NCAA Bowl Games

Dr. Giganto

Despite my general lack of interest in college football, and my hatred of the bowl system, I entered into a bowl pool at work. It was like 50 people at 10 bucks each. Winner gets 400, second place gets like 100.

I added up everybody's scores, and it turns out that if Auburn (-6.5) and USC (-3) both cover, then I win the pool. I will now watch the remaining two bowl games closely

As for the games themselves, I watched the Rose Bowl, and my Michigan Wolverines went down, again. This time, it was on a last second field goal by Texas to win 38-37. That sucked.

Randy Orton

WC's Resident Alchoholic

college football is garbage.

Disco Raheem

Can someone explain how the bowl system works? All USA sports seem to run really complicated, with different divisions and all sorts of weird shit. Here in all 3 codes of football played, all the teams just play every other team over and over through the season, and the top 8 make the finals. From there it's a matter of loser gets eliminated (well, bottom 2 placed losers go the first week, and top 2 placed winners get a bye the next week) until 2 teams play in the grand final.

Simple. Logical.

Freak

Aw man, how can you say that? I watched the LSU/Iowa game the other day, the one that ended on a 60-yard touchdown pass... and the TEX/MICH game D mentioned, coming down to the last play with a 6'6 QB running for 193 yards and 4 TDs on 21 carries. I love it.

And Disco, I wish I could help you.

Dr. Giganto

College football is the most illogical system ever created in the history of sports.

I'll try to give a quick rundown. I hope you can understand. If not, its not your fault, its just too stupid and illogical for anyone who hasnt been immersed in it their entire life to truly understand.

I dont know the origins of the college bowl system, but decades ago they started playing games between the top teams in the country and calling them "Bowl" games. They never really meant anything except for bragging rights.

Also, all the college teams are split into conferences. Remember that there are thousands of colleges in the U.S., so it would be impossible for everybody to just play each other. So, they split them up into divisions (1-A, 1-AA, II, and III), and then further break them down into conferences. Most of them are pretty minor, but there are a few major conferences that the powerhouse schools are in. Generally, the bowl games used to match the top team in one conference against the top team in another, or the second-best in one conference against the second-best in another conference. For instance, the Rose Bowl was always the team with the best record in the Big Ten conference (a group of schools in the Northern midwest) versus the team with the best record in the Pacific 10 (PAC-10) conference (a group of schools on the West Coast).

The national champion was decided based on a poll of national sportswriters. This, obviously, was a problem for many reasons. Also, the bowl match-ups were set according to conferences, so it was possible that the #1 team in the polls would play a not-so-great team in its bowl game, but the #2 team would play the #3 team, and if they both won, the #1 team would still be named the champion even though they defeated an inferior team in their bowl game. Basically, it came down to this: If the #1 ranked team going into the bowls won its bowl game, it would win the national championship. If they lost, another team would take. It didnt always work out exactly that way, but close enough. So, basically, most of the bowl games meant nothing, except for the right to say "Yay, we won the KYN Bowl!!!"

If this all sounds stupid, its because it is. Its really really stupid. The reason why they kept these bowl games is because each game is sponsored by a large company (tonights game is the FedEx Orange Bowl, last nights was the Nokia Sugar Bowl), and the NCAA recieves a ton of money from the sponsors. Some people will say that its "tradition" but its really just about money

So, a few years ago, they decided to create a thing called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The BCS determines the top team in the country by taking into account sportswriters polls, coaches polls, strength of schedule, and a couple of other factors.

Also, they decided that one Bowl game a year will have the #1 team against the #2 team, and that will be considered the "Championship game"

The only problem is that its not always clear-cut who the top 2 teams are. Last year, there were three teams with 12-1 records, but only two of them got to play for the national championship. This year, there were 5 undefeated going into the bowl games, and there will be at least 3 undefeated teams after tonights "Championship game", but only one of them will be considered the Champion

And still theres only game that actually matters, and the other 27 are just fluff.

On a side note, I got absolutely fucked by Virginia Tech last night. They scored two late TDs against Auburn, which caused Auburn to not cover the spread. If USC wins by more than 3 tonight, I will finish tied for second and will split 100 bucks. But if Auburn didnt give up that late 80-yard TD, i would have been in line for 400 bucks. Fucking Auburn DBs...

Narc

I dont concur. fo sho!

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

55-19

What a competitive game.

Pete Carroll rocks college football.

Blitzkrieg

Everthing D said was true about the NCAA and I totally agree.


Is USC the best? probably.

But that doesn't cut it for me. How about seeing what Auburn can really do?

How bout giving Utah a worthy opponent instead of the weak ass big east champ?

It would all be nice, but I'm starting to feel like it will never happen so fuck it.