Running 2011 Bowl Season Thread- Match-ups on Page 1

And who's fault is that? The Big East's? Think they're lobbying for the weakest opponents? No, they're being chosen last in many instances because, as we all know, these bowls aren't about the best match-ups; they're about fanbases that travel. I woulda' put that 2006 Louisville team on the field with anyone and I believe they would have given them a game. But bowl committees were concerned with traveling fans so they got shifted to Miami to play Wake Forest.

Bottom line is the post-raid Big East has held its own in BCS games. Yes, three of those wins were earned by WVU, but the last time I checked they were still a Big East member. You cant sit there in 2003 and say "we don't think you deserves a bid," and then, after they hold their own for the most part in bowl games, come back and say, "well, okay, you did alright, but that was against shit competition. You still don't deserve a bid." Eventually the target has to stop moving.

I also find it highly amusing that everyone is suddenly screaming that the ACC sucks. Some of us have been screaming this for years and were told, "they're just down right now, whereas the Big East is just terrible."

 

And I find it highly amusing that a conference's champion can be someone that had three losses, including one by four touchdowns to a sub-.500 team, and that the same conference regularly sends teams to the BCS with three or more losses and a national ranking in the 20s or below. But we all take our humor in different places, I suppose.

 

2000 Fat 10 Champion - Purdue (8-4) - lost to Washington in the Rose Bowl
2001 Fat 10 Champion - Illinois (10-2) - utterly dumptrucked by LSU in the Sugar.
2002 - We all know O$U won the BCS
2003 Fat 10 Champions - Michigan (10-3) - beaten by USC in the Rose.
2004 Fat 10 Champions - Michigan (9-3) - Lost to Texas in Rose.


2005 Fat East champions - West Virginia (10-1) beat Georgia
2006 Fat East champions - Louisville (10-1) beat Wake Forest
2007 Fat East Champions - West Virginia (10-2) beat Oklahoma
2008 Fat East Champions - Cincinnati (10-2) lost to VT
2009 Fat East Champions - Cincinnati (12-0) losto to Florida.

So where was all of the outrage when the Big 10 was clearly getting destroyed in a five-year stretch? Ohh and since when is backj-to-back years "regularly?"

 

Hmmm ... I notice that your Big Ten list stopped in 2004. Must have just been my screen that it was cutting out on. But, I don't know, the national championship just might have been an indication of the conference's competitiveness. Also, many of those teams that beat the B10 in that time were very high in the rankings (USC won the title, Washington finished third I think, etc.) And also, Illinois and Michigan going 10-2 and winning the conference don't seem all that far afield for BCS consideration, and are not within the criteria I laid out of three or more losses and a national ranking in the 20s or worse. (Not sure why you list Michigan as 10-3 in '03, probably to prove whatever point you are trying to make, but when they were selected they were 10-2.)

But you are correct: In 2000 the Big Ten turned in a Big East-like performance.

As to the Big East, that's three times in eight years, including twice in the last two years, that the champion had three or more losses. Seems pretty regular to me. I would venture to say it will happen again fairly soon.

 

Ha, if we're discussing 2005 Georgia's placement in the universe that year...

Georgia was undefeated going into the end of October, ranked #3 in the nation behind the two teams everyone was ranked behind the whole year (USC/Texas). DJ Shockley goes down with a freak injury. Georgia loses to Florida by 4. Shockley comes back, still a little gimpy, but Georgia loses the next game to Auburn on a hail mary sort of play. (Florida's loss to South Carolina earlier that day meant the game was for essentially nothing; Georgia had all but wrapped up the East title. Food for thought.) Dawgs regroup and detonate a damn good LSU team in the SEC Championship Game.

Had Shockley not gotten hurt, there's a decent chance that Georgia team could've finished undefeated. Yeah, they didn't. But there was a reason no one gave WVU a chance in hell.

 

This. The Big East champ nearly always gets a far weaker BCS opponent than that of the Big 10, PAC, Big 12 and SEC (largely because these four nearly always end up playing each other). It has made the Big East's BCS record misleadingly look better than it actually is, their record would be far worse if their champ wasn't placed in the weak sister BCS game nearly every year.

All I know is when I think about the weakest teams that've reached BCS games, the ones that make you say "what the fuck is that team doing in a BCS bowl", seems like most of the recent ones have been Big East AQ teams like UConn, Cincy, Pitt and Louisville (who actually won their BCS game only because they were playing an even greater "WTF are they doing there" ACC team in Wake Forest).

That said, at least the Big East can justifiably claim a good number of BCS wins. The ACC's BCS performance has been indefensibly awful. Their champ giving up 70 last night was just another layer of icing on that cake.

 

Incorrect. West Virginia played No. 8 Georgia and No. 3 Oklahoma, both of which were in the top 10, in BCS bowls and beat them both.

 

Pretty sure Oklahoma was 10 or 11 when WVU beat them.

 

Wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Fiesta_Bowl

 

I stand corrected. So there's the one solid win for the Big East in the BCS era. (Regarding Georgia, we talked about that a couple pages ago and my point was that the matchup was the #s 6 and 7 teams among BCS participants.)

 

Also how many of those Big East BCS wins are Miami's?

 

Three.