The Back Alley Archives

Yeah, that sucks. And maybe it is a compelling reason to keep Hawaii ranked as low as #12 and forbid them a spot.

But you gonna keep out the small-conference schools forever? Under what circumstances will a 12-0 small conference school merit a bid?

Yeah, that sucks. And maybe it is a compelling reason to keep Hawaii ranked as low as #12 and forbid them a spot.

But you gonna keep out the small-conference schools forever? Under what circumstances will a 12-0 small conference school merit a bid?

when they schedule a real school or two (minimum two) as part of their non-conf schedule.

IMO, the big schools from big conferences can get away w/ patsy non-conf opponents because they play big-time competition within their conference. Schools like Hawaii play awful conference schedules and then have the balls to schedule Northern Colorado and Charleston? Then have the audacity to even think about bitching that they deserve a shot? Give me a break.

^boise state should have won the MNC last year after their performance.

you must be kidding me???

they showed up for their one hard game all year against an unmotivated Oklahoma team. The key is whether you can sustain it over the course of the season.

They did sustain it -- 13-0.

easy to sustain when you play the likes of Idaho, Fresno State and Hawaii every year as your toughest games. C'mon Toothy...you're smarter than that.

Hater, BS on criticizing Boise State '06 for a weak schedule.

Four nonconference games: a 10-4 Oregon State squad whom they buried 42-14. An 8-5 bowl-bound Utah team just two years after going 12-0 under Urban Meyer; Boise beat them 36-3 on the road. They played 6-6 Wyoming (who Florida has also seen fit to schedule lately) and won 17-10, and they played one contemptible weakling in Sacramento State and won 45-0. The rest is conference, where they ran the table.

Where is the problem with that?

hawaii tried and agreed in principle with mack brown but texas backed out last second...i heard that to be the case as well with a big10 school as well.

hawaii tries and they WILL travel...no one wants them.

they have us next year in the first game at BHG ... part of a hawaii/SEC schedule that they worked out for every other year. they'll be brennan-less though which is unfortunate for us.

^boise state should have won the MNC last year after their performance.

you must be kidding me???

they showed up for their one hard game all year against an unmotivated Oklahoma team. The key is whether you can sustain it over the course of the season.

They did sustain it -- 13-0.

easy to sustain when you play the likes of Idaho, Fresno State and Hawaii every year as your toughest games. C'mon Toothy...you're smarter than that.

Hater, BS on criticizing Boise State '06 for a weak schedule.

Four nonconference games: a 10-4 Oregon State squad whom they buried 42-14. An 8-5 bowl-bound Utah team just two years after going 12-0 under Urban Meyer; Boise beat them 36-3 on the road. They played 6-6 Wyoming (who Florida has also seen fit to schedule lately) and won 17-10, and they played one contemptible weakling in Sacramento State and won 45-0. The rest is conference, where they ran the table.

Where is the problem with that?

Not good enough w/ their conference schedule. See my post above. That 8-5 Utah team was a shell of the 12-0 team Meyer had and you know it, you're just being argumentative. See my post above regarding Wyoming. Their schedule is MUCH more respectable than Hawaii's this year, granted, but still not good enough. A small like that HAS to, IMO, play at least three big schools from bigger conferences for their non-conf schedule. Until they do that one year they will never get the respect they so desperately crave. Once they do it though, they will have the respect regardless of who they beat the next year. Notice, now Boise St is given a little more credence nationwide as a respectable opponent and almost considered a big boy in an elementary school conference.

hawaii tried and agreed in principle with mack brown but texas backed out last second...i heard that to be the case as well with a big10 school as well.

hawaii tries and they WILL travel...no one wants them.

they have us next year in the first game at BHG ... part of a hawaii/SEC schedule that they worked out for every other year. they'll be brennan-less though which is unfortunate for us.

Michigan was the other school. They bumped Hawaii at the last minute this year and filled the schedule with.........Appy State. Tell me that shit is karma kicking Michigan in the nuts.

But doesn't the +1 have the same who-gets-in problems that the BCS championship does?

Even more -- if you have clear-cut #1 and #2 teams, do you keep them apart from each other in the first round? Do you make sure they get approximately equal opponents? How does the fact of the plus-one help shape or distort the bowl selection process?

I don't like the plus-one.

i was implying i preferred the +1 to the above bracket. you'll always have the "who got left out" scenario unless you make all 119 (or how ever many d-1 teams there are) eligible. i mean look at the BB bracket 65 teams and you still hear about "how got left out".

imho, if you go with a 16 team bracket, then it should be the top 16 in the polls or BCS or at least the top 12 with 4 at large (and no special treatment for ND!!!!!). if a team plays a respectable schedule and wins their games they'll make the rankings. but playing in a weak conference with weak OOC scheduling should not grant you direct access to the playoffs. the voters usually recognize a paper tiger when they see an undefeated record against weak competition and they lag in the rankings accordingly. if those schools want to bitch about respect, then like hater said, schedule some people from the big conferences and win the games.

now knowing AD's from the big conference schools this is easier said than done because there is little upside and a big downside for the UF's, Michigan's etc. of the football world to schedule a top mid-major team. For this to work the NCAA would have to mandate some scheduling between conferences.

Not good enough w/ their conference schedule. See my post above. That 8-5 Utah team was a shell of the 12-0 team Meyer had and you know it, you're just being argumentative. See my post above regarding Wyoming. Their schedule is MUCH more respectable than Hawaii's this year, granted, but still not good enough. A small like that HAS to, IMO, play at least three big schools from bigger conferences for their non-conf schedule. Until they do that one year they will never get the respect they so desperately crave. Once they do it though, they will have the respect regardless of who they beat the next year. Notice, now Boise St is given a little more credence nationwide as a respectable opponent and almost considered a big boy in an elementary school conference.

Sure it was not Meyer's 12-0 team. But it's respectable scheduling, as is Wyoming -- these schools are not playing down. And Rad makes a good point -- who wants to play Boise anymore? Southern Miss is another of those pain-in-the-ass schools -- just ask Bobby Bowden.

But I can respect that, Hater -- at least you're setting up criteria by which a small school COULD compete for the BCS or national championship. If a small school that is serious about competing on a national level -- like Boise, like Hawaii, like Notre Dame (snicker) -- had clear criteria that would get them consideration, then they'd be able to make the scheduling choices -- or at least try to make them.

how about the 6 "power" conferences have to have a championship game, the winners of the converence chamionship game autmatically go, then you have 2 at-large bids.

if you don't win your major conference, tough, that's a playoff of sorts. and the two at large could be for a minor conf team if they have a stellar season.

8 team playoff, really a 14 team if you take in the conf champ game, and it's fair. not only that, conference games would be so much more important and the excitement generated would be akin to the march madness hoopla.

Aren't we playing Hawaii in the not so distant future?

open up the season next year with them fags

Here is why I hate using the arguments about having the conference champions get an automatic bid and I will use the SEC as an example.

Say the SEC West is a powerhouse. LSU is 12-0 ranked number 1, Auburn is 11-1 ranked number 2(only loss being to an undefeated LSU team when Auburn's starting QB is out with a foot injury). LSU gets the bid and Auburn has to hope that it gets an at-large bid.

Also, you could not cap the number of teams from a certain conference either. Keep the same scenario up top in mind and look at a 10-2 UF team that lost to only LSU and Auburn(BCS #1 and 2) when we had five starters out hurt. But UT only has 1 loss to UF and did not play LSU or Auburn. They instead played Ole Miss and Mississippi St. in the West. Are you telling me that UT deserves to get in ahead of us?

It is all hypothetical, but the easiest way is take the Top 12 in the BCS and 4 at large bids. People bitch about who gets left out of the NCAA tournament for one day until the tourney starts. Then all the bitching goes away, tell me a time where during the Final Four you hear people bitching about Middle Tennessee State getting left out on Selection Sunday. People would argue like hell who deserves to be 16 all the way until Saturday when the playoffs started.

tell me a time where during the Final Four you hear people bitching about Middle Tennessee State getting left out on Selection Sunday.

Last year, fool. Murfreesboro, TN represent!

every conference gets one automatic into the tournament. how the conference decides which teams play in the championship game is up to them. that's not a conference thing, not a national thing.

the problem i have with the SEC is that the overall SEC record should be a tie-breaker instead of the primary thing. if you're 4-1 in the SEC east, then you win the SEC east if every other team has 2 or more losses in that division. but i digress.

hypothetically, you shouldn't have the champion of a conference left out of the tournament while another team that didn't even play in the championship game go.

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^that guy is full of venom huh?

I like Wetzel's setup. With the four at large teams I think you have to take the four highest ranked teams that were not conference champions. You would also have to put more weight on the strength of schedule and other variables to get away from the popularity contest and soft schedules (tOSU). I am not a fan of the +1 scenario.

So the battle with Wetzel -- five at-large teams -- would be getting into position to get included, and hopefully included somewhere above the #16 seed.

That's still gonna be an ugly and rancorous discussion -- why us, why not them. Why are we #16 and they're #13? Etc.

they were talking about this on Mike and Mike this morning and it seems the REAL reason against the playoff is money. It's not academics because all those other divisions are able to have playoffs and those schools are even more academically focused.

I know it has to do with the Bowls, but why can't they just make bowls the playoffs? They play bowls all through December anyway...you can still have sponsorships, etc. Shoot...you could even still have all those teams that don't make the top 16 or 8 still play in some of those smaller bowls. It will mean what it means today...nothing. But it give the kids a chance to be in a bowl game, get a free t-shirt or whatever they give them.

I agree that it needs to just be the top 8 or 16 and I also agree that it will NEVER be perfect and people will always complain.

the other schools have a playoff because they only play 8 or 9 games for their regular season. basically - we would just play our conference games then go to a playoff. Keep the current system - I'll compromise to a +1 and I'd be happier w/ going back to the old bowl system.

i like the idea of using the current bowls as the playoff games. here's the thing. with today's parity there will ALWAYS be some discussion about the system being imperfect. it's nearly impossible to even agree on how to define what "best" or "better" team means, outside of head to head matchups, IMO. sure, the analysis can be broken down to numbers and we can try to make it more objective. but there's more to the game than that, IMHO.

that's why i don't care too much what the system is, really. it doesn't keep me up at night and i don't usually bring it up in discussions of college football. if you win your games you will be a champion. i know that's oversimplification, but in the end it is the only ultimate truth of college football. and i know small schools can argue it's not true. but i don't give that factor much consideration because i just don't see the small schools as being truly on the same level. Yes, scheduling should be more diverse across the line of small vs. large schools and conferences. That would be interesting. We might as well increase the insanity. It's a beautiful thing.

^^^tell that to Auburn a couple of years ago.

werd. that problem arose with multiple undefeated teams. with multiple undefeated teams they almost HAVE to play, imo.

there is NO parity when one team can play for a national title when they defeat zero ranked teams and other teams play several ranked teams and drop a couple.

if one team has a few losses, and another team has zero, that does not mean the team with zero is better than a 2 or 3 loss team that played tougher competition.

there is NO parity when one team can play for a national title when they defeat zero ranked teams and other teams play several ranked teams and drop a couple.

if one team has a few losses, and another team has zero, that does not mean the team with zero is better than a 2 or 3 loss team that played tougher competition.

well - they WOULD have played at least 3 ranked teams in the top 25 under the playoff structure.