I sure hope WVU was saving themselves this week for Cincy next week, 'cause otherwise its gonna be a long Friday night. Already not looking good with the 'Neers going into Cincy.

I'll sum up the game.
Cincinnati dominated the first half.
Our defense looked like swiss cheese against the pass.
Our offense looked awesome.
We squeaked out after letting them come back in the 2nd half.

I caught the recap on ESPNews this morning--looked like an exciting game.

That was a horrible call... these SEC refs are going to keep getting ripped after this (deservedly so... they've been horrible).

This game almost makes up for the Iowa State debacle. Almost. If we can find even a little offense over the next 3 games, we should get the opportunity to get blown out by Texas.

http://cfn.scout.com/2/917329.html

College Football News Bowl projections

BCS: Florida vs Texas
Orange: Georgia Tech vs Cincinnati
Alamo: Michigan State vs Kansas State
Papa Johns: West Virginia vs Kentucky
International: Rutgers vs Bowling Green
Gator: Miami vs Notre Dame
Capital One: Penn State vs LSU
Outback: Wisconsin vs. Tennessee
Chick Fil A: Clemson vs Georgia
Insight: Minnesota vs Oklahoma
Texas: Texas A&M vs Navy
Holiday: Nebraska vs Stanford
Music City: Boston College vs Arkansas


http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... redictions
CBS Sports

BCS: Florida vs Texas
Sugar: Alabama vs Cincinnati
Alamo: Wisconsin vs Kansas State
Liberty: Houston vs Georgia
Capitol One: Iowa vs LSU
Outback: Penn State vs Tennessee
Sun: Arizona vs Oklahoma
Holiday: Stanford vs Nebraska
Independence: Kansas vs Arkansas

5 interceptions.
3 missed FGs.
3 failed 4th down conversions.

Shreveport on New Year's Eve.Ugh.

The fact that this shit still isn't getting overturned by replay is the true crime.

Also, the SEC has dropped the hammer and basically told the coaches and players that they are now the Gestapo and NO ONE is to speak of officiating. Case in point: Urban Meyer's $30,000 fine this week.

I mean, I don't know how that ranks among fines in the NCAA but it seems excessive and I'm certainly no fan of Meyer. I can't even remember a time off hand that an actual college coach was fined like that. Much less 30K.

Pretty fucking ridiculous IMO. Bitching about officiating is part of the game and now nobody, publicly, has an outlet to let people know that this shit is unacceptable.

I don't really pay much attention to these prediction things until around the last week of the season but those BCS match ups are just depressing.

Drives me nuts that a sport I love so much and follow religiously just continues to fuck this up.

The joke's on you, Derris for investing so heavily in such a sham of a "sport".

I'm waiting patiently for the old guard to die off.

Me too, dude.

Its as good as it gets right up until that first weekend of December, but once the conference championships are decided, its about as legit as Jai Alai or Roller Derby.

The notion that any sports championship is legit is a fallacy. Once you accept that, there's nothing more dramatic or more entertaining than College Football in November to December.

I know, I know - at least the NFL is decided on the field .

Not only the NFL, but every other major sport including non-D1 college football.

I think they need to invest some cash in pre-season non-conference match ups like they used to with the various Kick-Off Classic games, but make it more like the pre-season NIT for college basketball.
If there isn't going to be some sort of relegation/realignment of conferences in the FCS to make it easier for Boise State, TCU, BYU, Fresno State, Utah, etc get more match-ups both at home and away against BCS teams, the least they could do is get some corporations like Tostitos to fund epic pre-season match-ups where the BCS team gains as much cash as they would for a standard home game.

ESPN
http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls/projections

Since they have two prognosticators, I'll just mention the interesting pairings:

Nebraska vs LSU in Cotton (Bruce Feldman)
LSU vs Penn State in Capital One (Mark Schlabach)
Penn State vs Ole Miss in Outback (Bruce Feldman)
North Carolina vs Georgia in Music City (Mark Schlabach)
Oregon State vs Oklahoma in Sun (Bruce Feldman)
USC vs Nebraska in Holiday (Mark Schlabach)
Kansas vs Navy in Texas Bowl (Bruce Feldman)
Northwestern vs Oklahoma in Alamo (Mark Schlabach)
Georgia vs Missouri in Independence (Bruce Feldman

And I believe Navy is the first official bowl participant in the Texas Bowl.

Which means? That's one of the reasons I like it. I find non-conformity interesting. College Basketball has a real quality product - ha ha. Only the player's parents care about that sport before March. And then in a couple weeks its over.

Because everyone is doing it is absolutely the most non-compelling reason I know.

Maybe in Baton Rouge that's true but not in plenty of other places.



That might be true if we were talking about something less consequential than deciding the ultimate winner in a sport. (Which is the goal, right? To win?)

You like college football and how it plays out, fine. I think its a sham, think the bowls are pointless and that a playoff would breath a lot of life into a very tired product.

The only reason to adapt, or to change is profit motive. They will change it when boosters stop giving big money to team's foundations, when uniform sales drop, when RV sales slow, when students stop painting their entire bodies in their school colors, and/or when hell freezes over, whichever comes first.

They have no incentive to change, because they have a monopoly, and your casual fan has a rooting interest that exists outside of hometown jingoism. That is why 10,000 people can be found in khakis, sport coats and duck boots, with chandeliers on their tables on The Grove when the last time Ole Miss was relevant was sometime before the adoption of the 13th Amendment - and also why places like Cal Berkeley (that bastion of progressivism) is still a competitive squad.

All that to say: you may hate the sport, but I have seen you get down on all fours and bark at the television, and rock me in the face in a tailgate during a particularly heinous showing against Auburn - you're not going to not watch, so they couldn't give a flying fuck what you think about the product.

There a lot of things wrong with this.

1) True in Baton Rouge? C'mon. Do we need to really pull out tv ratings, attendance ratings, sales, tv contracts, etc. College football dominates college basketball. And all other college sports for that matter. Sure, Duke draws all year, but that's not really the point. I'll do you one better. LSU is rabid about college baseball. We've lead in attendance for a decade. Just built a stadium that rivals minor league facilities. It's no where near the stratusphere of CFB. This is really a silly argument you're posing. What amatuer sport really rivals CFB beyond 1 time events like the olympics? It may have something to do with how much every game matters and your team can still be a winner w/o winning it all (bowl games, conference championships value, etc.)

2) Tired product? Maybe to you. We're getting to the point where LSU, Ohio State, Florida, Notre Dame, Bama, etc. have facilities that are better than their professional counterparts. The SEC and Big Ten have their own networks. The sport is growing in ways that it hasn't since before WWII. The money being pumped into this sport is damn near amazing, which is wierd for a "tired product."

3) "To win.." I'm not sure what this means really nor do I really know what the "ultimate winner" means either. This is a very subjective mercurial proposition in my mind. If you mean, the goal is to provide the clearest expression of the best team that played in a given time period, then I'd say the NFL does an equally poor job in comparison to other sports. One game???? Are you kidding me. At least play a series to make sure you earn it instead of just having a fluke. Tampa Bay just beat the Packers today. Do you really believe that Tampa Bay is the better team? I'd pick the 16-0 Patriots to beat the Giants 7 out of 10 games. But the Giants were the "champs." Champs but not really the better team. Anything can happen in one game. In fact, that's what makes march madness great is that the best teams often don't win against far inferior teams. My point isn't that the Super Bowl sucks. I love it.

My point is that no system perfectly allocates the best team. Some are more flawed than others. So what - it doesn't matter to me. For me sports are all about drama. That's why I think an uncapped Yankees is the best thing about baseball. You need a villian.

I don't want cookie cutter sports. I like different rules. Otherwise, CFB just becomes a lesser quality NFL.

While I completely agree with what you're saying up there I also think that they DO have the profit motive to do this. I think networks (and in turn conferences) are losing millions by not having a playoff.

Ever since the BCS went to this +1 concept the ratings for the "other" BCS bowls have steadily gone down. In fact, viewer interest has never been lower for these games.

I found an interesting article written by Stewart Mandel that had some interesting facts. This years Orange Bowl (Cincy/Va Tech) drew a 6.1 rating making it the lowest rated BCS bowl ever. Drawing roughly the same #'s as the Champs Sports Bowl. The Utah/Bama Sugar Bowl increased over the UGA/Hawaii Sugar the year prior but still was the 7th lowest of the 45 BCS bowls played. 7 of the 9 lowest rated BCS bowls have taken place in the last 3 seasons. These are supposed to be college footballs marquee match ups for the whole year and this years Orange Bowl featured 2 teams outside of the Top 10. WTF?

The BCS Championship game has never been bigger but it has made the other traditional big bowls utterly irrelevant outside of the teams' respective fan bases and the die hard college football fans. Couple that with the fact that they now spread out all these games rather than do it all on New Years Day like they used to. These games SHOULD mean something and in a playoff system they would and would pull HUGE numbers, aka pull in HUGE revenue.

It's a broken product.

Also, I don't buy the college basketball regular season vs March Madness comparison.

CFB is a totally different beast and the traditional rivalries would still be as important as ever.

Fish, you can't tell me that with a playoff you somehow wouldn't want to beat Bama, Auburn, or Florida every year.

I also think you're getting into philosophical territory up there with what the 'best" team is. There is an infallible way to determine a champ, you win or lose.

Derris, the question is Qui Bono/Woodward and Bernstein; Who benefits and Follow the Money.

I bet you that the networks and member schools would benefit, but Cincy or Georgia would get less money by making a playoff and losing in the round of 16 (or 8) than they would going to The Sugar Bowl or Orange Bowl?

I actually don't know the answer to this, but I suspect something like that is afoot.

1) All of this is apples to wenches comparisons. That's kind of my point. Love College BB for what it is. Love College FB for what it is. The system is unique and creates some very interesting aspects unknown in other sports.

2) I'd still care about beating Bama, etc. One loss to Arkansas not so much. Even with LSU out of the NC contention, I'm still thinking about what is the best bowl we can go to. Sure, I'd be thinking about our seeding if their is a playoff but the difference between the 14th seed and 6th doesn't motivate me as much as the difference between the Cotton Bowl and the Indy Bowl. LSU can still go 10-2 and hold themselves out as "Cotton Bowl Champs." Losers in the playoffs are just losers. If the Saints don't win the Superbowl, I'd could give a fuck about the positives from this season.

3)When you say something like "this is a sham", it invites philosophical questions. Nobody complains about the inequity of a 1 game superbowl. Everyone complains about the inequities of the BCS. What's wrong with me questioning the logic of that? It's "infallible" only because you say it is. But when I was 10, the only legimacy in HORSE was by "proving it." I guess 10 year old Kingfish had higher standards of "winning" for inconsequential children games than the professional football league.

While I'm at it, think about this. Everyone hates the way baseball chooses home field advantage for the World Series. And I agree with them -it's stupid. However, do you know what the old system was? A fucking coin flip. Oddly, I don't remember much complaining about the coin flip. I suspect no one really complained because it was so engrained in the national thinking that no one thought to question it or really noticed its inequities. Sports are full of this kind of shit. There's no way to make it perfect.

4) "it's broken" - So broken that its more popular than ever.

From everything I have read. Any playoff system that didn't involve the major BCS bowl games/system now would cost all current BCS conference teams a shit ton of cash.
The "non-profit" system of current bowl games makes sure that most teams don't lose a ton of money on bowl trips. If it was merely an NCAA sanctioned event with limited sponsorship and pay outs for the four or eight playoff participants and the revenue from the playoff was spread out amongst the 119 FBS teams, most of the current BCS conferences would lose their shirts on the deal and it would cost every NCAA sport revenue in the end.

Let's face it, Bowl game system NCAA Football keeps most other college sports alive. You're not just fucking with the BCS system when you create a playoff like March Madness, the CWS or any other Division of NCAA Football, you are completely ruining many athletic programs at many universities across the country.

On the contrary, I think a college bowl system would be more valuable for the networks than the bowls (meaningful games versus exhibitions) and would thus be more valuable for the NCAA who could then spread that money to its member schools. We are talking billions here.

But that is actually an argument against a playoff because I don't think any of us believes that the NCAA knows how to handle that sort of cash and I personally think that would be the impetus for the players to "walk out" for a piece of the action.