watch me fall Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Iowa fans have now taken over our Rivals board. And I thought Clemson fans were annoying. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bleedorange Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Exactly. I don't really have a rooting interest in the Big 12, both Stoops and Brown seem like stand up guys who run really good programs, so I was kind of pulling for an OU/Florida championship. Question for the Texas fans: Would you rather see Oklahoma beat Florida and hope for possibly splitting the national championship with them by winning the AP poll (which really doesn't count anymore, but it would still be a split title in some regards) or would you rather see Florida bomb Oklahoma, like USC did four years ago, and finish second to the Gators in both polls? Feel free to insert your favorite team and your favorite team's rival into this question as a hypothetical. I think WVU was in Texas' spot and Pitt was in Oklahoma's. I'd have to root for Pitt for the possibility of the split title just so we could have something even if it ultimately didn't mean much. But I wouldn't be too torn up if they got bombed. --Mike I can only imagine what the Cotton Bowl will be like in October next year if there were a split national championship. Nothing like adding fuel to an incredible rivalry. I just wouldn't want to put any hope in AP voters doing that. I guess it's possible, but if Oklahoma beats the #1 team in the nation, could enough voters really justify jumping Texas ahead? When USC won it a few years ago, they were already sitting at #1. Texas doesn't have that luxury this year. Part of me would really like to have the AP national championship, but part of me would rather just see Oklahoma lose again. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lamradio Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Iowa fans have now taken over our Rivals board. And I thought Clemson fans were annoying. Hey now.. so you're calling me annoying? That's ok.. 31-14 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
quarter23cd Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 No matter what anyone else thinks, Ohio State will not get blown out by Texas, and Penn State will not get blown out by USC.I dunno, this is a weird year for me in that I don't think I have ever rooted against my alma mater making a BCS bowl, but OSU could have really benefited from a year out of the spotlight. Sure, by the end of the season, Pryor was getting comfortable and the team as a unit was finally starting to gel. But I gotta be honest, they are not on Texas' level this year. I've said it before, but I would have rather watched them compete in a more winnable bowl and continue building their momentum into next year, rather than playing a team that's probably over their heads and getting publicly whacked again. The flipside, of course, is that if they play an inspired game and beat Texas it will go a long way towards exorcising the team's demons and catapulting them back into the mix for next year. This is my hope, of course, but I'm not feeling especially confident about that outcome. Rest assured, if that were to happen, acres of couches will be burned that night, my friends! Good times... Oh, and I think Penn State will hang around for about 3 quarters, but USC just has too much firepower. And I thought Clemson fans were annoying.Clemson makes me want to punch someone. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jakobnicholas Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Why? It's a compliment, in a way. I'm just sick of Stoops and Oklahoma winning the Big 12 just about every freaking year. And I think Stoops doesn't know when to pull back in game. He was having his team throw bombs with 2 minutes left against Missouri, when they were already up 30+ points. And his whiny, defensive comments about why his team is deserving of winning the South division was annoying. Truth is, Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech ALL are equally deserving. Seemingly, the only reason Oklahoma got the nod was because they scored 60+ points in multiple games. I'm sure Texas and Texas Tech could have done similarly, had that been their motive. If points are so important....which they shouldn't be.....then, for example, why could Oklahoma "only" beat a decent Kansas team 45-31....AT Oklahoma. Yet, Texas Tech went TO Lawrence and beat the Jayhawks 63-21. This whole system is just nausseating. Another funny thing, is that Texas finished ahead of Florida in the computer polls. But the Harris and AP poll had Florida ahead of Texas. The Harris poll includes some coaches' votes. Check out some of these votes: *Five of the seven Big 12 coaches with votes ranked Oklahoma No. 1. Mack Brown, not surprisingly, ranked Florida first and his own team, Texas, second. Texas Tech coach Mike Leach voted his own team second, the only coach in America to rank the Red Raiders that high. * Five of the six SEC coaches with votes ranked Florida first. The only coach who didn Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OOO Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 My favorite pick was how Urban Meyer had Mississippi ranked much higher than anyone else on the list. I wonder why that could possibly be. I can't really blame a coach for trying to make sure his team gets to play in the best bowl possible, but there's no way to take bias out of the coaching polls. heres a nice interactive chart if you want to see who voted what: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...s-ballots_N.htm Quote Link to post Share on other sites
explodo Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 My favorite pick was how Urban Meyer had Mississippi ranked much higher than anyone else on the list. I wonder why that could possibly be. I can't really blame a coach for trying to make sure his team gets to play in the best bowl possible, but there's no way to take bias out of the coaching polls. heres a nice interactive chart if you want to see who voted what: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...s-ballots_N.htmHow do they decide which coaches get a vote? Or do they all and then they only publish so many? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OOO Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 How do they decide which coaches get a vote? Or do they all and then they only publish so many? Not sure, but some coaches (Bob Stoops and Pete Carroll) have declined to vote because of their conflict of interests. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cryptique Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 How do they decide which coaches get a vote? Or do they all and then they only publish so many?Looks like there are only 61 coaches in the poll (judging by the number of first-place votes), and all 61 are represented on that chart. Not sure why/how those 61 are chosen. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
quarter23cd Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...s-ballots_N.htmThat's a fun little gizmo there. The best are the handful of WTFs out there, like Pinkel hating on the non-BCSers or Ty Willingham ranking Mizzou about 10 points higher than anybody else did. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MrRain422 Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 I think the coach's poll is kind of dumb anyway. None of those guys really have the time to pay much attention to any team outside of their conference that isn't coming up on their schedule. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jakobnicholas Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated: Why hoops' regular season rules Now that college football's BCS madness has been sorted out and the bowl picture is complete, I have the distinct pleasure of writing about a sport where the regular season actually means something. That's right, you heard me. College basketball's regular season is far more meaningful, far more compelling and far more important than college football's. That's because college basketball actually has a postseason tournament where the champion is decided not by pollsters and computers but by what happens on the court. Since more teams have a chance to win the championship, more games are worth watching in the months preceding it. The NCAA basketball tournament enhances, rather than diminishes, the value of the regular season. I'm sure this shocks tattered souls like my friend Stewart Mandell and college football purists who argue that because the college football regular season is that sport's playoff, those games are compelling. College hoops, this thinking goes, doesn't really begin until the second week of March, so there's no sense paying attention to what is happening until then. Well, let's do the math. We just finished one of the greatest college football weeks in years -- that SEC championship game was certainly appointment viewing in my house. Yet out of the 16 games played last week, only three had an impact on the national title chase. (And I'm being generous by including USC-UCLA. When a team wins and still has no shot at the big trophy, it's hard to call the game significant.) That left 14 games that meant absolutely nothing. Two weeks ago, with a fuller national schedule, there were 41 games played in Division I-A football. At most, five of them mattered: Texas-Texas A&M, Alabama-Auburn, Florida-Florida State, USC-Notre Dame and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State. That's 36 worthless games, if you're scoring at home. This is a compelling regular season? On the last Saturday in February, I'll bet there will be at least two dozen basketball games that will have a direct effect on which teams qualify for the NCAA tournament. Another 15 or so will have a major impact on seeds. Try telling the players and their fans that those games don't mean anything. Now, I grant you that no college basketball regular season game will hold the nation rapt the way Florida and Alabama game did on Saturday, or the way those Texas-Texas Tech-Oklahoma matchups did. That was great, great stuff. But when Ohio State got blown out by USC on Sept. 13, that essentially eliminated the Buckeyes from the championship race. Whatever glimmer of hope remained was squelched by Penn State with four games still left to play. If the Ohio State-Michigan game is the biggest rivalry in college football, what exactly were those two teams playing for this year? Nothing. Imagine if Ohio State needed to win that game to get into an eight-team playoff. Now that would mean something. And don't even get me started on the bowls. There are 34 Bowl games in all, but only one is really worth watching (and we have to wait five dadgum weeks for that one). By contrast, there will be 63 games played in the NCAA basketball tournament, and every one of them is meaningful. If we applied the logic of the college football purist to hoops, then UCLA should be eliminated from the national title hunt by virtue of the Bruins' loss to Michigan last month. Michigan State should likewise be out thanks to its upset loss to Maryland. Oh, and sorry, Louisville, you're gone too after tripping up against Western Kentucky. Those teams would still have three months' worth of regular season games to play, and not one of them would be worth watching. Yes, there are about 12-15 teams who are basically assured of making the NCAA tournament, so they will spend the next three months getting better and angling for the best possible seed. That is far from a meaningless quest, but those games won't have the weight of Oklahoma versus Texas. Even so, there are well over 100 college basketball teams that are trying right now to build their cases for at-large bids. Many of these non-conference games being played in November and December will loom plenty large on Selection Sunday. These games matter a lot. To illustrate my point, I've listed below 10 teams that, for better or worse, have drastically altered their chances to make the NCAA tournament -- and conference play hasn't even started yet. My point here is not to disparage college football. I love college football. When that sport is at its best, as it was Saturday afternoon, there is truly nothing like it. And I will happily concede that in the grand scheme of things, college football is much bigger than college basketball. But that's not because basketball has a playoff and football doesn't. It's because in America, football is king. Check out how the NBA stacks up to the NFL -- it's not even close. The NFL, as you may have noticed, also has a postseason tournament. Last I looked, that didn't seem to fatally devalue the games that are played during the four months beforehand. College football is a wonderful, wonderful sport. It deserves a real postseason. It deserves a better regular season as well. As I said, there are many games that are being played during this time of year that will have some major ramifications when the men's basketball committee does its work three months from now. Here are 10 teams that, for better or worse, have already significantly helped and hurt their chances of making the NCAA tournament: For better.... Maryland (6-2). I still think the Terps are going to struggle in the ACC, but if they're on the bubble going into selection weekend, those wins over Michigan State and Michigan are going to help -- especially considering the Wolverines helped their own case with wins over UCLA and Duke.Michigan (6-2). The Wolverines are still a work in progress, but those two triumphs over UCLA and Duke are of such high quality that I think they could conceivably get an at-large bid ahead of a team that finishes above them in the Big Ten standings.Missouri (7-1). In the Big 12, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Baylor are looking like NCAA tournament teams, but the Tigers bought themselves a little house money with their hot start, which included wins over a pair of Pac 10 teams in USC (in Puerto Rico) and California (at home).Ohio State (5-0). When going through my bubble profiles in March, I always look for how many wins a school has against teams that are bound for the NCAA tournament. Well, the Buckeyes got two last week over top-25 teams Miami and Notre Dame. Nicely done.St. Mary's (6-1). The Gaels' 81-75 win over Providence on Nov. 30 is a great example of a game that is far more important than meets the eye. What kind of case would St. Mary's have for an at-large bid if they couldn't beat a bottom-tier team from the Big East in a virtual home game? (It was played in Anaheim.) The Gaels further buttressed their case last Thursday by winning a road game against another at-large-worthy mid-major, Kent State. And for worse... Saint Joseph's (3-4). The Hawks got an at-large last year after losing to Temple in the A-10 tournament final, but their 3-4 start, including losses to potential bubble boys Alabama and Creighton, make a conference championship virtually mandatory.Southern Illinois (3-4). The Salukis could have helped themselves enormously if they could have upset Duke or UCLA, but those losses are survivable. Losing at Western Kentucky and then at home to Charlotte will be harder to overcome.UAB (5-3). The Blazers are the last team besides Memphis from Conference USA to earn an at-large bid, but even though they squeaked by Arizona in Tucson in the NIT Tip-Off Classic, they blew a golden opportunity by falling to Oklahoma and Boston College in Madison Square Garden. Then they lost on Saturday at Cincinnati, which will probably have a hard time itself getting a bid out of the Big East.UNLV (7-2). The Rebels' record looks pretty good, but after losing at home to California (by 18 points) and Cincinnati, they'll need to hope those teams play well in their respective conferences so those losses don't look so bad in March.Virginia Tech (5-3). Just call 'em the Heartbreak Hokies. Wins over Xavier and Wisconsin would have really helped Virginia Tech's at-large profile, but the Hokies lost both games on buzzer beaters. Their other loss was to Seton Hall by four points. Yes, they were close, but a loss is a loss -- and those three hurt real bad. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Moe_Syzlak Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 That dude is on crack! Regardless if the Duke/Duquesne game is looked at by the committee several months from now, that has far less immediacy than the ANY college football game. Sure, you can look at the UT/OU game and say it didn't necessarily have the impact that one would expect. But that doesn't mean it didn't have the feel of a national championship playoff as it was happening. That makes EVERY game in college football's regular season feel more significant than any game in the college hoops regular season. And, even with the history of what happened to Texas this year, next year will be no different. That makes the football regular season far more watchable than the hoops regular season. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PigSooie Posted December 9, 2008 Author Share Posted December 9, 2008 http://www.serioussportsnewsnetwork.com/20...four-hours.html CBS announcer goes to hospital after Tebowner lasts for more than four hours ATLANTA, GA Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Jules Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 basketball fanboy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lamradio Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 http://www.serioussportsnewsnetwork.com/20...four-hours.html That's funny stuff.. I definitely had a Tebowner while watching that game.. The guy is not human. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CrushOfVeils80 Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Okie State almost beat UT in Austin, the Horns won by 4 I believe and couldnt stop Kendall Hunter also OU beat Okie State..... in Stillwater...... by 20 points Quote Link to post Share on other sites
watch me fall Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Hey now.. so you're calling me annoying? That's ok.. 31-14 Well, I was going to say no, you're not annoying since I was really referring to the annoying Clemson fans who post on our board, but since you had to go and post 31-14, then I'll say yes, you are annoying. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bobbob1313 Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...s-ballots_N.htm Nice to see our Coach Mario Cristobal had a ranking I can mostly agree with. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
explodo Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Nice to see our Coach Mario Cristobal had a ranking I can mostly agree with.He probably didn't rank Alabama low enough for you, though. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bobbob1313 Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 He probably didn't rank Alabama low enough for you, though. 5th. Behind Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and USC. Can't really argue with that. They probably aren't better than any of those teams, but are probably no worse than PSU. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lamradio Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Well, I was going to say no, you're not annoying since I was really referring to the annoying Clemson fans who post on our board, but since you had to go and post 31-14, then I'll say yes, you are annoying. Huh? I didn't post that.. You must be seeing things.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
watch me fall Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Huh? I didn't post that.. You must be seeing things.. Right..... Did you see that we got a commitment from a RB out of Tampa, Giles...same school Garcia attended? It was between us and UT. He'd actually verbally committed to UT and when Fulmer was fired, he rescinded his commitment. There'd been rumors floating around about David Reaves (our former recruiting coordinator who's now at UT with his brother in law Lane Kiffen) telling lies to recruits about Spurrier and SC. Duce Staley called him out yesterday on his radio show. Good stuff. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CrushOfVeils80 Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Lane Kiffin was a home run by Tennessee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
watch me fall Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Not what I'm hearing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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