Incredible. USC, the number 2 team in the country, on track to play for a natinal title, kicks ass yesterday. Then, the only team ahead of them gets whipped and they become th e consensus number 1. Their reward for moving up in the polls? Get screwed out of a shot at the national title. Incredible.
I suppose you're right. They'll just have to be content with half of the national championship if they win.
Beating a damn good Michigan team would definitely be a great end to the season. Sure is better than losing to Oklahoma....
Should've beaten big ole' Cal U if they didn't want to be 'screwed'. Yup. Once you lose a game, you have no right to argue you deserved the national title game. Carroll agrees: <I> Carroll acknowledged his disappointment, then explained it away. "We lost a darn game," he said, standing amid the detritus of a postgame locker room. On Sept. 27, USC lost at California, 34-31, in triple overtime. "If we hadn't lost a game, we'd be already in. We left the door open for some issue. That's why I've been able to handle this. I've felt like that the whole way through. I'm still pissed we lost a game." </I>
It's kinda funny. Because you know what the computer does. It treats everyone fairly rather than let in some human bias that distorts everything. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Pick the best two teams. Here's one of the computer rankings (NYT): 1. USC 2. LSU 3. Michigan 4. Texas 5. OU 6. Kansas State I'm not sure I would necessarily refer to the computers as all that bright. Unbiased, yeah. But a random ranking would be unbiased too - it wouldn't be good though. 1 computer had Miami of Ohio as #3, 2 more had them ranked #4. Another had them #22. Texas is ranked anywhere between 4th and 10th by the computers. Take out the Massey poll, and I believe USC makes it instead of LSU. Given that the computer polls were just picked randomly (more or less), I'm not sure you can say the computers clearly picked the best two teams in the country.
First of all, it's the University of California. There have been a few snide comments about losing to Cal in this thread, but try to remember that Cal was pretty damn good this year. (And yes, it's my alma mater.) Cal won 7 games this year (four were blowouts and the Stanfurd game wasn't as close as the final score), and dropped 50 points twice in the last four weeks. Three losses came in the last minute of the game -- including one at Utah, a team that finished the season ranked 25th. So Cal could have easily won 10 games.
Damn no edit function. Anyway, Cal's also beaten USC 5 of the past 7 years, so the win wasn't that big of a fluke. Look, the Pac-10 was down this year (Cal doesn't pile up 700 yards on Washington in other years), and I'm not saying that Cal is one of the top teams in the country or anything. USC should have beaten Cal, and if USC wins that game they're playing for the title. But get your facts straight before assuming USC isn't in the title game because they didn't beat a cupcake. Cal was no cupcake this year (as the Hokies are about to find out.)
No. IMO, a mediocre team wins a few, loses a few and doesn't go to a bowl game. Cal has a winning record, is going to a bowl, blew out some decent teams, and is literally a few bounces away from being 10-3 overall and 7-1 in the Pac 10. Cal's a good team -- not a great one, but not just mediocre. Now, compared to an elite program like OU (which I'm guessing is your team based on your sig), Cal and every school except maybe 10 in America is "mediocre." But for those of us who have suffered through true mediocre seasons and some really awful ones, a winning record in a major conference and a bowl game is more than mediocre. I'm not trying to derail this thread, but I've heard more than my share of "If USC couldn't even beat Cal they don't deserve to play for the championship" this past weekend, and I had to defend my boys.
