College Football Playoffs?
We all have our ideas of what the BCS should do… or should NOT do, and I suppose mine is no different. As I blog this, there are five undefeated teams in the national spotlight, stirring up controversy on whether there ought to be a college playoff system.
I am not really FOR the playoffs, but not really against it. Let me explain why.
To me, I think the arguments for playoffs are for those who think that the little guy ought to be held in the same esteem as the big guy. Ok, I see a reason for that, but I go back to something an old school wrestler named Ric Flair once said…
“In order to BE the man, you have to BEAT the man”
If you want to be considered up there with the big boys, then play a schedule like them. This is my biggest argument against teams like Boise State, because they had numerous opportunities to make a more challenging schedule, but opted not to do so because they seemed to want sympathy from those sitting on the fence.
I mean, their schedule was weak as water, after you take out Oregon. And granted, that was a great win…in your house… against a first time head coach… in his first game with the Ducks…nice.
But it still is a very quality win. So why did you schedule Miami of Ohio and UC Davis…what’s that about?
To me, before you start whining about playoffs, make sure that we are talking about legit teams. Now, I know TCU is not in the Championship game, and I actually do feel that they deserve strong consideration, and I am not too happy about them playing Boise State in a repeat bowl…that game proves nothing.
Before we start whining about playoffs, we have to define those parameters. First off, how many should be in it. Right off the bat, I don’t believe in a 16 team system, too many teams that have no business fighting for a National title. When you only play 12 or so games, you don’t need 16 teams claiming rights to the throne.
How about 8 teams? I wonder about that too. Go back in your NCAA history books of college football and see how many teams ranked #8 or 7 had a legit shot at a NCAA title…not very many.
To me, the arguments about who should play in the National Championship usually fall on 2-4 teams. Of course, you may argue with me that maybe Boise State, or maybe Florida has a case, but with Florida losing, I would doubt that, and Boise State just has not played a tough enough schedule to prove that they are an elite team. They are just a great team in a soft conference.
So I think IF you have a playoff, it should be the FOUR best teams in the nation. Think about it, Pittsburgh, LSU, Georgia Tech, USC, Ohio State and teams of that ilk have no real claim to the throne.
Second, if you really want to figure on who is the best, force EVERY conference to determine a true champion. Either by playing every team in their conference or having a conference championship. This eliminates the probability of two undefeated teams out of one conference that may not even play each other….BIG 10 for example.
It is conceivable that the Big 10 could have two undefeated teams in their conference, since they don’t play every opponent, and don’t have a conference championship. I think that needs to be fixed, if that means adding one more team to make it an even 12, fine, either that or find some way to have one true champion.
The Pac-10 does not have a championship game, but they do play everybody, so in essence you still get a true champion. We know the ACC, Big 12 and SEC does have a true championship game, and the Big East has a small conference to in theory they can have a true champion, since they would play everybody in their conference.
But the big question comes with non BCS conferences…mainly the Mountain West and WAC. Remember folks, years ago they used to be one super conference, with 16 teams, before they split up…would have been better if they did not. Had they not, then you would have the Boise States, TCUs, Utahs, and other teams would face each other and we would have a TRUE champion, which also would make a much stronger case for the BCS.
But even then, there are so many stipulations that nobody has thought of. The results of this year dictate what people want to see, what if next year is different? What if next year there is only 2 undefeated teams, why then would there need to be a playoff if we have the two best teams in the nation?
If Alabama and Texas were the only undefeated teams in the nation, we would not be having this conversation about playoffs would we? So the temperature of playoffs is based only on what we last saw. What if each of the BCS teams produces an undefeated team, along with the Mountain West and WAC…what if the Mid American Conference puts out an undefeated team…they did last year with Ball State.
So in theory, you could have 9 undefeated teams, what do you do then? What if Notre Dame (ugh) goes undefeated? What if Conference USA produces an undefeated team. Where does this end?
Now these are extremes, but you see my point.
Do I think there needs to be a better way to decide the national champs, maybe, but the smaller teams can help their case by taking out their cupcakes and putting in real meat. TCU to their credit did this, so I can see their argument, but not quite for Boise State.
So, with Congress getting involved (although I don’t see why), things may change sooner than later…but unfortunately, it all comes down to money…ironic since we are talking about sports and college students…that never changes…
Greed, that is…playoffs…maybe.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Brian Kelly new head coach at Notre Dame
Kelly to Coach Irish: Money talks
How much hypocrisy is there in the world, and in college football?
So today Notre Dame will announce this afternoon that Brian Kelly, the FORMER head coach of Cincinnati, will be the new head coach of Notre Dame.
Now let’s start spewing moronic statements…starting with Lou Holtz.
In an interview on ESPN today, he was asked how they might do next year, with the 2010 schedule halfway done. I saw that list and saw teams like Stanford, USC, Navy, Utah and a few others. Lou Holtz said, “I think they can go undefeated if they have a great defense”
Again with the stupid remarks! This is the same idiot that said the last two years that Notre Dame would go undefeated and win the National Championship…both times he was woefully wrong!
How in the name that is good can ESPN let this idiot keep spewing forth such wicked lies! I can understand being a fan or supporter of a team, but ESPN pays him to be HONEST…not lying and wicked! This man consistently fails to give a honest and sincere opinion about the team he used to coach, but has no problem complaining about everything else…what a moron!
They also asked this “expert” of how soon it can take to turn this team around… he said it can be done in ONE YEAR.
Liar
Let’s understand, Notre Dame loses their coach, a key quarterback and receiver, has likely lost recruits due to this fiasco, with a new coach on the way that has burned his bridges along the way, to coach a new team whose former coach burned bridges himself. You really think that will turn around in ONE YEAR?
It really is a discredit to ESPN to allow somebody like Lou Holtz sit there and make lies about this team. If you can’t be realistic then you don’t need to be running your mouth. I bet Mark May and Reese Davis are vomiting over the crap Holtz is spewing.
But the damage is done, and yet in the name of vanity more damage was done than necessary. Just today I was viewing the reactions of some of those Cincinnati players, and many of them were not very positive in how Brian Kelly bailed out on them just before the biggest came the university ever had.
What I don’t understand is how the media is so blind to the clear disruption Notre Dame caused by talking to a head coach before his BCS bowl game. Why enter like a thief in the night to steal a coach from his team, when you could have waited a few weeks longer? Notre Dame has declined a bowl game, which to me was foolish, because you now forsake the extra 2-3 weeks of practice, which every team can use. Don’t tell me that there would not have been a decent list of coaches willing to take that job after January, I am not buying that, even for a screwed up university like Notre Dame.
The entire practice just seemed…unholy…from a so called religious school. I forgot, isn’t Notre Dame a Catholic university…and under such so called ideals should there also be some moral and spiritual way of going about hiring a coach? Is it righteous to sneak in a college and plop money in front of another university’s coach to lure him out? Would they not have been more righteous to simply wait until Cincinnati finished their bowl game before they made the hire official?
But it goes both ways too, Brian Kelly now looks like a sneaky rat too. Now, I don’t blame a man for wanting to coach in bigger places, and no one will argue that Cincinnati is smaller than Notre Dame as far as football history, but the way he went about it was just as sleazy as Notre Dame’s offer.
In his wake he leaves a team now torn, forced to play without their head coach. But you know, this is hypocritical because the media always likes to talk about “distractions”. When Spikes from Florida was gouging the eyes of a player and got a half of a game for suspension, that was a “distraction” to the team. When Blount from Oregon punched a guy early this season, and was suspended for a full year (to be changed later), that was a “distraction” to the team. But when a head coach bails out on his team to take the money, nobody is talking about how huge a distraction that can be.
I don’t blame Cincinnati for being upset, and it seems that the NCAA is cool with coaches not finishing their job and making that example to these kids. We get all on athletes when they want to try to go to the NFL too early or when it comes to correcting their students, but when grown men make such choices, nobody says anything. It’s becoming hypocritical for coaches to bail out on their players for “greener grass”, leaving the team, the university and fans in confusion.
Is this a good hire…how is this any different from the last 3 coaches? Lou Holtz can say all he wants about how good Notre Dame will be, the current history shows that it won’t be any different. If Notre Dame dumbs down the schedule, and put a few high school teams on the schedule, and if they make all the game at home, then I can see Notre Dame making a BCS run in the next couple of years. But with the shot they took in recruiting, the impatience of the rich alumni and the perverted tactics of this religious school…I am not holding my breath.
So Brian Kelly is the new head coach of Notre Dame…good luck Kelly, you’re gonna need a heck of a lot of that where you are going…because you won’t get much else.
How much hypocrisy is there in the world, and in college football?
So today Notre Dame will announce this afternoon that Brian Kelly, the FORMER head coach of Cincinnati, will be the new head coach of Notre Dame.
Now let’s start spewing moronic statements…starting with Lou Holtz.
In an interview on ESPN today, he was asked how they might do next year, with the 2010 schedule halfway done. I saw that list and saw teams like Stanford, USC, Navy, Utah and a few others. Lou Holtz said, “I think they can go undefeated if they have a great defense”
Again with the stupid remarks! This is the same idiot that said the last two years that Notre Dame would go undefeated and win the National Championship…both times he was woefully wrong!
How in the name that is good can ESPN let this idiot keep spewing forth such wicked lies! I can understand being a fan or supporter of a team, but ESPN pays him to be HONEST…not lying and wicked! This man consistently fails to give a honest and sincere opinion about the team he used to coach, but has no problem complaining about everything else…what a moron!
They also asked this “expert” of how soon it can take to turn this team around… he said it can be done in ONE YEAR.
Liar
Let’s understand, Notre Dame loses their coach, a key quarterback and receiver, has likely lost recruits due to this fiasco, with a new coach on the way that has burned his bridges along the way, to coach a new team whose former coach burned bridges himself. You really think that will turn around in ONE YEAR?
It really is a discredit to ESPN to allow somebody like Lou Holtz sit there and make lies about this team. If you can’t be realistic then you don’t need to be running your mouth. I bet Mark May and Reese Davis are vomiting over the crap Holtz is spewing.
But the damage is done, and yet in the name of vanity more damage was done than necessary. Just today I was viewing the reactions of some of those Cincinnati players, and many of them were not very positive in how Brian Kelly bailed out on them just before the biggest came the university ever had.
What I don’t understand is how the media is so blind to the clear disruption Notre Dame caused by talking to a head coach before his BCS bowl game. Why enter like a thief in the night to steal a coach from his team, when you could have waited a few weeks longer? Notre Dame has declined a bowl game, which to me was foolish, because you now forsake the extra 2-3 weeks of practice, which every team can use. Don’t tell me that there would not have been a decent list of coaches willing to take that job after January, I am not buying that, even for a screwed up university like Notre Dame.
The entire practice just seemed…unholy…from a so called religious school. I forgot, isn’t Notre Dame a Catholic university…and under such so called ideals should there also be some moral and spiritual way of going about hiring a coach? Is it righteous to sneak in a college and plop money in front of another university’s coach to lure him out? Would they not have been more righteous to simply wait until Cincinnati finished their bowl game before they made the hire official?
But it goes both ways too, Brian Kelly now looks like a sneaky rat too. Now, I don’t blame a man for wanting to coach in bigger places, and no one will argue that Cincinnati is smaller than Notre Dame as far as football history, but the way he went about it was just as sleazy as Notre Dame’s offer.
In his wake he leaves a team now torn, forced to play without their head coach. But you know, this is hypocritical because the media always likes to talk about “distractions”. When Spikes from Florida was gouging the eyes of a player and got a half of a game for suspension, that was a “distraction” to the team. When Blount from Oregon punched a guy early this season, and was suspended for a full year (to be changed later), that was a “distraction” to the team. But when a head coach bails out on his team to take the money, nobody is talking about how huge a distraction that can be.
I don’t blame Cincinnati for being upset, and it seems that the NCAA is cool with coaches not finishing their job and making that example to these kids. We get all on athletes when they want to try to go to the NFL too early or when it comes to correcting their students, but when grown men make such choices, nobody says anything. It’s becoming hypocritical for coaches to bail out on their players for “greener grass”, leaving the team, the university and fans in confusion.
Is this a good hire…how is this any different from the last 3 coaches? Lou Holtz can say all he wants about how good Notre Dame will be, the current history shows that it won’t be any different. If Notre Dame dumbs down the schedule, and put a few high school teams on the schedule, and if they make all the game at home, then I can see Notre Dame making a BCS run in the next couple of years. But with the shot they took in recruiting, the impatience of the rich alumni and the perverted tactics of this religious school…I am not holding my breath.
So Brian Kelly is the new head coach of Notre Dame…good luck Kelly, you’re gonna need a heck of a lot of that where you are going…because you won’t get much else.
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