Friday, January 05, 2007

Learning from the bowls


With the national championship game still to go, I thought we could reflect on what this years bowl games have taught us.

1) Notre Dame is an average to above average team. It's manly to toot your own horn, so let's not forget that Sweet Emotion at the beginning of the year reminded its readers about the severely overhyped Irish. With 0 wins in the last 9 bowl appearances and 1 win (yes, 1) over a top 25 team in the past two years, Notre Dame is simply not that impressive. The Sugar bowl revealed their true colors which are.
a) Their defense is at best a mediocre SEC defense
b) Brady Quinn against a great defense looked average
c) The media has a love affair with both the Irish and Charlie Weiss. The guy might be a good coach, but all he has really done is play USC close last year. I'm sure very soon we'll be getting an ESPN upclose on Charlie Weiss' 10-3 season and the Irish return to the BCS.
d) Join a freaking conference

2) Preseason rankings need to go out the door. The ONLY reason Notre Dame got into a BCS game was because they were preseason #4 (???might be wrong on that). Preseason rankings hold way too much weight.

3) A Playoff system should be put in place. Two reasons, first teams get to hash it out on the field, and secondly, every BCS game would have an electric (Boise Stateesque) atmosphere. Without a playoff system, games like Louisville and Wake Forest just aren't that exciting. Proposal: A friend of mine (Ben Shaw) has proposed a 6 team playoff with the winners of each conference. I like it. First, it would force every conference to have a conference championship, and thus bringing excitement back to the conference championship game. The SEC championship would be awesome knowing that whoever won will get in the playoffs. Secondly, every team either earned their spot or didn't. Sure LSU might be the most talented, but they didn't do what was necessary in the regular season to get in the playoffs. Thirdly, Boise State would be fun to watch but eventually would fizzle out. Now I know its not a perfect system, but I agree with Ben's proposal. (Picture shows Me, Ben Shaw (brains behind the proposal) and Samuel Husband (Mayor of First Pres).

4) Pete Carrol is an amazing coach. Watching USC dismantle Michigan was a joy. I know USC plays in the weak Pac 10, but to lose 2 Heisman Trophy winners from a team and come back the next year dominant once again is impressive.

5) Penn State is classy. As much as I hate the Big 10, my colleague Alex said their fans were as classy as they come. Seeing Joe P up in the box with his 10 inch glasses is a nice refresher from the modern day free agent coach. Joe P will always be high in my heart for his comments regarding Jackie Sherril. Paraphrase: "i'm not retiring until Jackie Sherril retires, somebody has to balance out the bad he brings into college football."

6) Nick Saban will be the first coach hit with a beer bottle three times during a game on Nov. 3rd. Only LSU fans would start a "Saban Sux" chant at the Sugar Bowl. The LSU/Alabama matchup in Tuscaloosa will be downright dirty. Who knows what Saban's return to Baton Rouge will be like. All I know is that quite a few fans will be arrested for their actions (that is unless the Baton Rouge police encourage the fans actions)

7) Tommy Tuberville probably said a lot of curse words when Alabama announced Saban as their new coach. Someone more slick than Tubs is hard to find, but the Tide successfully did

8) The Miami football program is at a lowpoint. They played their bowl game on a blue field.... I have nothing else to say

9) Jamarcus Russel will be a good NFL quarterback. I've been skeptical all year, but some coach in the NFL will find a way to utilize him. He is a freak of an athlete.

10) The delay on the National Championship game is ridiculous. Quit spreading out the games so much.

11) Boise State stole my friends flag football play book. There is no telling how many times in Jr. High and High School we tried to run the ole crossing route hook n ladder. Nice to see someone using it though. Our other play will be tough to steal, it involves using a tree in the endzone like a pick.

12) Watching Nancy Pelosi accept the Speaker of the House position was rough. Let's just hope the Senate can block much of her "leadership." Just had to get that out there...not sure how it relates to the bowl games.

13) Just saw Ricky Williams hopes to return to the Dolphins. No doubt they will take him, its the Dolphins type of player. Who would I rather have on my team, T.O. or Ricky Williams. I think I'll just resign my position, give it to Bobby Knight and let him coach T.O. (that would be entertaining).

8 Comments:

At 3:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget the "Stack" receiver formation that we invented that has now been used by college coaches for years.

 
At 7:12 PM, Blogger kurt said...

Acutally I think Notre Dame was preseason No. 2...even more of an outrage. I've always said there should be no preseason poll. Everyteam should start out unranked and the polls should come out after everybody's played about 7 games. If they implemented that strategy I bet more teams would schedule tough out-of-conference opponents early on, i.e., everybody wins.

ps - I'm against any playoff that gives the same amount of berths to the Pac-10, WAC, Mountain West, Big East, Big 12, ACC, or NFC Central as it does to the clearly superior SEC.

 
At 7:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Seriously, any system in which the Mountain West champion gets in but an SEC team like LSU this year doesn't is flawed. Just delay the rankings until halfway through the season, so they're more accurate, and then take the top eight teams factoring in both polls and strength of schedule.

 
At 11:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As much as college football needs change, it's not happening in the near future. Why would a business (yes, college football is a business) that makes eleventy billion dollars a year change the way they do things? Going to a playoff system will cut their "profits" dramatically. It's not about the fans or what's best for the players, it's all about the dollar bills. Which is interesting since college football is supposed to be an AMATEUR sport.

 
At 12:14 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Notre dame will consistantly make a BCS bowl as long as there are preseason rankings. Because they are "The University of College Football" and ESPN hypes them so much, they will be in the preseason top 15 for years to come. And because their schedule consists of Army, Navy, Air Force, Stanford, North Carolina, and Hillcrest Academy, they will easily go 9-3 and thus finish in the top 15 which qualifies them for a BCS bowl...and everybody knows that they are in if they qualify. Preseason rankings suck. Hype sucks. ESPN sucks. Notre Dame sucks.

 
At 11:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Saban to Giants...He says he's "not interested"

 
At 5:52 PM, Blogger Brian said...

Roach, great call on our stack formation. Who knew NFL scouts were out there when we were playing.

 
At 7:37 PM, Blogger Alex said...

comments like these make me feel like Brian and I are "getting through"...it's encouraging

 

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