama is one of the four best teams, but the fact that they get mulligans more often than anyone else just irks me. Don't even get me started on the fact that in a year where the SEC as a whole is far worse than they have been in a while, their two best teams get to face off for the title.

I guess I will tune in to the championship game for a bit, but if it goes the way I figure it will, I should be able to go to bed early next Monday as well.

I don't remember a lot of talk about Clemson and Oklahoma not deserving to be there. They both got beat. I don't think either game was won by an unfair fluke. To me that means the SEC teams deserve to be in the championship. It seems pretty simple.

I'm not saying the SEC had a banner year, but yesterday seems to make a clear point on where the best 2 SEC teams stand.

The controversy I remember was more around Alabama getting in not having won the SEC, over Ohio State, who won the Big 10.

Please show me in my post where I said Bama didn't deserve to be there... (I didn't). I did say that they backed into the playoff, which they most certainly did, IMO. I even admitted that I believe they are one of the four best, I would be hard-pressed to suggest a team that should have been there other than them.

Hell, they will likely win yet another title and we will all get to hear, again, how Saban is the Lord of all things college football and the SEC is "clearly" the best conference. Joy.

Abu5217 wrote:

Please show me in my post where I said Bama didn't deserve to be there... (I didn't). I did say that they backed into the playoff, which they most certainly did, IMO. I even admitted that I believe they are one of the four best, I would be hard-pressed to suggest a team that should have been there other than them.

Hell, they will likely win yet another title and we will all get to hear, again, how Saban is the Lord of all things college football and the SEC is "clearly" the best conference. Joy.

If you're talking to me, I was talking in general about the controversy of them getting in to the four, not your comment specifically.

Sorry, should have quoted. I was replying to manta.

On December 3rd Jayhawker wrote:

Still think including any team that doesn't win their conference is a bad idea. OSU would have been preferable to Bama, but this would have been a perfect year to add a non-Power 5 champion in UCF. If going undefeated can't get them in, then why include them in the rankings?

This pretty much sums up everything for me right now.

Glory Glory!

Sports happy is not the same as real life happy. A good day with my wife is better than the best day I’ve had watching a ball game. But sports happy counts for something — the same way that movie happy counts, or comic-book happy counts, or reality-TV happy counts. Life is too hard not to take joy where you can get it.

Since we're quoting our respective fan blogs... here's another Cal blog. Context is Jon Wilner, one of the most knowledgeable reporters on the business end of the Pac-12 conference wrote a damning article on the state of the Pac-12 (not just the 1-8 bowl record, but about the long term viability of the conference). Here is how one Cal blogger responded.

https://www.californiagoldenblogs.co...

Also, I hope every team in the conference loses every bowl game every year except for Cal. And that the NCAA grants special dispensation to Stanford so that when they have a losing record they have to go play San Jose State in the Head On! Apply directly to the forehead! Bakersfield Bowl.

Because all I care about as an irrational fan of my team (and not their conference) is my team. And should my Bears ever somehow get into the position where they win the Pac-12 and miss the playoffs WELL IN THAT CASE THAT MEANS THE BEARS ARE PAC-12 CHAMPS AND EVERYBODY ELSE IN THIS CONFERENCE CAN SUCK IT WOOOOOO PALMS OF VICTORY ON REPEAT UNTIL NEXT SEPTEMBER START BUILDING THE WILCOX STATUE NOW.

Believe it or not this is not me writing! In fact there is probably a generational difference between me and the writer of this, and yet here it is. Cal football fans live for one thing.. Cal Football. Nothing else matters.... zero hours of college football watched since November 24 and I don't feel like I've missed anything.

Abu5217 wrote:

I agree with Prederick 100%, Bama is very, very good and nearly impossible to watch. I can appreciate good, defensive football, to an extent, but that's not what I get from Bama.

I should clarify here, when Bama wins. Many of the most entertaining Bama games I can think of came when they lost (to be clear, not because they lost), save for perhaps that absurd game this year against A&M.

Prederick wrote:
Abu5217 wrote:

I agree with Prederick 100%, Bama is very, very good and nearly impossible to watch. I can appreciate good, defensive football, to an extent, but that's not what I get from Bama.

I should clarify here, when Bama wins. Many of the most entertaining Bama games I can think of came when they lost (to be clear, not because they lost), save for perhaps that absurd game this year against A&M.

Since you mentioned that game, I will now post what I started to last night, but thought better of:

Bama beat Clemson 24-6.
Bama beat Texas A&M 27-19.

Hey, we sucked less than the champs! Hell, we found the endzone!

Holding my head high in 2018!

By that property, we sucked 1 point less than the champs. (Bama 24, FSU 7)

Abu5217 wrote:

By that property, we sucked 1 point less than the champs. (Bama 24, FSU 7)

:)

Turns out Sumlin is better than Jimbo! sh*t!