NCAA Bowl Season: No matter who won, it wasn't A&M.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Football Funhouse > NCAA Bowl Season: No matter who won, it wasn't A&M.

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

here's my hot take: the entire big10 is perpetually overrated and thus Alabama should get in because in ohio state's one chance to prove otherwise they got clowned on by oklahoma at home, and then they lost to iowa by 30, also. A two loss big10 team with 0 out of conference wins of significance doesn't go to the playoffs, in my book

# ¿ Dec 3, 2017 07:01

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 05:31

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

They got it right.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2017 18:40

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Hi, I'm very excited its bowl season eve

I'm setting a personal goal of watching every bowl this bowl season. Wish me luck.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2017 19:18

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Elephanthead posted:

I am in for pick them, go Troy whatever the hells you are worth 39 points to me now!

a most interesting choice

# ¿ Dec 15, 2017 22:51

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Rosen is reportedly out for the bowl game

# ¿ Dec 24, 2017 03:55

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Dango Bango posted:

Is he doing the "sit out to protect his NFL draft stock" thing? If so, I can't say I blame him. Coach is fired and team's moving on. He might as well too.

source says its because of a late season concession. Maybe some of both?

Also

# ¿ Dec 24, 2017 04:39

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Edward Mass posted:

That was the Miami Beach Bowl. Which, for the record, moved to Frisco, Texas.

"moved to Frisco, Texas" is one of the more depressing phrases in the english language

# ¿ Dec 24, 2017 05:25

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

i'm ready for bowl week

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 01:07

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

id prefer we just go with ehlinger at this point because he is gonna be the qb next year

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 21:10

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

can y'all send one of them to dallas for the second half? kthanx

i've got $25 on the utes, so we'll send you jerrod heard

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 21:15

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

quote:

Asked Tuesday what he�s learned in his first season, Herman said, �That three straight losing seasons takes its toll on kids. It really does. It�s difficult for them, especially when you deal with adversity, it can be a here-we-go-again syndrome.

�That has been an ongoing challenge of reestablishing the right way of handling adversity, the right way to compete and right way to go about our daily business.�

Herman said the players want to compete, they want to be great, �but it�s been a challenge to reprogram a lot of these guys.�

Tom Herman: Charlie Strong left this team broken as gently caress

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 00:21

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

i have a beef with the continued existence of tim beck, but herman isn't wrong that texas played like they were terrified of the football before this season. Their record wasn't great but they made some major improvements on the field this year. This speaks more to how much of a dumpster fire the charlie strong teams were than tom herman being a genius or anything. But progress is progress.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 02:46

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

report to the gameday thread https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3844680&pagenumber=2

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 19:52

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Texas Football 2018 Status: Cautious Optimism

(can't wait for the preseason rank)

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 06:48

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

im starting to like tom herman's being a dickhead gimmick

edit: heres a longer version of texas and tom herman disrespecting the game

https://twitter.com/MizzouSports1/status/946253083989958656

G-Hawk fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Dec 28, 2017

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 07:01

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

Offense still looked hopeless.

Yeah, they've got some growing to do. I think Ehlinger looks a lot better in 9 months. And we have some good young backfield talent. Worried about the o-line, but it can't get worse, honestly.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 07:36

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

buddhanc posted:

Pay Todd Orlando as much as it takes. The man is a wizard. Mizzou scored 50 basically on their last 6 sec opponents and they looked helpless against our defense tonight. A defense without its 3 best players in Malik, holton, and deshon elliot.

yeah, the most encouraging thing was that game made it look like the defense is the system and not the players. Combine that with the recruiting class they're having, and :fap:

^^^^I was referencing the O-line all season, tonight they were better than usual probably.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 07:56

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

oregon blew my pool win a couple years ago when they imploded at the alamo bowl

gently caress the alamo bowl!!

but seriously, 2 years ago TCU played #15 in the Alamo bowl and well https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/12/28/16818260/tcu-oregon-alamo-bowl-2015

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 18:56

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Spacebump posted:

The main problem with his dickhead gimmick is how he utilizes it after losses. In a loss suddenly it is always the players or previous coaching staff's fault. It is similar to Gary Patterson's whining after losses except with less valid reasons.

Yeah well, I think he gets to blame Charlie a bit this year. Next year, not so much. And not a problem if he has less losses!

Anyway, Texas has 2 modes, dickhead and self loathing. Nice guy charlie strong texas was never really an option, so out with that

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 22:20

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

KIM JONG TRILL posted:

I don't think Mack was ever really a dick. Certainly not like Herman is.

Fair, but I don't think Mack does well these days.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 02:30

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

With the win over Mizzou, we now have scoreboard over all 4 teams that left the Big 12.

please come back

gently caress that, stay out. but bring back the aggy game.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 18:30

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

i hope darnold goes to the nfl so i don't have to hear about him for another year and witness the inevitable manufactured heismann campaign brought to you by espn

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 06:47

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

now i kind of want darnold to stay just so i can watch the texas defense destroy him

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 18:07

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

reminder oklahoma had a 4th and 1 and needed 13 yards to win the game, with the best offense in the country, and kicked the field goal

most gutless coaching decision i've seen in a long time

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 06:35

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

SourKraut posted:

My big issue is that, at least with the NFL, a team that starts slow with some losses might be able to get hot, work their way back up, and enter the playoffs as the best team at that point in time, and continue through until winning the SB. This happens in other sports too, not always, but it can. Similarly, a good team can start hot, then hit a rough streak, but then turn things back around and go deep into the playoffs.

But in college football, it's next to impossible for that to happen. We've got five "Power" conferences where each typically has a few great teams that can run a train on the other teams generally and keep their record great going into the bowl season. A team might start to get hot and go on a great streak toward the end, and legitimately be the best team in the country, but we'd never know it because they're likely not in the Top 4 for the CFP.

And that's my issue with posters like G-Hawk claiming they know Alabama is the best team in the country. Noone knows, because their marquee victory has now become beating a clearly-overrated Clemson team, while it could be Penn State or UCF or someone else based on how they're playing *right now*. Which goes back to your comments about it all being arbitrary, which is true, and why I think the best thing might be what someone else said to do - simply eliminate the NCG/NC concept all together, and just let the bowls be the bowls again with nothing at stake except one last victory, because for all we know UCF is the best team in the country right now but we'll never known.

And that's why I'd like to see the expanded playoff, because we could see the #16 team beat Clemson and realize that they were overrated, and maybe we'd get years of #11 vs. #5 or whatever for the NC because they're the best teams *right now*. Does that devalue the regular season some? Sure, but seeding still matters, and it counters the heavy weight given to playing/beating FCS programs during the regular season. Or make programs have to play other P5 schools instead of 2x FCS schools in the regular season.

Thats a valid opinion. But built in your post here is the assumption that early season matters less, or mid season matters less. Thats how the NFL is setup. I personally do not like the NFL, in part because I think the regular season is boring as poo poo, and the playoffs are a crap shoot. Thats personal taste. But That's not how every sports league is setup. Personally, I want Week 1 to matter exactly as much as Week 11. Consistency over a season matters. The majority of soccer leagues worldwide have a regular season with no playoffs, and see playoffs as a poor way to determine a champion, because in both soccer and football, you can only do 1(or 2, in soccer) game playoffs. Individual games in these 2 sports are NOT a good way to definitively determine who is the better team. The variance is extremely high. UCF beat Auburn today, for example, but i'd bet a lot of money if they played say 7 times, Auburn wins more than UCF does. Maybe i'm wrong, but it doesn't matter, because thats impossible in football. The point being a one off game is not a very good way to decide who is the best team, given most of these games are probably 60/40 who wins.

Of course, the issue is, in soccer leagues, the schedules are entirely balanced. Thats completely impossible in college football. So there isn't a very great way to determine who is the absolute best team. I don't claim I "know" Alabama is the best. I just don't think a bigger playoff would do anything, at all, to determine who is. There is no perfect system, which is why we do this hybrid system, where people compare schedules, people use eye test, people look at games against top competition, look at conference championships. And then the 4 game playoff tries give a little wiggle room to get it wrong. Its not perfect, but it makes for a super entertaining regular season, entertaining bowl games, and entertaining final 3 playoff games.

I agree that FBS teams shouldn't play FCS teams though. But I actually think an expanded playoff would make it more likely teams purposely schedule cupcakes.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 07:31

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

iospace posted:

Alabama scheduled cupcakes this year (FSU being retroactively one).

It worked.

Come on, scheduling FSU isn't scheduling cupcakes. Obviously they ended up being not good, but Bama had no way to know that. Prior to the season, it was notable just how unique it was for a top team to schedule another top team to open the season. There were plenty of takes about how risky it was.

Mercer is bullshit though.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 07:41

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

I'm of the opinion Week 1 really shouldn't matter at all. We all like to laugh at OSU losing to VT, but that was JT Barrett starting his first game against Bud Foster with an offseason to prepare. If that game was during the back half of the season, when JT had actual reps, OSU wins 59-0. Most teams need a game or two to figure things out

See: Saints, Chargers, etc

UCF smokes Auburn more often than not

Different strokes and all. They get an offseason to figure it out. And from an entertainment perspective, the college football regular season is probably my favorite thing in sports because it feels like every week, including week 1, has games that are effectively as important as a playoff game in any other sport.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 08:48

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

SourKraut posted:

Playoffs aren't a crap shoot - the hottest/"best" team at the given moment wins, while the teams who played the best "overall" for the season are the ones that got in. Part of the reason you might not like it is simply because it does reward the currently "best" team, instead of some narrative that an entire season is needed to somehow magically indicate a team is the "best", but it's a dynamic season of changes.

I disagree. Do you think, if any of the teams that played each other today played each other 10 times, one team would win all 10? Probably not. Maybe one team wins 6, 7, perhaps in a rare case 8. Its just an issue of probability. One game isn't a good way to determine who is better at a sport. Sports involve luck and variance. A series of one off games, which is what a football playoff is, will not be very good at determining the best team. Because the hypothetical "best team" likely only has around a 60-70% chance to win each game. Its nothing "magical", an entire season is just a larger sample size.

quote:

But Week 1 doesn't matter as much as Week 11, and it never has. Highly-ranked teams lose early games every year and end up making their way typically back into the Top 5, so clearly the early weeks don't matter nearly as much as you're giving them credit for.

I do think this is a flaw, but the current system handles this better by its relentless focus on strength of schedule.

quote:

I mostly agree, which is why I don't think college football should even have a championship, to be honest, or noone should put any weight in it, exactly for these reasons. Variance is high - today, UCF was better than Auburn. Could they have been better than Georgia, Oklahoma, or Alabama, *right now*? Absolutely, which would potentially make them the best team *right now* in college football. You have an issue with the *right now*, and I don't, but ultimately it doesn't matter because of the flawed system we have.

This is getting into pure semantics. I don't think the most recent result is a way to determine who the best team is. Underdogs win sometimes, and thats great, but it doesn't make them a better team.

quote:

Do you actually find it entertaining to see many of the same teams in the CFP each and every year? I don't. But while we might see the same few teams each year in the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, etc., at least in those situations we have the benefit of longer seasons (impossible, as you said) and expanded playoffs (possible) to help confirm that those teams actually are the *current* best, which we don't have with the CFP. An 8 or 12 or 16 or whatever seeded playoff at least takes some of the variance out and can help to further confirm that the teams playing for the NC are, at least, the best teams right now, since they'd have had to go through four other well-ranked/seeded teams to win it.

Given how much I love watching college football, yes? Why would you not see primarily the same teams be good? If they have the same coaches, continue to have good recruiting classes, its pretty much what you would expect. And its an exaggeration to act as if no one ever rises or falls. See FSU this year. Even Alabama hasn't been some thousand year reign. A playoff does not reduce variance, it increases it, because you're relying on a series of individual games, rather than a season's body of work.

Whats a better way to determine a good field goal kicker, ask people to kick as many as they can make in a row, or ask them all to kick 100 and see what the percentage comes out to? Its obviously the latter. And while a season isn't 100 games, and the difference in strength of schedule makes judging teams harder, a longer season is going to give you a more accurate idea of a team than a single game.

quote:

But you can get around that, by building in a "seeding" or "ranking" factor for a team playing more P5 or such teams, and do not allow FCS teams to be scheduled at all.

I'm pro banning FCS scheduling.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 09:19

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Probably the most relevant question for Clemson is if FSU rebound or backslide hard with Jimbo leaving. If they don't, Clemson probably skates the Atlantic and are probably beating Miami again away from the playoffs next year.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 18:39

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

mastershakeman posted:

and speaking of deep bombs lol at hurts' terrible fleaflicker 10 yards underthrown

I think I saw about 15 flea flickers during bowl season, and one of them worked. Most were either underthrown, or thrown into double coverage. Trick plays rule but maybe try some different ones, everyone

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 20:05

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

gonna be odd when UCLA fans are everywhere

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 22:11

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Emron posted:

Well, they have to call that. Otherwise it�d be impossible for defenses to make the right read.

nice

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 01:19

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

ucf can claim whatever they want, its funny, college football is funny. i think there is roughly a 0% chance UCF goes undefeated in a p5. edit: I think UCF has a chance against any top team, i think they are extremely unlikely to beat multiple in a row.

clemson had a fine season, they never looked super dominant but they went 1 loss against a good schedule. i guess you can debate them being #1 vs 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever but theres no reason to not have them in the playoff 4

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 01:04

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

Going undefeated is real loving hard.

i agree, thats kinda my point. I don't think UCF is bad, but they aren't going undefeated in a P5.

quote:

You don't have to beat multiple top teams to be successful in a P5 conference, at least not this year where there aren't really any great teams. Bama's best win prior to Monday was, what, LSU?

Its not that Alabama or Clemson or whoever is playing a top 5 team every week, its that outside of a couple scheduled cupcakes, they play decent teams most week. You start playing a #15 here and a #20 there and a 7-5 and 6-6 type team inbetween and it gets really tough to run off undefeated seasons, thats why P5 teams rarely do it. Of course Alabama is favored to win each individual game on their schedule, but winning ALL of them is pretty hard. I think theres a big difference between having to deal with an AAC schedule and having to deal with a P5 schedule. I don't think UCF is bad, but i think they probably end up with 2-4 losses in most P5 schedules and probably end up ranked in the teens or so.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 01:27

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Rosen and Darnold declare.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 01:30

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

Korranus posted:

UCF plays in exactly the conference you find a 15 or 20 here and there because that happens to be the top of the mountain for a G5 squad. Maybe the AAC isn't the shitshow everyone assumes it is?

its better than the other G5 conferences at the moment but it isn't even close to a P5 conference in depth. I don't think USF or Memphis were very good either but even if they were, its a loving cliff after them

G-Hawk fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jan 4, 2018

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 04:26

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

a neat cape posted:

I hate the MWC and want out.

put sdst and boise in the pac12 imo

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 05:21

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

what a fake punt

that block by #77 ruled

# ¿ Jan 6, 2018 21:02

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 05:31

G-Hawk: Dec 15, 2003

alright forget what i said before

UCF, NATIONAL CHAMPION

# ¿ Jan 9, 2018 06:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Football Funhouse > NCAA Bowl Season: No matter who won, it wasn't A&M.