OT : College Football Ranking-- Just an Observation

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The NCAA Football Championship Game (last night) is supposedly the true #1 versus #2 teams in the nation (I understand there's much debate on this subject). If this was true, the loser should be #2 in the final poll. Oklahoma fell to #5 in the final poll. This means that either it wasn't the top two teams in the championship games or the polling is wrong.

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Posted By: Dave F

David-

That would sort of make sense. The problem is one team lost. With the whole thing being predicated on the BCS formula you can't really not factor in the loss last night. It works the same for every other team in the country though too that had moves up or falls down.

I can't stand the BCS to begin with but it's the system in place. I still believe Texas should have been in the game to begin with instead of Oklahoma...but intil a playoff of some sort is ever implented it won't much matter...will always be a debate.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The final rankings show that the voters overall don't have confidence in the championship game. If they did, Oklahoma would be #2.

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Posted By: Daryle

to be a real team sport and to crown a real champion there has to be a playoff..........just my 2 cents worth..........college football will always be pointless to me until a playoff is used.....The Kids at Utah went out and beat everyone they faced....and for what?......sure, Oklahoma and Florida could probably beat Utah (and I said probably, didn't say they would)they are UNDEFEATED......give them a chance............Ok, I'm done

OH!!!..........and have those worn out cliche Bowl games.........use them for conference championships games.......Sugar Bowl---SEC........Rose Bowl......what is it? Pac-10?......Gator Bowl or Orange Bowl for the ACC.....an so on............

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Posted By: PC

Modern college football has very little to do with "college".

But sincere congratulations to the semi-professional football squad affiliated with the Univ. of Florida, who beat a talented (and perhaps better paid) semi-professional squad affiliated with the Univ. of Oklahoma.

On a quick scan, at least a few "college" teams played in bowl games:
Air Force
Boston College
Northwestern
Navy
Notre Dame
Rice
Vanderbilt

And a few of them won, and BC played Vandy -- a true college football game in January! Imagine that.

[edited to delete BYU, with its abysmal 53% graduation rate, from the list]

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

All polling is BS - Texas beats tOSU and moves down in the polls while tOSU moves up???

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Posted By: Anonymous

Actually only one of those teams is a "college" team. The rest are Universities.

In fact, there are only five schools in Division 1 college football that don't use University in their official title. You've named two of them.

Guesses on the other three?

***yeah! trivia time!***

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Posted By: PC

Indeed -- but not many people refer to "university" football. Although that might be how they refer to "college soccer" in the UK.

And Boston College is actually a university, I think. Tricky stuff.

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Posted By: Dave F

You said he already named two of them....


Georgia Tech
Boston College
Army
Navy
Air Force

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Posted By: Bob

They didn't deserve to be #1. God knows they have received so many breaks over the years, much like Notre Dame, that they don't deserve to whine. Ohio State came within 50 seconds of showing the nation how overrated the Big 12 was this year: Texas Tech was demolished by Ole Miss, OU was dumped by Florida and OSU was manhandled in their bowl.
Utah played a patty-cake schedule. Check their opponents' record. If not for the 11 or 12 wins of Bama in their last game their opponents would have been sub .500. Bama at the end of the year was the 4th best team in the SEC and played like the 12th best. Kudos to the Utes for an undefeated season but c'mon, they weren't deserving of number 1.
If anyone has a gripe it's USC but that's another story for another day.
Congrats to the Gators and the SEC, still the best conference in the country and when Tennessee, Arkansas and Auburn get back on track it won't even be close.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

As a BYU guy it pains me to the very core to admit this but I was really rooting for Utah, as it makes the other MWC schools look much better. The fact that the MWC was better than many of the conferences with auto-bids really goes against what has been said by many of the BCS supporters.

When people say things like "Utah wouldn't have beaten Florida anyways so it doesn't really matter" or anything along those lines it completely goes against what "Sport" is all about. Would they have been beaten? I don't know, but it is easy to belittle Alabama after the fact, but before the game nobody though they could do that either. The fact is that they should at least be given the chance.

There is little doubt in my (obviously biased) mind that the Mountain West was stronger than both the Big East and the ACC this year, and an argument could be made for even being stonger than the Big Ten and even the Pac 10 (if you kindly threw out USC).

Anyways, I'm sure many will disagree and continue to belittle the non-BCS schools becasue they couldn't possibly hang with the "Big Boys".
-Rhett

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Posted By: Frank B

The day will eventually come when a college tournament will decide
the National Championship, probably a 16 team format. When that happens
it will be bigger than the Super Bowl or March Madness. Until then we'll
just keep doing this every year and the Utahs, Boise Sts and BYUs will just
have to be content with going undefeated, collecting a bowl check and maybe
knocking off an Alabama or Oklahoma when they get the chance.

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Posted By: David Goff

Hey Bob..you may laugh at this, but don't forget about Kentucky. They are an up and coming team.

This crap all started in the early 90's with the form of the bowl coalition. It was formed due times when the top teams were unable to play each other. Such as if the top 2 teams were USC and say Miami they were unable to play due to the Pac-10 and Big-10 locked in the Rose Bowl. So to fix it, college football took the top 5 conferences and Notre Dame and would put them in the best 6 bowl games. From then on, the non-BCS conferences were screwed. That turned into the Bowl Alliance and to the present BCS.

There's no way the top schools Presidents will allow a tournament. There is way too much money at stake. DO you think Ohio St, Texas, USC, any SEC school Presidents will want to lose $6-7 million to do away with the bowl games. Hell no. Greed at its best...

Just my opinion
Dave

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Posted By: Scot

The much maligned PAC-10 was 5-0 this year in bowls, notching wins over the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10 and Mountain West (which embarrassed Alabama). The conference was supposed to finish 1-4 in the bowls according to the geniuses in Vegas.

USC would have beat Florida. It would probably not have been close.

Just an observation.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Scot, the Pac-10 really showed at the end of the year that all the crap they had been recieving at the beginning of the year from a lot of the teams losing to the "weak" Mountain West and to a lesser extent the WAC was probably not as bad as it seemed at the time. They played well in every one of their bowl games.
-Rhett

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Posted By: Dave F

I'm sure this is going to be a matter of geographics...but I don't think USC would have beat Florida. And handily you say Scot? Wow. I really just Florida was the best team in the country be year's end...and 19 out of 22 starters coming back next year...(Tebow isn't going anywhere). M

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Posted By: Bob

Rhett- I congratulate Utah on their undefeated season and the upset of Alabama, but no one seriously thinks that if Utah played in the SEC and had to travel to the Swamp, play between the hedges in Georgia, played the Bayou Bengals, etc. every week that they would have been undefeated. What they did was great and they should be proud but if they played in the SEC they would have been lucky to go 4-4 in the conference.
As far as the Pac-10 goes, I think it is an underrated conference but with the exception of USC, not a single team in the conference plays the kind of defense they play in the SEC and defense wins championships. The SEC can win every year with teams like LSU and Florida and Georgia because of defense. Joe Kines once said that in the SEC the teams will slit your throat and drink your blood. Every game is a death struggle. Emerging from the week to week struggle is why the champions are so tested and play so well in the championship games. USC's defense is what makes them special and they stand alone in the Pac 10 in that regard.
Finally, look at the coaches in the SEC Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Les Miles, all with National Championship rings. Bobby Petrino, Mark Richt, recently fired Phil Fullmer with a championship ring, Tommy Tuberville with a 13-0 Auburn team which was screwed out of a BCS championship game appearance, the list goes on. Great athletes, great coaches, passionate fans, all makes the SEC the best conference in the nation year in and year out.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Bob, I'm not saying that Utah was better than Florida. Would Florida have won the game if they played? they probably would, but the same thing was being said about Utah not having a chance against Alabama prior to that game.

To say Utah would have been "lucky" to have gone .500 in the SEC is pure speculation, and an easy cop out -- as it is a theoretical that can't happen and is therefore not a relavent point.

The SEC is a very tough conference, however, the SEC fans out there always bring up the fact that no other conference is as tough as theirs is silly because that too is not measurable, we don't know how Florida/LSU/Alabama/etc. would do if they played in the Big 12 or the Pac 10 just like we don't know how USC/Oklahoma/Texas/Texas Tech/etc. would do in the SEC. The point is that the way to settle it all is on the field. The SEC supporters (biased ESPN included) always belittling the other Conferences the way you just did are just as blind as those that belittle the SEC as vastly overrated. Let the players on the field settle it once and for all.

-Rhett

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Posted By: Fred C

What's really sad is when the college football season ends the number one football team sometimes has to wait 4 or more weeks to play in the championship game. How does that team maintain a competitive edge after being off for so long? In 2007 the OSU team played it's final season game on 22NOV07. They had to wait until 05JAN08 to play their bowl game. That was 6 weeks of waiting around to play a bowl game.



A playoff system for college football will be instituted when everyone sees how they can profit more from that type of schedule than they can from this BCS bowl crap.

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Posted By: Bob

Here are the 11 BCS National Champs

1998 Tennessee
1999 Florida State
2000 Oklahoma
2001 Miami
2002 Ohio State
2003 LSU
2004 USC
2005 Texas
2006 Florida
2007 LSU
2008 Florida

SEC 5 Big East 2 Big 12 2 Big 10 1 Pac 10 1
(Although FSU and UM are now in the ACC they were in the Big East when they won it).
Also note that a 13-0 Auburn team was denied a chance as #3 to make it 6 SEC titles....

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

or much of the SEC for that matter. They never travel and prove it in the other guy's house. Unlike Tennessee and LSU, who have scheduled meaningful non-conference games, some even on the road, the Gators NEVER travel. In the last ten years, Florida has not scheduled a single non-conference game on the road except for in-state rival FSU. ZERO out of state non-conny games in TEN YEARS (probably more--I just stopped looking). That is pathetic. Not only that, in the same 10 years, they have played no regular season games against any school from the Big 10, Pac 10, Big East, ACC or Big 12 (other than their instate rivals) except for one-- they played Oklahoma State once, in Tallahassee of course.

As much as I would love to see a college football playoff, I would just as much love to see balanced scheduling, where the big conferences have to go head to head at least once each year, with travel involved. Many schools already have such schedules, but not the Gators. Other than rivals FSU and Miami, here are their non-conny foes over the last 10 years: The Citadel (twice) , Northeast Louisiana, Western Michigan, Central Florida, Ball State, Middle Tennessee State, Marshall, Louisiana-Monroe, UAB, Ohio University, San Jose State, Eastern Michigan, Middle Tennessee State, Wyoming, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, Western Kentucky, Troy, Hawaii, and Florida A&M--all home games too. Geez, very impressive.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Hey Bob, Nebraska OWNS the SEC

The Cornhuskers have won 5 National titles - 4 of them have come against SEC teams.

1970 - Nebraska-17 LSU-12

1971 - Nebraska-38 Alabama-6

1995 - Nebraska-62 Florida-24

1997 - Nebraska-42 Tennessee-17

The other national title came against Miami in 1994

Nebraska is 19-6-1 all time against the SEC conference - most of those games have been bowl games. And blowouts against teams that featured Peyton Manning/Jammal Lewis/Bo Jackson/Danny Weurfel.

The good news for you Bob is that Arkansas is 1-0 over the Huskers all-time. 1965 Cotton Bowl 10-7 Hogs over Huskers.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

It's pretty funny hearing an SEC supporter complaining they got screwed by the BCS system - now that is ironic. Also funny how you listed the last 11 years (not 10)because it included another SEC team, and also went with the BCS rankings so you didn't mention the disputed 2003 championship (USC was the AP winner that year).

I have an idea, we should just do away with the whole BCS system along with all the bowl games. I mean we should just annoint the winner of the SEC as the National Champion every year, because they are so much better than anybody else.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Duly note that Wisconsin played none of their home games this year in Florida.

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Posted By: PC

I think Bob started with 1998 (the last 11 years) because the BCS system began in 1998.

Actually, if you look at the BCS bowl system as a whole, the SEC does not dominate, and actually performs below average for its size as a conference. For what follows, keep in mind that the SEC has 12 teams, as does the Big 12 and the ACC, whereas the Big-10 has 11 teams and the Pac-10 has 10 teams.

BCS BOWL GAME APPEARANCES:
Big 10 -- 19 appearances
SEC -- 17 appearances
Big 12 -- 16 appearances
ACC -- 15 appearances
Pac 10 -- 13 appearances

Let's break this down a little further. The Big 10's 19 BCS bowl appearances are spread across 7 different teams (from a total of 11 possible teams), so 64% of Big 10 teams have gone to BCS bowls.

The Pac 10 has the smallest pool of teams among the major conferences (10), so with 7 different teams going to BCS bowl games, that's 70% of the conference making at least one BCS appearance. The Big 12 has sent 7 of its 12 teams to BCS bowl games, which is 58%.

The SEC strength on this formula is the lowest of the major conferences, with only 6 of 12 teams ever having gone to a BCS bowl game. That's 50%.

While the SEC has played well in those bowl appearances, to say they are dominant is just not true. Anyone who understands the history of college football, and of the SEC in particular, knows that the SEC conference has ALWAYS been designed to promote a few teams, at the expense of all the others. And that's done by limiting travel to play major non-conference opponents, and playing more than half their games against weak conference opponents. If you doubt that, then just look at the pre-BCS system ... the SEC was basically Alabama's punching bag for 50 years (note that Florida had zero national championships before 1996, and LSU went 45 years before winning in 2003, and Tennessee went 47 years before winning in 1998).