[BCS NC Game] #1 Oklahoma Sooners vs. #2 Florida Gators

I think that if Texas had destroyed OSU in the Fiesta it would have been held up by Longhorns everywhere as proof they "deserve" it. Some are doing it still.

Bowl games are very different from regular season. In most cases you have a month to prepare for your opponent, neutral field, and conference vs conference. It's a great way to see how a team holds up, especially if you think you are a contender.

Utah and USC looked legit. Texas won it's game - #3 barely beat #10. There's a difference.

 

Yeah, I completely agree with the latter. TCU and Cincy, honestly, are the perfect loophole teams to schedule in the BCS era -- they're fundamentally sound enough and play in weak enough leagues that you can count on them to win most of the games they play (thus boosting your quality wins). But if you're an elite team like Oklahoma, you know they simply don't have the athleticism to beat you.

 

How is that any different than, say, the opening game or two of the season? In that case, you have more than a month to prepare for your opponent, and it's always conference vs. conference.

If Longhorns would have used the Fiesta Bowl by itself to make their case, then they're idiots, too. Just because one group of people is or might be stupid doesn't mean you need to do the same thing. Bowl games are 1 out of 13 — nothing more, nothing less. The overall body of work for Texas is clearly superior to that of USC, and it's not even close.

 

Not like playing USC in the Rose Bowl with 2 Heisman winners?

 

USC was happy to be in the Rose Bowl because until Oregon beat Oregon State, they were headed somewhere else.

Brown gave Texas two weeks off to get over the disappointment of not making the Big 12/NC games.

This is why the current system sucks so bad. You have style points and natural psychological issues with teams going or not going to certain games because of human opinions and deal-making. The current bowls are meaningless.

College football really has turned into something on par with synchronized swimming or figure skating where the outcome is decided more by the whims, biases, and personalities of the judges than the performances of the athletes.

No team would have a problem getting up for a playoff, which is what college football needs to make a real sport again.

 

Because Bowls are ranked matchups. Preseason Florida Atlantic and UTEP are not equal to postseason Ohio State.

I'm judging by watching games, where teams should make their case. Texas was supposed to dominate OSU and they didn't. Texas Tech was electric beating Texas in the season and forgot to show up to the Cotton. The weak Pac 10 went 5 for 5 in bowl games. Personally, I hate USC, but they looked strong when it counted. If we count all games as equal, doesn't USC's thrashing of OSU (35-3) make the case that USC is better than Texas?

I just don't see Texas being ranked any higher than #4 by Friday.

 

Except USC played OSU without Terrelle Pryor and Beanie Wells (aka their two best offensive weapons) and played them in Los Angeles. Completely different scenario.

And I'm not talking about Florida Atlantic and UTEP. I'm talking about Oklahoma, for example, who played a top 10 TCU team and Big East champion Cincinnati and routed both. Then, take a look at what happened when Texas played Oklahoma. There are plenty of marquee non-conference matchups from which you can draw every bit as relevant of an opinion as you can from bowl games.

Teams aren't only supposed to make their case in bowl games. Unfortunately for USC, they're supposed to do it all season long. I don't know where Texas will be ranked, and quite frankly, I don't care. If the fact that voters selected Oklahoma — a team with an identical record an almost identical schedule — ahead of Texas, after Texas beat them by double digits on a neutral field, doesn't show you how irrelevant these guys are, I don't know what else to say.

 

BINGO

the current system renders every damn bowl not called the BCS Title Game pointless... how f'ing r****ded is that? how can you legitimately crown a "national champion" in this kind of system?

answer:

you cant

 

Gators by 6

 

No. If every game counts equally there are no excuses, just scoreboards. 1 game out of 13, right?

Both USC and Texas lost one game this year by 6 points. I would suggest that the statement you make to end the season is very important in this situation.

 

Of course there's context, such as the caliber of the team you're playing. My point is that bowl games aren't the only time teams play ranked opposition.

By the way, the "both USC and Texas lost one game this year by 6 points" is incredibly misleading. Technically true, but misleading. First of all, Texas Tech is a superior team to Oregon State. More importantly, however, Texas Tech won by 6 due to a touchdown on the last play of the game. USC was dominated in that game at Oregon State — the only reason the margin was 6 was an irrelevant cosmetic touchdown in the final minutes against a prevent defense. Very different scenario from UT-Tech.

 

I'll be watching at the O'Connell center in Gainesville tomorrow, so you might catch a glimpse of me on TV. This will be the first time I'm not watching at a bar; it sucks that I won't be hammered, the great thing is I don't have to sit at a bar from noon just to guarantee myself a seat.

Gators by at least two touchdowns. Have fun at the game Franchise3. GO GATORS!

 

Line should be at 9-9.5 favoring Florida. I think Florida will win by at least 10-14 points. Game shouldn't really be any closer.

41-31 Florida or 45-31. Hopefully win some money as well.

 

This is exactly right. Anyone who claims that USC is the best team in the country must not have watched them play Oregon State, because what I saw was what was supposed to be one of the best defenses in the country getting whipped upfront by an average Oregon State offensive line. Their offense was similarly unimpressive in that game as well, and it was certainly not as close as the score indicated.

But predictably everyone starts crowning USC based on beating an overrated Big Eleven team in what was essentially a home game. BTW, it must be nice when every year your bowl game is the equivalent of a home game.

 

I think we need to differentiate the "who is the best team" test from "who has the best resume test".

By resume, and by BCS rules they want margin of victory thrown out, Texas and OU deserved to rematch for the National Title. The only other contender was Utah, because Texas and OU had the best strength of schedules among 1 loss teams. Similarly, Ohio State and Michigan probably deserved a rematch a few years ago based on resume. But the other problem is "resume" often doesn't coincide with who are the best teams.

Interesting to look at Sagarin's ratings with and without point differential.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt08.htm

Top 10 resume prior to the bowls (basically determined by strength of schedule and losses)--showing the most deserving teams if you will if you just count quality of wins and losses and nothing more.
1 OU
2 Tex
3 TTech
4 Florida
5 Utah
6 Bama
7 Boise
8 USC
9 TCU
10 PSU

Now here is the top 10 considering margin.
1 UF
2 SC
3 OU
4 Tex
5 PSU
6 Bama
7 Ttech
8 TCU
9 Ohio State
10 Iowa

Striking to me in terms of the "best teams" I think it is pretty clear the 2nd group is on very target. In fact I think points spreads among those teams if they played would support a top 4 of UF, SC, OU, & Tex--in that order. I certainly would not favor Texas over UF or SC. Texas had a tremendously gutty year among a largely overachieving squad rallying around a great leader. But those other teams have better defenses and better rushing attacks and better talent all around--Texas would have to play great or catch those teams on off days (and most teams do have off days--see Ole Miss and OSU).

The whole thing just shows how flawed the system is. Even a +1 system would have been a mess because SC and Utah would have been left out of that one--and it has to be pretty obvious to everyone SC is one of the 2 or 3 best teams and how can one argue Utah at least didn't deserve a shot somehow? IMO basically you had 8 teams who in some way should have had a shot--basically 6 one loss squads from a major conferences (and some like Texas and PSU lost on the last play of the game and UF lost because of blocked PAT) and 2 undefeated mid-majors. At those most you could have gotten to 6 very deserving teams (taken out Tech because of how bad their late loss was and maybe Boise).

What is further bizzare is in the end the difference between whether Texas or OU got a shot at a championship game fell on the boots of the Nebraska and Mizzou kickers in games that had nothing to do with those teams in question--that in one simple way tells you how whack the system it is regardless of who got left out.

I think Texas should be very proud of this year. I think Texas and PSU were probably the most overachieving teams this year, and both within the last play of the game from a NT shot. Texas played better than the sum of their parts, and their leader and pretty much their whole team was clutch all season (barring the two last plays of one game by fresh safeties). I can't remember the last time I said that about a Mack Brown Texas squad. But as PSU didn't belong on the field with a focused and motivated SC, I think we would have found the same with Texas versus Florida. After OU gets through their ass kicking by Florida, and Texas ends 2 or 3, we can say it was the best reasonably expected season by Texas this year. Now if OU surprises me and really theatens UF in this game I'll feel worse about it--but I don't think that is going to happen.

 

I am sorry, I don't like SC, but that is a bunk statement. They had a bad day versus Oregon State on both sides of the ball, no doubt. Even so they allowed 343 yards. Let not forget Texas had a crappy 4 quarter stretch, it just happened to be spread between the second half of Okie State and the first half of Tech. Just like SC, Texas paid dearly for that stretch. And do you really think that Okie State or Tech are all that different caliber from Oregon, Ohio State, Oregon, etc? I don't. I think 5-0 Bowl Record shows the Pac-10 wasn't as bad as we thought, and kind of evened out that weird day when they got jumped on by a lot of Mountain West schools.

SC destroyed some top offenses (Oregon, PSU) and some good offenses (Arizona, Cal, tOSU). I have watched both teams a fair amount. Texas has probably 2 players who would start on SC's defense, Orakpo and Miller. Against SC Texas would have the edge in passing attack--Sanchez is even more overrated than Bradford (at least Sam when he has all day to pass as usual doesn't miss much), but major deficits in rushing attack, rushing defense and passing defense. Texas could beat SC, but it would take McCoy having a near perfect day against a kind of speedy and ferocious defense he hasn't seen.

The only team I would favor over SC is Florida. Not that I don't think OU or UT couldn't play with SC, but it would be tough.

 

This is overblown. Half of the seats are saved for the other team so no matter where it is played it isn't much of a home advantage--nothing like a regular season game. Further, Texas beat SC in the Rose Bowl for their BCS championship, and SC obliterated OU for their lone BCS championship as far away as it could possibly be (Miami).

The only part of the statement I agree with is SC regularly gets to play Big 11 schools that just can't match up speed wise (though in the last 3 games between Texas and tOSU it is hard to say Texas is overwhelmingly more athletic, they have looked pretty even). The amazing thing is SC hasn't had to play top notch SEC teams, the better Florida, LSU or Auburn squads. The only really really fast defense they have played during a long stretch is their own and Texas's a couple of years ago (consider all 5 of that Texas teams' DBs started games in the pros this year).

 

This isn't quite right - that ranking is one that ONLY considers scoring margin and ignores entirely wins and losses. When you combine it all into what Sagarin actually believes is the true ranking that accounts for both wins & losses and margin of victory, he ends up with:

OU
Texas
Florida
Tech
USC

 

The one you report is merely the average of pure points or predictor, and the wins and losses x strength of schedule component.

He seems to me to be arguing pure points or predictor, the one I cited before, is the best indicator of how good the team and what he would base points spreads and such on. "PURE POINTS is also known as PREDICTOR....and is the best single PREDICTOR of future games"

 

Yeah, okay, so despite the fact that they could not stop Quizz Rodgers when it was blatantly obvious he was going to be handed the ball over and over (37 carries), and their offense was not able to do anything until a couple of drives in the second half (this being to a team that gave up 65 points to Oregon), we're just supposed to forget about that and hail them as the best team in the country again?

Everyone plays bad at some point and I've seen Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, etc. at their worst, but none of those teams played nearly as poorly as SC did in that game. And of course it is just one game, but when there are so many teams with one loss beating their chests about how great they are you have to go back and look at the manner in which they lost and, in that regard, SC was the least impressive.