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the official 2008-09 NCAA football thread!

I'm so not going to write anything meaningful in this thread.

I just have two more words.

GO GATORS!!
 
Whereas, at UGA, my friends and I learned our valuable fire extinguished lesson the right way-- by spraying it into the face of the runt of our group while we were really drunk. ;) The only thing that took longer to dissipate than the white powder was the swelling in his sinus cavities (like srsly... 2 weeks)

Here's a good salon article about the reason for our bowl games, and why we need someone from Obama's level to fix it.
http://www.salon.com/sports/kaufman/feature/2008/12/23/bowls/index.html

Everyone wondering why college football doesn't just scrap that stupid bowl system and create a tournament, which almost nobody argues wouldn't be far more lucrative than the bowl system, should read Dan Wetzel's column on the subject from this weekend at Yahoo Sports.

Nobody's better than Wetzel at explaining the ridiculocracy that is the NCAA and college sports in general, and he hits it out of the park with this one, the first of a promised two parts.

In a nutshell, Wetzel argues that college football "outsources its most profitable and easily sold product -- postseason football" to bowl committees because the alternative for the big-conference commissioners who run the Bowl Championship Series would be to cede power to the NCAA.

The simple explanation is that the BCS is a cartel and the bowls are a costly but important way to block the NCAA's central office from participating. The NCAA has nothing to do with major college football's postseason; it doesn't even officially recognize a champion.

Adopting a playoff system would be vastly more profitable, but doing so would likely require the NCAA to run the event.

The conference commissioners would be dealing with a bigger revenue pie and even larger shares for themselves and their conferences. But they'd have to give up the cutting knife.

The bowls make money hand over fist, and the committees spend it just as fast on a lot more than those tacky colored blazers the old guys on the committees always wear. The committees are not-for-profits, so, Wetzel writes, "while no individual is walking away with millions, the enterprise appears to be little more than a massive boondoggle."

Using tax records, he goes into some humorous detail about how much the bowls spend and what they spend it on, the bottom line being that the biggest bowls burn through upwards of $10 million to stage their games, while the conferences that have created de facto bowls -- conference championship games -- manage to pull them off for a million or two, while generating those same eight-figure revenues.

Wetzel suggests that the gifts and perks the bowls lavish on the media might explain why even those who suggest a tournament almost always want to use the bowls as quarter- and semifinals, rather than scrapping the whole thing.

This column -- always ready to be on the take, by the way -- has never received a gift from a bowl committee, but I've suggested that very thing because I think there is something to be said for the tradition of the biggest bowl games and I'd like to keep them, and I don't care if that costs anyone profits.

But yeah, if I did care, as Wetzel writes, "No sensible person would ever continue to follow this business model."

And even if every other reporter, editor, anchor, producer or whoever in the business were incorruptible with goodies and open bars and groaning buffet tables, it wouldn't matter. The colossus of college football, ESPN, has a vested interest in the bowl system. It televises almost all of them, including the BCS bowls starting in 2010, and owns a half dozen.

Which explains the headline on the cover of the current ESPN the Magazine: "Why every bowl game matters."

"Amid growing cries to fold the BCS into a playoff," the article's subhead reads, "we wondered, what is the point of all those other bowls? The answers might surprise you."

If you were born yesterday.
Click to expand...
 
What happens when a team's players start dropping like flies after playing 12 games, a conference championship, two playoff games, and a national championship? Should the national champion be deep enough to handle that many games? Or would it be unfair that some of their best players get badly injured during the extra games, and next season, they still have to go against teams that only played 12 or 13 games...

Would the playoff system mean that the other bowls make less money. In these economic times, universities are having to make budget cuts and fire a bunch of people. Football programs donate large sums of money to their universities. Here's an artical about my school from http://www.thestate.com/gogamecocks/story/629715.html

"Flush with additional millions of dollars from the Southeastern Conference’s new TV package, USC athletics has committed $15 million to the university over the next 15 years, the bulk of which will go toward need-based student scholarships.

Monday’s announcement by USC president Harris Pastides and athletics director Eric Hyman comes amid state cuts that have slashed more than $40 million from the budget of the USC system...

USC will use the $1 million-a-year contribution to increase funding of a need-based scholarship program for families with income levels of $25,000 or less, assist students facing financial hardships and help provide health insurance for the 3,000 graduate students who work as graduate assistants."

Can we be sure that a playoff system will allow our schools to keep TV deals that make them so much money and help keep kids in school?



I am for a playoff system, just trying to give opposing viewpoints. Implementing a new system will be a huge task.
 
it was nice to see the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs hand the Boise State Broncos their first defeat of the season. that TCU defense is a force to be reckoned with, and they seemed to not be fooled by the occasional trademarked trick play that the Broncos threw out there. now maybe BSU can STFU about them deserving to play in the BCS Championship game.

I think Notre Dame is playing tonight in a bowl? one thing that TLB (and I think that sorry excuse for a human being Pander Bear) can agree with on a NCAA football level is the shitting on of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. I don't think that ND has won a bowl game since ten years. I think they are playing Hawaii in some meaningless Hawaii Bowl.

another dismal, don't give a fuck excuse for a college football bowl. the only reason ND is even in this bowl, I think, is because of all their immense press and that gawd awful movie Rudi.

playoffs playoffs playoffs

hook us up Obama!!
 
the hawaii bench will be out in the lot, boosting car stereos and smoking shards by the third quarter.

I was glad to see such a resurgence from tcu last night. Boise truly is a team of punk-ass bitches, and I really am getting tired of this pagentry where they play marshmellows all season, and then are "in the running" for an at large bid.

As for ND, the hawaii bowl is more embarrassing than not being eligible, so im happy for them.


Jim, get off TCU's dick... you sound like that black guy from gameday. It might have been fun to watch, but major conference games are still stratospherically superior to these teams.
 
lol!

ThatsRacist.gif
 
shit man. you know how much I despise college football bowl games. all of this is so very very boring.

it's funny how the comentators are comparing ND's win to the New England Patriots all of a sudden winning and winning and winning when they put in Tom Brady instead of Bledsoe.

will there be a Fighting Irish resurgence in these next couple years my S and G brethern?
 
axl blaze said:
will there be a Fighting Irish resurgence in these next couple years my S and G brethern?
Click to expand...

They beat the Rainbow Warriors; they're budget is how many quantum levels lower than ND's? I don't see any resurgence until the Chuck Wagon moves out of town. This victory might be bad for the program because they will probably keep Weiss another year or so. When I see him on the sideline he's all alone. He doesn't have the charisma a college head coach needs. Maybe ND should just get a new coach every year since TW's first season and Chuck Wagon's were both decent, but each successive season has been worse for both coaches.
 
so I am watching the Meinke Car Care bowl and it still is hilarious, as a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers (who's rival is the Cleveland Browns where Butch Davis tried to coach) - coach at North Carolina.

however, they advertised this as a shootout and it is holding up pretty well. Pat White, with a win, can become the only QB in NCAA BCS history to win four bowl games if he pulls this off.

I remember in 2006 when the WVU Mountaineers butt-raped a pretty good Georgia Bulldog team - and then the ensuing ramble that the Big Easy has reinstated themselves as a serious league.

in retrospect, funny how that worked out.
 
axl blaze said:
Pat White, with a win, can become the only QB in NCAA BCS history to win four bowl games if he pulls this off.
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There are like 32498734 bowl games now and counting.

It's only a matter of time before a team with a losing record makes a bowl game.

IMO, this record means nothing. That being said, White is a good ballplayer.
 
doesn't mean much, I agree. it is just strange that he was the very very first.

I think his playing style should translate well into a lot of offensive positions within the NFL.
 
^^But shouldn't you flush first :\


On Notre Dame and a bowl win ... fehhhh. I hate ND, and don't believe they should have gotten to a bowl game, but as a UF fan, I'm pulling for Charlie to keep his job as long as possible, as I believe ND may be one of the few places that can steal Urban Meyer from UF. As long as they have Charlie, we've got Urb. Beyond that, they suck and won't have a resurgence, IMO. I'm laughing and crying every week when the NotredameBroadcastingChannel shows another stellar ND-Navy matchup 8). ND now struggles regularly for the 3-6 games they used to win handily. I foresee them continuing to be a 5-8 win team, but never getting great - especially when they fill over half their schedule with chumps they can't always beat, and lose the few matchups against decent teams. Should be enough to keep them from buying out CW, but not enough to become who the fans still believe them to be in their minds - legendary.... That's the thing about legends - that's based on history, not current. If they woke up and looked in the mirror today - they'd puke. The rest of us already see them as they really are, has been...wanna be....nobody. I say let them sip their kool aid and the rest of the football world will continue to pass them by.

My true hope is that sooner, rather than later, the NBC contracts run out and tv realizes what a loser it has on it's plate and stops feeding that pig. Likewise, I can't wait for the ND clause to get shredded out of the BCS writeups. Hell, go to a playoff of 8 teams and ND has just as much chance as Boise State, TCU, whomever those 'at large' bids have been.....beat decent teams, get to the top rankings on SOS (not nostalgic reputation) and see if they can hack it. My money says ND will finish top 10 once in the next 5 yrs at best.

Gah, I'll admit, I'm not watching the bowls like I thought I would. I'm jonesing for NCAAF, but even these games aren't good enough to draw my attention. There have been times I'd watch Fresno State play New Mexico or Buffalo vs Idaho State....regular season, not even a bowl. But right now, we do have so damn many bowl games they really don't mean anything. Hell, they almost didn't have enough teams qualify, even with a 12 game season - you know they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. One can hope that the current economic climate DOES scale back the number of bowl games in the future, making them actually mean something more....and while I think fewer bowl games means their attraction goes up and hurts the chances of playoffs, I'm hoping there is still a way for the BCS and the money grabbers to find a way to turn MORE profit off the playoff arrangement somehow. Good point earlier, however, about keeping the NCAA out of post-season, that'll be damn hard to overcome.


I've got to work these 3 days, so I'll miss NCState vs Rutgers and any other mid week day games (yawn) but hopefully this 4 day weekend will bring me a bit more football love. Hell, I'm almost ready to flip to NCAAB, but I know my team sucks....so there isn't much attraction for that either. Maybe I'll just do some home repairs and work out at the gym. Maybe even spend time with the :gasp: family, this winter. ;)
 
not a lot of posting going. has peoples' NCAA fire been smoked out?

it was nice to see Iowa tear South Carolina to shreds. Iowa's RB Shon Green looks like NFL stud material - it's understandable that he is leaving for the draft. there are only so many licking you can take at RB until you stop ticking on time.

a pretty bad Michigan State team took it Georgia, and thanks to Matt Stafford performing very poorly in the first half - they hung in there. however, Stafford got his swagger back and again, he looks like a very pro football type of player. I could see him staying another year, while Knowshon Moreno leaves early. good for Coach Richt has gone bowling with the Bulldogs all of his seasons there, if I remember correctly.

watched the first half of the Rose Bowl. god damn, this time of the year it looks like USC could destroy ANYBODY.
 
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