NCAA Football, 2014-2015

[alfred russel]

OK, whatever. Thanks for your telling insight, I am glad we have someone around who can state the obvious to everyone.

Any comment on the actual content, or do you limit your contributions to just trolling?

A guy who is apparently paid to be a fanboy of the Pac 12 writes an article about how awesome it is? That isn't trolling, that is what I read.

FWIW, I think the Pac 12 is the second best conference, whatever that means. I'm just not sure what kind of posts you want. The problem the Pac 12 has, imo, is that while there is a ton of talent on the west coast, it tends to be distributed among a lot of teams. There is diminished ability to field the really great teams to win championships, while at the same time the teams that begin to separate themselves have a tough schedule to get through.

[Valmy]

The PAC 12 is like an all-star coaching line up I will say.  I mean geez they have Mike Leach as one of the scrubs.

[Berkut]

OK, whatever. Thanks for your telling insight, I am glad we have someone around who can state the obvious to everyone.

Any comment on the actual content, or do you limit your contributions to just trolling?

A guy who is apparently paid to be a fanboy of the Pac 12 writes an article about how awesome it is? That isn't trolling, that is what I read.

Only an SEC fanboy would typify someone saying another conference is the clear 2nd best is "writing an article about how awesome it is".

And yes, that is most certainly trolling.

FWIW, I think the Pac 12 is the second best conference, whatever that means.

Oh, so you agree with the author? How incredible. I guess you must be a Pac-12 fanboy as well then.

And if you don't know what your own words you are writing mean, perhaps you should write different words that you can understand?

I'm just not sure what kind of posts you want. The problem the Pac 12 has, imo, is that while there is a ton of talent on the west coast, it tends to be distributed among a lot of teams. There is diminished ability to field the really great teams to win championships, while at the same time the teams that begin to separate themselves have a tough schedule to get through.

I think the "problem" with the Pac-12 (and it is only a problem in the context of getting teams into the BCS games, it isn't really a "problem" at all for people who actually care about actual college football itself instead of the meta-game of fanboard trolling about how oh so wonderful their conference is because they game the system better at the expense of actual competition) is exactly as the author stated it - they've elected to create a much more difficult system to work in because they care more about creating parity and good or even great college football rather than using the conference as a vehicle to prop up a few "great" teams at the expense of the rest of the conference.

They are trying to balance that of course, and find a reasonable sweet spot between the system of blatant manipulation and cupcake OOC scheduling and the previous Pac-12 system where it was even worse, but IMO they are actually doing a pretty good job of that.

[Berkut]

The PAC 12 is like an all-star coaching line up I will say.  I mean geez they have Mike Leach as one of the scrubs.

I love that, even if it does mean that we won't get as much BCS love. It is ridiculous how balanced the conference has become in terms of teams top to bottom that you have to prepare very seriously for week to week.

We just need Colorado to get their act together...

[alfred russel]

Berkut, you keep claiming I'm an SEC fan, but I'm an ACC fan. One that can objectively see that the ACC sucks, and the SEC is the best. (with the caveat that there isn't an objective measure to rank conferences)

You keep talking about meta game, blah blah blah, but the fact is the Pac 12 doesn't have much of a case they are getting screwed out of championships by a tough conference schedule. Their top teams haven't posted top results OOC:

2013 Stanford - lost to Michigan State (rose bowl)
2012 Stanford - lost to Notre Dame
2011 Oregon - lost to LSU
2010 Oregon - lost to Auburn (BCS championship)
2009 Oregon - lost to Boise State and Ohio State (rose bowl)
2008 USC - won them all

Before that we start getting into multiple winners, and are well before the Pac 12 championship. 2008 was also before the Pac 12 championship.

[Berkut]

If one were to measure the issue by trolls ability to pick out specific games that conference teams lost, then you would have a great point.

Of course, if you look at overall conference OOC schedules, rather than seeing if you can find any examples where a "top team" lost any game at any point, then of course you see a different picture.

[alfred russel]

If one were to measure the issue by trolls ability to pick out specific games that conference teams lost, then you would have a great point.

Of course, if you look at overall conference OOC schedules, rather than seeing if you can find any examples where a "top team" lost any game at any point, then of course you see a different picture.

What I'm responding to is the previously voiced complaint that the Pac 12 was getting screwed regarding not getting teams in the championship game because of east coast bias/their schedule is too tough/etc.

If you want to argue that the mid tier of the Pac 12 is better than anyone else, fine. But only 2 teams made the BCS championship game. With ~6 power conferences, that generally means each conference either gets 1 representative, or none.

So basically, if the Pac 12 consistently had teams that were among the 5 best in the country, and even 4-5 teams in the top 10, but there were always a couple of teams better...sorry but the Pac 12 doesn't deserve teams in the title game.

I'm not randomly picking teams. I'm picking the champion of the Pac 12. And in every case since 2008, the Pac 12 champ lost an OOC game, which really derails the argument that the Pac 12 had some juggernauts screwed out of championships. You know how many OOC games were lost by actual national champions since 2008? 0.

[Berkut]

That is almost stunning in its myopia.

Pointing out that Stanford, for example, lost to Notre Dame in 2012 doesn't weaken my argument, it weakens yours. Had Stanford, like all teams not in the Pac-12, had a schedule that year that replaced a game against Washington with a game against Cal-State Modesto, they would have had a better record and a better shot at a title game.

Nor is the argument even about whether Standford in 2012 deserved to be in the NC game - they did not, and I don't think anyone argued that they did.

The discussion is around whether or not the Pac-12 SOS, title game, and playing 9 conference games instead of loading up with yet another patsy lame ass team in a fourth OOC game is going to hurt their chances of placing a team into a 4 slot playoff, as it HAS hurt their chances of getting teams into BCS games in the past.

[Berkut]

So basically, if the Pac 12 consistently had teams that were among the 5 best in the country, and even 4-5 teams in the top 10, but there were always a couple of teams better...sorry but the Pac 12 doesn't deserve teams in the title game.

But then is entirely dependent on how you define "better". The issue is that the rankings themselves are biased, and overly weight wins and losses rather than quality of those wins and losses, and hence a conference where every single year the best teams have 1 more tough game is going to get screwed over time.

We are talking about every single team in the conference replacing a game against what is likely a top-25 opponent, or at least top-40, with one against some complete patsy. That is a huge difference over time, and I suspect has resulted in the conference missing out on probably 3 or 4 BCS games in the last decade or so.

Which is fine by me - as a Pac-12 fan, I can live with that inequity in the system if it means I get to watch one more good game a year, rather than watching the teams I care about roll over some sacrificial lamb one more time a year, so they can pad their schedule for the dumbass voters and win the meta-game.

But it would be better for everyone, and college football in general, if the power conferences all adopted the Pac-12 model. It might mean that the vaunted SEC won't get pay outs for two or three BCS bowl games every year, but that would be a small price to pay even for SEC fans...at least those that value actual competitiveness rather than the shallow satisfaction of cheap wins against uninteresting competition. Sadly, I suspect that is a small minority of actual SEC fans, from what I've seen.

[Berkut]

Man, kind of weird reading pre-season team summaries, and seeing something like this:

Best case record: 15-0

15 games...

[alfred russel]

The discussion is around whether or not the Pac-12 SOS, title game, and playing 9 conference games instead of loading up with yet another patsy lame ass team in a fourth OOC game is going to hurt their chances of placing a team into a 4 slot playoff, as it HAS hurt their chances of getting teams into BCS games in the past.

The discussion is between you and me, and that isn't what I'm talking about. Maybe there isn't a discussion at all, but there certainly isn't a discussion on that stuff.

I'm talking about how in the past I've read about, "the Pac 12 is cannabalizing its best teams and losing out on titles with a really tough schedule". The OOC results indicate that isn't the case: the best teams in the Pac 12 don't do that well.

When judging against national title caliber, Notre Dame blew in 2012. We all saw what happened when they played Alabama in the national title game. Now maybe if they didn't play Notre Dame, they would have gotten into the BCS title game. But so long as they didn't draw another shitty team like Notre Dame, they probably would have gotten exposed just like Notre Dame did. Hence why they lost to Notre Dame in the first place.

It also isn't like Stanford had some fierce OOC schedule in 2012 either. San Jose State, Duke, and Notre Dame.

[Berkut]

Except that the best teams in the Pac-12 do in fact do just fine. The fact that they actually lose games against good OOC teams is not evidence that they are not very good, it is evidence that they are willing to play tough OOC schedules, and the Pac-12 has by far the toughest OOC schedule by percentage of quality teams they play (which should be obvious since they only play 3 OOC games each year, instead of 4). All the major programs have basically the same OOC fomula - 1 game against another BCS level school, 2 patsy, and 1 mid-tier. The Pac-12 and Big-12 replace a patsy with a conference game, which of course by definition is most likely NOT a patsy if you are in a good conference.

I suppose this all goes back to what you find important - is the purpose of a conference to figure out how to anoint a couple uber teams to rake in a gigantic pile of cash playing weak schedules to ensure a high ranking and a payday for the conference?

Or is it to promote quality football and competitiveness *within* the conference, with the outcome of the post-season left as a secondary importance?

And

[Valmy]

Texas' best record would only be 14-0

But Texas will probably have at least three top ten teams on their schedule so....yeah.

[alfred russel]

It isn't a case of whether the Pac 12 does well, it is a case of whether the best team in the Pac 12 can post a strong case to be the best in the country. You pulled out 2012 as an example, and in 1 of the 2 competitively scheduled OOC games (1 of which was a bowl) Stanford lost to Notre Dame.

[Berkut]

I did not pull them as an example - you did. Of course you did, because it was a year where the champion lost a OOC game, they very definition of cherry picking.