Running bowl thread

I've seen them all play this season.

Take away who I want to see play ...

Who do I think the best team after Alabama is?

The second-best team after Alabama is TCU/Texas/Cincy/Boise. There really isn't one that stands above the other. That's what makes it maddening.

Of the 4 teams, what has stood out more than anything, is TCU's defense -- more than Cincy's offense (especially that game Collaros had 555 total yards), more than Boise's balance, more than Texas' consistency.

But all 4 of them have a claim to play Alabama.

 

Considering I had Texas No. 1 in the SJ poll most of the season (dropped it behind Bama --I HATE BAMA -- this week) I disgaree that Cincy, TCU and Boise are as deserving.

 

It's not about playing with anyone. It's about playing with everyone.

Boise and TCU have proven they can win one-off games against name schools. (Though Boise, as we've discussed, continues to trade largely on a trick-play-fueled victory from three years ago.) They have in no way proven they can go unbeaten through a BCS-conference schedule, nor that they can win multiple games in front of large, hostile opposing crowds.

And Fresno State? Really? Yeah, they pick off BCS-conference schools with some regularity. They also lose to San Jose State, proving exactly what I said above: They can play with anyone, but not with everyone.

 

The chance that we may end this year with 2 undefeated teams that cannot claim the national title is maddening, comical and sad all at the same time.

Someone made the comparison on here a while back, but the current system for college football best resembles those in figure skating and gymnastics.

 

The major flaw is that teams with higher expectations get a jump start because of where they show up in the first polls1. That obviously hurt TCU and Boise State vis-a-vis Florida, Texas and Alabama for most of the year, but it also gave them a leg up on Iowa, which wasn't in the polls at all.

I don't think those schools you mention prove that mid-majors can ALWAYS play with the bigger schools. The best of them can in the best of their runs, yes, but it's hard to sustain that. And the dropoff between strong mid-majors and merely respectable ones is pretty steep. If you're going to mention Boise State 19-8 Oregon, you also have to mention BYU 28-54 Florida State2.

Now the question I've inferred before that I'll just come out and ask for the TCU/Boise/mid-major boosters: What better matchups could have happened for both TCU and Boise that would have been feasable within the framework of the bowl structure and the pecking order for picking teams this season?


1 -- Eliminating preseason polls would be a purely cosmetic fix. Every website and magazine on God's green earth is going to do a preseason poll, and voters will be influenced either by them or by their own reckonings. The idea that everyone will be treated equally if there's no AP or coaches' preseason poll is idealistic but not realistic.
2 -- Stupid English soccer infusing its idiosyncrasies into my day-to-day writing

 

But we ask teams like Fresno (yes, Fresno) to play these games more regularly, and they do: It's Fresno's fault that Illinois gave up 53 points? Come on. Fresno came to play. I don't care if Illinois is dogshit again this year, 2 years after going to the Rose Bowl. This year, Fresno went into Big Ten territory, and put up 53 in a win at Illinois. But it's not good enough because it's not about Fresno's winning at a Big Ten school (and with 53 points), it's about how shitty Illinois is.

 

exactly

 

They won a game in Big Ten territory. Fine. The question is, could they win seven more? The overwhelming evidence is, no, they couldn't. That's what FSU pounding BYU suggests. That's what Fresno State losing to San Jose State suggests. That's what Utah losing to Oregon suggests. It's what Georgia beating the shit out of Boise State suggests. It's what Boise's sub-.500 record against BCS-conference opposition this decade suggests.

And yeah, you shouldn't hold other teams' sins against TCU. But given the generally similar profiles of those teams -- and the fact that those teams are often used to bolster TCU's case -- you can't ignore the evidence.

 

We don't know the answers to some of those questions, you're right.

But does that mean the answers I think you're thinking is true, too?

Who knows.

Who's to say Fresno wouldn't be as competitive, if not more, in the Big 10 than Wisconsin or Iowa? Who's to say that Boise wouldn't hang every bit as well as South Carolina or Ole Miss, in the SEC?

 

Wait, what?

And that's a big piece of goalpost-moving you just did there. Comparing Boise to South Carolina or Ole Miss might be legitimate. But South Carolina and Ole Miss aren't national-title contenders, now or ever. (Yeah, Ole Miss was in the top 5. Did anyone take them seriously? Of course not.)

If that's the comparison that's being made -- and it's probably not unfair -- then that scarcely qualifies Boise to play for the national title under the current circumstances. Because the converse of your statement -- that South Carolina or Ole Miss would probably therefore do quite well against Boise's schedule -- doesn't reflect well on Boise, at all.

 

Terrible grammar. I went in to edit it and forgot singluar/plural agreement. D'oh.

OK, I'll adjust that thought: Can Boise be as competitive as Georgia? (Same answer: I don't know.). That big loss in Athens 4-5 years ago was part of the Broncos' process of building the program.

I'd love to see Boise '09 play Georgia '09. Even in Athens I don't think it's a 30-point margin. Maybe Boise wins. Could Georgia go into Boise and win? That's a fair question, too.

I hesitated at first to compare Boise with Georgia and LSU, but I was thinking about writing that. If I'm going to tout Boise as being a big boy, I probably should compare them with the best of the best i.e. Florida, Alabama.

 

Xan is right. No one knows the answers to these questions. What we do know is that college basketball (and all other college sports except football) operates under a system where every team starts the season with a theoretical chance to compete for a national championship. And college football, the biggest of the sports, operates under a system that is rigged so that the national championship itself is theoretical.
It's a travesty of what sports is supposed to be. And it's more demeaning to the teams of the power schools than to the programs that are discriminated against. Alabama's a tremendous team. It's cheated out of a chance to compete for a real title as much as TCU is. All so the Mississippi State athletic department (example picked at random, State followers) can keep its share of the bowl system skim.