The perfect season
I laughed last night when i saw the results to the Rutgers/Louisville game. This is such a repetitive pattern in college football, a team wins the biggest game 'ever', people talk all week about them in the national championship, and then they lose the next game (Notre Dame 93', Fla. State 96', Tenn. 01', ect..). I'm of the opinion that Louisville would have had NO business in the BCS championship game. But, I just knew that they were not going to finish the regular season undefeated. I think most can agree, that the one thing that holds me back from full support of a playoff is that it kinda takes away from the magic of "The perfect season". So much has to happen for that to come true, and when your team has one it is beyond special. I think it's harder to go undefeated in college football and win the championship, than it is to win any other collegiant championsip (surely we all agree on that). Here is what i think it takes to have "THE PERFECT SEASON":
1) A favorable schedule: A few things here, you cannot have more than 3 really tough regular season games. Also, and this is crucial, your 'tough' games must be spread out over the schedule. That is, you can't have all your tough games in one month, not frontloaded or backloaded (examples this year are Florida, Auburn, Louisville). Also the favorableness of your schedule must involve some luck in playing certain teams at the right time. That is, catching teams before they peak or after they have. For example this year, huge luck for Ohio State in catching Texas in the second week of the season before Colt McCoy could develop. Or teams that had to play Florida later in this season were more fortunate, catching them kinda beaten up. Rutgers was very fortunate to catch Louisville AFTER the West Virginia game--if that game is at another time in the season, maybe its a different story.
2) luck with Injuries: All teams are going to get some injuries, the luck lies with who gets injured and when. You cannot afford a star player injured before a big game (Georgia went through HORRENDOUS luck last year with D.J. Shockley going down week before Florida game, otherwise their season would have been a different story). Certain teams just get lucky in thie area, also if a 'star' does get injured, it must happen early in the season during a mediocre part of schedule or around a bye week.
3)The stud player:Each team that has run the table in the past has always had one player (usually a senior, but not neccessarily)who the team can count on to 'make a play' when it is most needed. Teams are going to have a close game, and their must be some guy who is going to step up and make something happen. Perfect examples (Charles Woodson 97', Al Wilson 98', Peter Warrick 99', Ed Reed 01', Chris Gamble 02', Matt Leinhart 04', and the Archetype example: Vince Young 05')
4) Luck from the 'gods': College football is tough to get up every week, especially when you are a team that everyone is gunning for. You need some huge breaks, many teams the season is defined by a near "miracle play", where it seems that the 'football gods' are just in your favor. Examples such as: in 97' nebraska's kicked backwards ball in endzone, in 98' Clint Stoener's putting ball on ground when had Tennessee beat, in 01' the interception by Ed Reed tipped off of a lineman's leg when BC was about to score and win game, 02' the "pass interference" in OT for Ohio State, 04' Cal guy falls down in Endzone against USC, 05' Ohio State gonzoles drops touchdown that would have sealed game against Texas.
5)The big Road win: Every contending team usually has one really tough road game that either makes or breaks their season. The road win is so huge because it tells a team that if we can win here, we can win anywhere. You know what i'm talking about, when gameday is there and Corso puts on the mascot head of the home team, the atmosphere is magical, and your team goes in and gets the job done. That kind of win is what will boost a team's confidence more than anything for running the rest of the table, most 'perfect teams' usually look back to that game as the one that assured them of how good they were. Examples: Texas winning at Ohio State 05', Auburn crushing Tennessee in 04', Oklahoma at Kansas State in 00'.
I'm sure there are many more glorious examples that i have left out, of which i'm sorry. I'd be pleased to have more memories added, and even "formula" adjustments that you think are neccessary. I'm not sure if we will have a "perfect team" this year, but we will still have a national champ, it won't be as special though. On a different note, has anyone seen "Borat" yet?? heard it was halarious!!
posted by Alex @ 11:00 AM
14 comments
14 Comments:
Big East was proven to be a fluke again last night...
no way the gods would allow Louisville to play for a title...LOUISVILLE!!!!
Now...we need these things to occur:
1. Arkansas to lose to Tennessee and LSU (probable)
2. Auburn to beat Florida in SEC title game (Auburn needs to run table)
3. Ohio St. beats Michigan (highly probable)
4. Texas run table (almost impossible that this doesn't happen)
5. Texas beats Ohio St. in rematch in Title Game....REPEAT
Great post Alex...superb
Alex great post, again. i'll weigh in later,but, did anyone see pti talking about how racism may have played a part in the titan's letting mcnair go? when they drafted another black quarterback???!!! i'm just getting tired of people looking to play that card any time possible. i'm sure there is more racism prevalent in sports than i would like to admit, but i feel like it's getting out of hand throwing that card every time something happens involving a black athlete and white people making the decisions.
Every conference besides the SEC sucks...
I'm not saying that OSU, WVU, Texas or USC couldn't beat an SEC team...but think about this...
...how easy is it to be Ohio State, Michigan, USC or Texas...you play two big games a year...
Texas (OSU, Oklahoma)
OSU (Texas, Michigan)
Michigan (OSU, Notre Dame)
USC (Notre Dame, Cal [it's hard to type that with a straight face])
on the other hand, look at Florida's schedule...
UT, LSU, Auburn, S. Carolina, FSU, and either Arkansas or Auburn again...
...and there would be more if UGA and Bama weren't having down years...
...i write all this b/c of what you said in point #1...in the SEC, it's almost impossible to get a favorable schedule...
I almost threw up earlier today when I heard Herbstreit talking up Cal as his #2 team in the country. Isn't this the same Cal that got waxed by Tennessee earlier this season? As far as I'm concerned, no Pac-10 team but USC (who is good, albeit not great this season) should be mentioned in the same Sportscenter segment with the upper crust of the SEC (Florida, LSU, Auburn, Arkansas, and Tennessee). In fact, I'd love to see a USC-Arkansas rematch. Arkansas money-line... all the way.
-Charles
Ummm...
The Big XII is going to have 8 bowl teams this year...and the conference is still down from where it was 5 yrs ago.
I agree SEC is best conference, but UT has more than 2 hard games.
At Nebraska is not an easy game.
At Texas Tech is not an easy game.
A&M is never an easy game.
Tenn. has a harder schedule than Florida, I think. Fla. St. sucks, and So Car is no good.
Tenn had to play Cal ( a good team), LSU, Arkansas (Fla missed them), Alabama (Fla missed them), Georgia, FLorida, So Car.
Tenn. has hardest schedule in nation I think.
Texas deserves title game...they are better than any team in SEC...and so is Ohio St. for that matter.
...check your facts...
...Florida beat Bama...and it looks like they'll get Arkansas in Atlanta...
...i'm going to try and not laugh at someone who thinks Texas Tech and Texas A&M are big time games...
Why was Texas Tech, a team that played Florida International AND Sam Houston State AND Indiana State in the SAME SEASON (Just read that sentence again) ranked last year?...because the media needed to justify Texas and their only good opponents were a rebuilding Oklahoma and OSU...fortunately for the media and Texas, DJ Shockley got hurt, or UGA would have had a much stronger case...
...please refrain from referring to Texas Tech as a good team...it's easy to go to a bowl game when your out of conference schedule features juggernauths like SMU, UTEP, TCU, & Southeastern Louisianna and you play THREE ranked teams in conference...
more proof the BCS system is absurd: Rutgers is ranked 2nd in the computer rankings (which count 1/3) behind Michigan. granted, if florida or auburn or usc win out they'll pass the knights in the computers (at least one would assume), but still, this is an outrage! any logical observer can see that Rutgers is not the second best team in the nation. and i can't even atttribute it to their OOC schedule (Ohio, Howard, a 1-win UNC team and a 2-win Illinios team). with the technology we have these days, lets just run simulations on NCAA '06 to determine the national champion (after making adjustments for rhett bomar-like happenings of course).
I didn't say that Texas Tech was a "big time game". I said it was not an easy game.
Saying every conference besides the SEC sucks is an idiotic statement. It's statements like that that make SEC people look stupid. Obviously, this year, the SEC is the best conference in football. But that doesn't mean every other conference sucks.
8 bowl teams in Big XII.
It's not like the SEC teams play a murderous non-conference schedule either. So the argument that a Big XII team sucks b/c they play weak non-conference opponents is moot.
Florida is playing Western Carolina this weekend, and they also played Southern Miss and Central Florida.
Texas Tech is a consistent top 25 team.
Also, no way Georgia was better than Texas (or USC) last year, even if Shockley had been healthy. Don't even try to argue for that.
I can understand a little bias, but enough of this "SEC is only legit conference" BS.
Luke is right. Asserting the strength and superiority of the SEC should not be expressed in antithetical terms, that is, all other conferences are worthless compared to the SEC. The strength of the SEC does not negate any possibility that other conferences could be tough, they are, it's college football. Texas plays a pretty good schedule, it's not their fault if some of the teams in their conference are not top 10 quality anymore. We would commend an SEC team that played Nebraska or Oklahoma as an out of conference game, it's not Texas' fault that those teams aren't dominate anymore. Sure they have avoided some 'what could be tougher games', but rivalry games still exist there. You have to give them props for a home/away series with Ohio State--that makes for a tough schedule...
Here is a fresher way to think about it...Gary Danielson is now covering the SEC weekly with CBS, he had been covering Big 10 football for years. He said the difference in the SEC is that with the big 10, there were about 4 to 5 really big games a year in the big 10, in the SEC he said, there are like 20. Big games are always physical, it is tough to take anykind of beating like that, much less week in and week out.
the 10 vs. 20 thing is what does it for me. texas is to be commended for playing osu, but even with that and assuming ou will normally be better, that makes for only two potentially top-10 caliber teams a year. florida alone played lsu, ut, aub, and making the same assumption we made about ou, you could add uga to that list. Auburn played 4 as well. ut played 5 if you count Cal (and i don't). it's so much harder to run through that schedule with hardly a break than it is getting so many weeks off with the likes of isu, baylor, ttu, okst, ksu (oops), and txam in conference play, not to mention rice, north texas, and sam houston state. SEC teams always have to deal with injuries more because guys can't get rested in the second half of in-conference blowouts. it's just so much tougher to have to show up every single week. plus, having "8 bowl teams" doesn't mean near as much with the addition of a 12th game. all they have to do is beat kansas, mizzou, and their 4 ooc games to make a bowl, so i don't feel like we can go on that. all that said, it's not the big 12's fault that 80% of their teams suck.
No one doubts that the SEC teams face a harder schedule than anyone else in the country.
That is reason enough to have an 8-team playoff. I would say that out of the top 10 programs in the country, 4 or 5 are in the SEC. That is ridiculous.
But, 5 years ago you could've said that about the Big XII. These things are somewhat cyclical.
All I'm saying is that other conferences are legit and pose threats each week. There are no "off games" really. Just ask Georgia, right?!? Losing to Vandy and Kentucky in 1 year.
If Texas, or OU, or USC, or Ohio St., or Michigan were in the SEC, they would compete for the title every season. They would rarely go unbeaten, but those programs are as good as, if not better than, every program in SEC. I still think that Texas this season (and certainly last season) is better than any SEC team.
SEC fans should be the biggest supporters of a playoff. We need to root for an undefeated Rutgers and about 5 1-loss teams this year so that the BCS is in utter turmoil...people need to see that it doesn't work and we need a playoff. Then these debates could be decided in the only legit way, on the field.
I agree that Texas, USC, OSU, Michigan, and Notre Dame could win the SEC if they were in it...and i think it speaks volumes that there are only 5-7 teams in the all the other conferences combined that could compete in the SEC...
Obviously these teams are good, but their conferences really do suck...and b/c of their weak conferences they have a competitive advantage over SEC teams in regards to the BCS, which is what makes me so mad...
I think the comment about not getting to rest starters in conference blowouts was right on...Vince Young said himself that he would have had better stats if he didn't sit out the 4th quarter of so many games...
i think one of the strongest arguments for the SEC is that we don't clearly know who the "Best" team is. Cases have been made from week to week this year claiming different teams: LSU, Florida, Tenn, Auburn, even Georgia early on had a case and now Arkansas. Mark May argues now that maybe the SEC was never that strong, i think the balance speaks to the strength. If Texas, USC, Michigan, and Ohio State were in a conference together..they would beat the crap out of each other and it's likely no one would survive undefeated. I think you could make a case for any of those teams being better or beatable by any of the SEC's top 5 teams...it's just that they don't really play eachother. The beating these SEC teams take is just brutal. on my personal note, Tennessee has just been KILLED by injuries, and they havn't had a game since memphis (late September)that they could get away with it. The only game where they have had a healthy offense was against CAl, not to mention three of their best defensive players lost for season.
Here is point: All teams suffer injuries and they are costly, but the constant SEC schedule punishes you MORE for not having that healthy team every week.
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