FT: Georgia Tech beats the Notre Dame in the first game. The Irish may well run the table after that and GT will probably end up something like 9-3 or 8-4 but I think the Jackets will get the best of them that day.

Also, I havent heard anybody mention this: Wasnt ND playing Tech in the final scene in Rudy? When does ESPN/ABC start referring to this as the "Rudy Rematch"?

Since this is a CFB thread and I started it, I'll add this in from CFN as well.
The Greatest College QB's ever list.
http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2006 ... estion.htm

Peter Fiutak's list
10. Michael Vick
9. Charlie Ward
8. Roger Staubach
7. Ken Dorsey
6. Davey O'Brien
5. Danny Wuerffel
4. Vince Young
3. Sammy Baugh
2.Matt Leinart
1. Tommie Frazier

Richard Ciriminiello's list
10. Major Harris
9. Roger Staubach
8. John Elway
7. Ty Detmer
6. Charlie Ward
5. Peyton Manning
4. Doug Flutie
3. Danny Wuerffel
2.Tommie Frazier
1. Matt Leinart

Joh Harris
1. Doug Flutie, Boston College
2. Matt Leinart, USC
3. Tommie Frazier, Nebraska
4. Charlie Ward, Florida State
5. Jim McMahon, BYU
6. Danny Wuerffel, Florida
7. Sammy Baugh, TCU.
8. Vince Young, Texas
9. Roger Staubach, Navy
10. Jim Plunkett, Stanford

Matthew Zemek
Best college QB ever?
Frazier. The best pure mix of blood-and-guts poise under fire and sheer athletic beauty. The leader of the great Nebraska teams of the mid-90s (with the '95 edition being the best of all time) had equal portions of toughness and excellence, enabling an observer to view Frazier as a physical specimen who also gave it the old college try. The fact that he destroyed Wuerffel--another player you could identify as both a performer and winner of the highest order--in a head-to-head matchup for a national title is the reason Frazier gets the nod.

Also:
Here's a list of the bowls this season, since they added the fifth BCS game.
http://cbs.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/9443142

I can't believe they are having a bowl game in Toronto called the International Bowl and that the State of New Mexico is going to have a game. I can just see the Minnesota Bowl in a few years being played at the Metrodome.

Amen to that, brother!!!!!

are there any college football fans who support and like the bowl system?

I doubt they will, they have played eight times since then and Georgia Tech beat them most recently in the 1999 Gator Bowl. Notre Dame does have a commanding 26-5-1 record against the Jackets.

To clarify, I mean the Old Bowl System, not BCS nor tournament.

I like the bowl system, because I fear that a Division I Football tournament would be ruined by a shitty RPI system. The Division II playoffs use an RPI system to determine who makes it from the regional divisions and my alma Mater the University of South Dakota has been left out of the playoffs the last two years due to their non-conference slate. They went 3-1 against playoff teams last year, yet were passed over by a team they beat that went 1-3 or 2-2 against qualifiers.
An RPI system is great for Basketball and Baseball, but a rating system index would force the power schools to schedule difficult road games against some of the tough non-BCS conference schools and everyone would lose out on the revenue that is brought in by playing one or two pansies in September.
Unless the NCAA randomly makes the schedules for the BCS conferences like they do in the NFL and there is a profit sharing aspect of the deal that guarantees schools like Nebraska the same amount of money they get from scheduling seven home games, the bowl system is the best deal.

I'm hijacking this again.
Former Husker and Heisman winner Eric Crouch led the Toronto Argonauts to victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders, 26-23.
Toronto lost back-up QB Spergon Wynn to a concussion. Wynn was playing in place of Damon Allen who has a broken finger. Ricky Williams broke his arm in the game.
Crouch was 4-9 for 117yds and rushed 3 times for 32yds.

First off, I hate pre-season polls. It is purely entertainment meant to stir up discussion which is fine. Some publications will purposely rank teams higher than they should just to stir up controversy. IMO, they shouldn't even release polls until teams have played at LEAST 2 conference games.


That being said I love that UGA isn't getting talked about that much. Same as last year when we were picked 3rd in the East and won the SEC. It can only be because we have a question at QB. We bring the best backfield in the SEC back and our D will be much improved. Mark Richt will put a good QB out there. We have 2 QB's who were the best from their respective states (TN and NC) plus the #1 QB recruit in the nation from last year.

Tennessee at 10 is funny but you never know. They brought David Cutcliffe back to run the offense and he was the one calling plays when they won the National Championship.

That Greatest College QB list is LAUGHABLE without David Greene on it and I'm completely serious. Major Harris!?!? Ken fuckiing Dorsey!??!!

What exactly is the criteria? You've got amazing mobile Qb's and stand in the pocket QB's who put up tons of numbers.

I think the criteria should also be were they a winner? All of them are in some respect but David Greene is the winningest QB in NCAA history. Period. End of story. He has to be on there somewhere. He also had the best road record in the history of the SEC, losing only twice on an opponents home field in 4 YEARS. That is ridiculous. I'm obviously biased but show some repsect CFN.

Derris:
If you click on the link, John Harris does several polls based off of different QB style and Zemek mentions winners. I believe both Frazier and Leinart have a better winning percentage than Greene and actually won a couple titles when they were playing. Greene has the most wins as a QB in D-I, but isn't anywhere near the winningest. Chuck Easley of Toledo went 35-0 from 1969-1971.
The top ten according to the NCAA are:
1. Chuck Easley
2. Leinart 25-1
3. Steve Davis, Oklahoma 32-1-1
4. Ken Dorsey 38-2
5. Jerry Taage, Nebraska 24-1-1
6. Jay Barker, Alabama 35-2-1
7. Turner Gill, Nebraska 28-2
8. Gino Torretta 26-2
9. Tommie Frazier 33-3
10. Chris Weinke 32-3

David Greene is only the third winningest QB at Georgia according to the NCAA behind Buck Belue, 27-3 from 1978-1981 and John Rauch 36-8-1.

Georgia is once again being picked third in their division, but most of the commentators are saying either them, Florida or Tennessee can pull it out. They really don't have a clear favorite so far.

BTW, Chad Pennington of Marshall is the all-time leader at 45-6. but his mark also includes I-AA games.

Isn't a flawed tournament better than 50 random games where the winner can say they won some random bowl game and then one (or sometimes even two) games where people only sort of agree the top teams are playing?

to an outsider, bowl games seem so arbitrary.
correct me if i'm wrong.

New Poll

This is the Disassociated Press poll I snagged from Yahoo courtesy of a Notre Dame fan site.
Here's a link to the poll and the article stating why the top teams are the top teams.
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug ... &type=lgns

the first Disassociated Press Poll of 2006:

Disassociated Press Poll #1 (July 13, 2006)
1. Texas (13-0)—Could fall fast: home tilt vs. Ohio St. Sept. 9 looms large.
2. Southern California (12-1)—Team in transition. Translation? Another title run.
3. Penn State (11-1)—Will be out of Top 10 after Sept. 9 visit to Notre Dame.
4. West Virginia (11-1)—Talent+Rich Rodriguez+Big East schedule=Top 5-10 finish.
5. Ohio State (10-2)—Primed for title run, but holes at LB/DB significant. Sound familiar?
6. Louisiana State (11-2)—Defensive holes, tough road slate=at least 3 losses.
7. Virginia Tech (11-2)—Eight home games, one trip to Miami means possible title run.
8. Alabama (10-2)—Won’t be able to compensate for offensive woes as late into the season as last year.
9. Oregon (10-2)—No BCS bid this year, either, with Ariz. St., USC and Cal on road.
10. Florida (9-3)—Meyer will work his magic, but road slate too tough for title run.
11. Notre Dame (9-3)—Can team with defensive, special teams issues overcome brutal early slate?
12. Georgia (10-3)—Mark Richt fits well, but personnel losses, including QB, make it tough to reach Top 10.
13. Texas Christian (11-1)—One of these years, TCU will be BCS bound.
14. Wisconsin (10-3)—Alvarez worked magic in Madison; Bielema hard pressed to match.
15. UCLA (10-2)—Bruins’ offense can’t compensate for point-a-minute defense
16. Auburn (9-3)—Bad bowl loss drops Tigers down; will ascend quickly with Sept. 16 win over LSU.
17. Boston College (9-3)—Sourpuss Tom O’Brien will keep Eagles flying high in pursuit of 7th straight bowl win.
18. Oklahoma (8-4)—Great defense quickly pushes Sooners in Top 10; Oct. 7 showdown with Texas will be telling.
19. Clemson (8-4)–Will Tommy Bowden ever lead up-and-down Tigers to full potential?
20. Louisville (9-3)—If Bobby Petrino’s Cards get by Miami Sept. 16, will push for BCS bid.
21. Texas Tech (9-3)—Mike Leach system might be enough to compensate for new QB.
22. Miami (9-3)—Destroyed by 37 in bowl game by Louisiana State accounts for this low early-season ranking.
23. Nebraska (8-4)—Getting better under Bill Callahan, but fortunate to be in Big 12 division without Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech.
24. California (8-4)—Great upside with this squad coached by offensive mastermind Jeff Tedford.
25. Florida State (8-5)—Forced to work its way up the charts after four regular-season losses.
Others Receiving Votes: 26. Virginia, 27. Michigan, 28. Iowa, 29. Toledo, 30. Tulsa, 31. Navy, 32. Kansas, 33. North Carolina State, 34. Boise State, 35. Missouri, 36. Arizona State, 37. Utah, 38. Nevada, 39. Northwestern, 40. South Carolina, 41. Georgia Tech.

I think Penn State, Wisconsin, Texas Tech and BC are the only real suspect teams. LSU might be too high, but you always figure two SEC teams make the top ten. I think this poll does the best job of ranking the Big ten so far. I'm a little surprised they have Oklahoma so low and ranked behind Oregon, I also think it is a little weird that Kansas and Missouri are getting votes while Iowa State is not.

Nope,
the BCS is still an RPI system, it just determines a single title game rather than a complete tournament. The rest of the BCS bowls are determined by some specific rules, which allow a bowl to bypass a higher ranked BCS team for a more attractive, yet lower ranked BCS team. I.E. Notre Dame and Ohio State getting a bid over Oregon last year.

With the current system, you could still have the supposed two best teams meet in the semi-finals rather than the finals due to the RPI system. Three years ago, you would have had Oklahoma and USC playing one semi-final and LSU and someone else in the other if all things panned out. Two years ago it would have been USC and Auburn in one and Oklahoma and someone else in the other. In both scenarios, the team that was ranked third by the BCS/RPI ranking would have been pissed that it didn't receive a higher seed than one of the top two.

It's all pretty arbitrary, and I'm okay with that.

Also, the bowl games are important to the non-blockbuster schools, or even the up-and-coming programs. It's impossible for Navy to compete for a National Championship for any number of reasons, but beating Colorado State 51-30 in the Poinsettia Bowl last year was a big deal for the fans and the program.

How big would you make the tournament? Eight, sixteen teams? It just doesn't appeal to me, especially because you will have the exact same biases and problems plaguing bids and seedings.

Take a look the Top 16 teams from the Week 15 polls from 2005. Even though they were ranked at #14 with just one loss, do you really think they would let TCU in a playoff? Of course not. The voters—both press & "coaches"—would probably make sure that didn't happen. If you take the BCS, there's no way UCLA or TCU would be more worthy of #17 Florida or #22 Florida State.

Do teams like Wisconsin (or feel free to insert any other Big 10 flavor of the week) actually deserve a chance to win any title outside of Division II? Of course not. But they can go to a bowl and make some cash for the program so that everyone goes home happy. I just like having all the bowls, even if they mostly have goofy names now.

Eloquently put Fu.
Without bowl games you'd never get to see a Rutgers, South Florida or an Arkansas State be rewarded for a great season.

can't you have a tournament AND still have bowl games like this?

and i don't understand the argument that having a tournament would eliminate some deserving schools . . . isn't that what is happening now but more so?

But how is a tournament better? Other than the old "settling it on the field" argument, which fails to acknowledge rankings & seedings can't even tell you where the field is.

How are more deserving schools being left out now? Also, I'm not advocating the current system, but the old system. What's the Godawful Tragedy of having co-National Champions? Did NC State beating Houston in 1983's basketball tournament prove that Valvano's squad was better than Phi Slamma Jamma? Of course not. Besides, all the "settling it on the field" during the season is mucked up by polls all year long. You can't do it without human or computer error, so all the tweaking and meddling will only make it more frustrating.

6 win teams going to bowls is just rewarding mediocrity in my book--its the same sort of pussy mentality that starts with not keeping score in Little League Baseball.

As to the playoffs debate: How's about a Selection Committee akin to what is used to select the teams for the NCAA Basketball Tournament? You might occasionally disagree with a "bubble" team being left out, but I'd say that committee gets the top 2 seeds in each bracket (basically the Top 8 teams) right the great majority of the time.

Then get rid of all bullshit conference tie-ins and let a smaller school with 7 or 8 wins form a shitty conference play in a bowl.

Louisiana Tech wasn't a great football team (7-4) last year, but they not only finished ahead of Fresno State in the WAC, but they also beat Fresno at Fresno 40-28. And Fresno State got to play on December 31.

That's intraconference dumbshit, but would Tech have really been athat much worse than Georgia Tech/Clemson (3rd in Division); Nebraska/Michigan (a throwback game to 10 years ago) or California/Arizona State (4th & 5th in the Pac-10 pillowfight)? I know they don't travel well, but at least it's some new faces.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Surely you're not refering to all big ten teams as flavor of the months, as only 4 schools have won more NCs than Ohio State, Michigan, or Minnesota (7,7, and 6).

Other big ten school's with NC(s):
Michigan State - 3
Penn State - 2
Illinois - 2
Wisconsin - 1
Iowa - 1

So maybe you're refering to the fact that only Ohio State and Michigan have won NC's since the 90's. So let's just go ahead and say only teams who have won in the past 16 years should be able to play for the NC. Too bad that using that reasoning in recent history would have precluded from playing, let's see, Texas last year, LSU and USC in '03, and Tenn in '98, Florida in '96 and Florida St. in '93.

There certainly are never any significant power shifts in I-A college football so let's just write off large swaths of the country out of hand.

The only reason I don't like the NCAA Basketball Selection process is that a team like Gonzaga can be ranked in the top ten of the polls and get a number three seed due to how the RPI system tends to favor a conference like the Big East or Big Ten who rarely win the title but get eight teams in the field.
You also get the occassional team like Duke or Texas who may not get a number one seed, but end up playing the majority of their tournament games in their home state due to how the sites are now selected. There is no reason a school placed in the West Region should play their first two rounds in North Carolina.
Plus, Basketball differs greatly from Football, there is much more parity in basketball than there is in football. Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, George Mason, Gonzaga, Creighton, Xavier, etc. They either have no football teams or play in I-AA or Division II. The Sun Belt conference that Arkansas State belongs to will never be as competitive as the SEC, but those schools made the move up to D-I to make more money.
With a football playoff, you'd have to go at least 16 teams to include all the conference champions. Then you get into the Notre Dame dilemma and the conference title game dilemma. How do you allow the Pac-10 or Big-10 champ in if they haven't played every team in their conference, while the SEC, Big 12 and ACC all play an extra game to win their title. Also, how would you explain it to two of the four top sixteen ranked SEC schools last year that they can't go because the WAC and MWC conference champs took their spot.

Overall, I think the analogy of the 6-6 team is wrong. They are watering down college football to a certain degree by having so many bowl games, but they aren't making it less competitive or really encouraging mediocrity in the way you described. Case in point, 7-4 Oklahoma beats 10-1 Oregon in the Holiday Bowl. The Sooners never would have made a playoff, Oregon would have easily been included as one of the at large teams according to the BCS rankings. Yet, the Sooners felt they had something to prove after looking awful early in the season and beat a team that felt slighted.
I personally don't feel that the Big 12 or SEC need 8 bowl game tie-ins, but to allow every conference one or two guaranteed bowl appearances the major conferences get that many. I guess I'd rather see Arkansas State playing Southern Miss in the New Orleans bowl than playing Texas in the first round of a tournament, when it could be Texas versus UCLA.

Yeah, Minnesota is a fucking powerhouse.

What I'm saying is that the Big 10 is full of overrated teams that are in the Top 10 early in the season, only to finish with 6-7 wins. That means you Purdue, Minnesota, Michigan State, Wisconsin, every once in a while Northwestern, sometimes Iowa and lately Michigan. That's half the conference.

Also, the argument is made to apply to a change to a Tournament system. Therefore, your argument that we throw out Texas, LSU, USC, Tennessee, Florida & FSU is faulty, because those teams all had double digit wins, not 7 like the Big Ten.

No offense, but Minnesota hasn't won a title in the modern era and Michigan hasn't won too many either. If we start at an arbitrary point of 1970. Michigan and Ohio State have won one title since then.
If you go back to 1960, you get Minnesota with one, Michigan one, Ohio State one.
Now for shits and giggles, let's take a look at the Big 8/12/SWC since 1960.
Texas has four according to my count
Nebraska has five
Oklahoma has four
Colorado has one.

I'm not completely dissing on the Big 10, but as superior as so many claim it is when it comes to college football, they haven't won crap since the 50's