I think things look good for Texas after tonight's games. Number 3 and number 4 looked awful today which should result in texas getting some better poll positioning, and thus the BCS nod. This win does very little to help cal, but much more to hurt them, imho.
my guess is it will be exactly the same. Cal didn't show enough to do it convincingly, but even I was left with the same wishy-washy feeling as that fourth quarter ended up unfolding the way it did. Had So. Miss. tied it up with that PAT, who knows what we would be saying right now. I can't believe that play right there probably ended up sealing UT's fate.
Uhh.. No. 3 was playing in a conference championship game against a long-time rival, who happen to be a top 15 ranked school. Rivalry games always can be close, and the fact is they played a pretty good tennessee team that would have given any of the top 6 some trouble. Auburn did nothing to lose ground. Cal did... but will it be enough?
Regardless of what's going to happen b/w the Cal/UT camps, Boise St did not lose a game this year, will finish probably #8 in the BCS standings, and will get to watch 4 teams who have lost games play in a BCS bowl. Yack.
Unless Cal had lost or looked incredibly, incredibly bad, they are going to the Rose Bowl. Cal wasn't that great but the 4th saved them in many ways. That PAT play just symobolizes that things weren't meant to be for UT.
Auburn was in a dogfight with Tennessee and their 3rd string QB, Rick Clausen, who almost lost games vs Kentucky and Vandy for the Vols. The fact that number 3 and 4 played very mediocre at best tonight only helps UT's cause in the polls. Of course they won't pass Auburn in the BCS, but they could steal votes in the polls, as stranger things have happened. And, if I take this further, UCLA playing USC close hurts Cal's supposed great loss anyway. Plus, the way OU is drilling CU, makes UT's loss look better. Factor that in with Cal virtually tied with a mediocre team from C-USA with 5:56 remaining in the game, and I would think Texas should get enough swing in the polls to move them past Cal into 3rd anyway. Keep in mind, one AP voter has texas 9th, behind cal, utah, iowa(2 loss iowa), louisville, and boise, and 3 others seventh behind louisville. If those go to 6, and the texas guys move UT past cal after their performance tonight, it's quite possibly enough to switch the teams in the BCS. That's factoring nobody else flipping UT-Cal, or moving Texas up from 6th(the majority of the AP has them 6th).
Exactly why we need a playoff. We're gonna have the BCS bowls determined by writers and coaches who watch one or two games a week at most.
If some of the AP voters decide to change their minds and bump up UT and/or Utah up over Cal, can you imagine the kind of scrutiny they will receive? I think the "easy way out" is for the voters to keep the way they've been voting up to this point, considering Cal won on the road against a bowl-bound Southern Miss team. There's definitely a psychological element to this ranking. I'm not sure anybody wants to be called out as the voter who screwed somebody at the last minute. The fact that voters want to be considered consistent (a major factor in everybody's everyday decision making, not just ranking football teams) could turn out to be meaningful.
I don't see how it would be inconsistent of voters to change what they screwed up in the first place. The whole reason Cal has been ahead of Texas is two factors: 1) The loss to USC was better than the loss to OU 2) Texas close call in Lawrence(KU game) The thing is, the AP votes were released this past week and what was learned was the majority of voters had Texas 6th or lower and at that time the difference between Cal/Texas is only .0013, or a handful of voters for reference sake. Thus, texas has the best chance of improving it's standing of the two teams in the polls. And that .0013 difference I referenced before, was before USC and Cal both looked mediocre today. Also, keep in mind the majority of the Texas area voters in the AP have Texas 6th as well. Do you really think Cal's lackluster performance coupled by USC's bad game today(thus hurting the great Cal loss compared to OU) doesn't give them enough justification to move Texas past Cal in their votes. Plus, three voters have Texas 7th or lower. If that stays that way, i'll be shocked. I realize many people think UT is overrated(beat OU then you can go), but this is ridiculous. Cal's best win is against an Arizona State team that lost to Arizona badly, that is if you don't count the USC loss as a "win." Their game vs Oregon is just as bad as UT vs Kansas, though the pollsters refuse to admit it, and they were at home while UT was on the road. Kansas beat MAC champ Toledo 63-14 btw, much better than anything Oregon did, especially the Indiana loss at Autzen. In fact Arkansas's 6 losses are to bowl eligible teams(5 top 25 teams: florida, LSU, UT, Auburn, Georgia) and 6 of Kansas's losses are to bowl eligible teams(only one not is 5-6 nebraska). But that said, I realize UT didn't play great at times this year, but do they deserve a BCS nod over at least 3 automatic champs that are going this year. As far as Boise goes, they almost lost to 2-9 Bayloresque San Jose State in a televised game by ESPN and again on ESPN they almost lost to BYU at home. They aren't really that good, but I admit I would give them a spot in a playoff system, easily. By the way, my gripe isn't with Cal or Utah. It's with Pitt, Va Tech, and Michigan(all teams with more losses than Texas), especially Pitt. I happen to think Cal and Utah are deserving of BCS bids, but unfortunately because of this system, as a Texas student-soon to be alumnus, I have to go against one of them to see my team get the respect it deserves. A 10-1 Texas team that lost to number 2 Oklahoma 12-0 deserves to be in one of the 4 elite bowls this year, just like year. How many times do we have to see split NC's/undefeated BCS schools not playing for the NC and undeserving conference champs playing in BCS games to know this system sucks? I want a playoff more than anybody, because this system is ridiculous. It wouldn't cheapen the regular season so much as to not making it worth it if you did it right, and you could still keep the lesser bowls for non playoff teams if you desired. Again, I repeat, I think Texas will pass Cal in the upcoming BCS standings, but my real gripe is not with the Golden Bears or Utah, it's with the other conference champs like Michigan and Pitt especially, and Va Tech.
a. so we ignore moving teams up and down on the last week just to be consistent with the week before? the polls have always been dynamic from week to week. whether voters flip teams around too much based on each week is up for debate, but they always do. and if ku can hurt UT like it did, then this certainly should hurt cal. voters are just supposed to be nice to them now and ignore the bad game to be consistent? b. the voters don't seem to mind scrutiny. one guy had UT 9th on his ballot (neal mccready). being a dumbass didn't seem to bother him too much. and 3 other have us 7th. no one's all over them. and plenty of voters have undefeated utah wedged b/t one loss, close as can be cal and UT and no one's on them about that. either utah's zero losses puts them above both of us or below both of us. sandwiching utah in there is killing us. we would be up more than 0.0013 if those voters would just pick one place for utah. c. i'm not quite clear if our .0013 deficit is worth 6 or 7 AP votes. if it's really .00123 or less (i.e. the our .8418 is rounded down and cal's .8431 is rounded up) then we need 6 votes. otherwise it's 7. if it's 6, we just need the idiots who have us 7th or lower to follow the logic of the rest of the country and put us at least 6th and we're in. of course the coaches and other people could change, but that's how close it is. actually, i guess if 6 votes did switch, our bcs score to the ten thousandths would be identical. freakin' hundredths of thousandths could decide this. i still think we'll get screwed. chris fowler thinks we'll overtake cal. i think herbstreit thought so, too. and i love how herbstreit was one of the few to mention benson for heisman consideration in the past, and even had him over peterson, and yet with benson being amazing since then (it was after ou when he said this) now he's got peterson in his top 3 and doesn't mention benson. i swear, you'd think everyone must have massive amounts of money on us in the ou game the way we get killed for losing it. what's it to them if we lose to them?
What time do we find out the new rankings? Is it tomorrow evening? This will be very interesting how the chips fall.
I really don't know how anybody here thinks Texas "deserves" to get the at-large bid over CAL. Yes, CAL didn't win impressively tonight but if the C-USA officials didn't take away that last Arrington touchdown on the phantom clip, CAL would have doubled up Southern Miss. Also, CAL's win will likely help them in the computer rankings since Southern Miss has a winning record and is bowl-bound. Now, if you look at the season as a whole, CAL is slightly more impressive than Texas. Texas has 2 close wins (touchdown or less) vs. losing teams (Arkansas, Kansas) while CAL has just one close win v. losing teams (Oregon). Yes, Texas has beaten more quality teams but the real reason CAL is ahead of Texas is what happened on October 9th. Texas gets shutout by #2 Oklahoma on neutral-territory. CAL loses AT #1 USC by 6 while doubling USC's total yards, 424-205. The fact that CAL only dropped two places while Texas dropped six places shows that the single loss between the two teams seems to be the deciding factor. Both teams deserve a better fate than the Holiday or Cotton Bowl. As a CAL alum, I hope the voters go with tradition. This is for the Rose Bowl, which is all about the Pac-10 vs. Big-10. If this was an argument between Arizona St. and Texas, I would absolutely advocate for Texas to be the pick. But with CAL being a very worthy pick out of the Pac-10, I hope the voters are swayed by tradition. Also, it's been 46 years since we've been to the Rose Bowl!! CAL athletics is like being a Cubs/Red Sox fan. C'mon voters, just give it to us!
If anyone has beef, it's JJ Arrington. He hasn't gotten any Heisman consideration, yet he's statistically better than all 3 and is the only back in D-I to gain over 100 yards in each game this season. Arrington: 264 carries, 1845 yards, 7.0 avg., 16TD Peterson: 314 carries, 1843 yards, 5.9 avg., 15TD Benson: 303 carries, 1764 yards, 5.8 avg., 19TD
