NCAA Football '11-'12

[MadBurgerMaker]

Now see, this is nice;  it's a Monday, but still a holiday, so we get buried in the beauty of college football.  Squee.

Only annoying thing is the traffic jam at 1pm, with three great games at once.

Hopefully Houston will be up by 70 or 80 on Penn State by the time the Gator, Capital One, and Outback bowls start, if only to cut down on the channel flipping workload.

[CountDeMoney]

if only to cut down on the channel flipping workload.

10 years ago, I could stack the televisions.  No more terrestrial broadcasting.  Stupid modern technology.

[MadBurgerMaker]

10 years ago, I could stack the televisions.  No more terrestrial broadcasting.  Stupid modern technology.

Something like Sunday Ticket's game selection channel would be the shit on one of those huge Panasonic (I think) TVs.  The TVs with that "big head" commercial.

Or a projector, but I don't have a suitable room for one of those.  Too bright.

Edit: Sharp?  They're like 80" LEDs.

[dps]

Only annoying thing is the traffic jam at 1pm, with three great games at once. 

Well, 2 anyway.  The Gator Bowl has 2 great names, but they're hardly great teams this year.  Though it still could be a good game--they seem pretty evenly matched--I can't really get excited about a match-up of 2 6-6 teams.

Figure I'll start out with the Outback Bowl.

[Eddie Teach]

Only annoying thing is the traffic jam at 1pm, with three great games at once.

And all of them are SEC East vs. Big 10. I'd have liked to see the SC and Florida games. 

[MadBurgerMaker]

Leeched from ShaggyBevo: Pedobear is in attendance at the Houston - Penn State game.



The Coogs are up 17-0 and driving right now.

E:  Whoa the kicker hit the upright pretty much dead on.  Would have been a helluva kick if...you know...it was a good thing to bounce them off the upright.

[Ed Anger]

 

[Ed Anger]

Ohio State is doomed.

[dps]

Wonder if the Big 10 will go 0-for-5 again.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Michigan has an excellent record against the SEC (20-6-1).  I'm not convinced that the SEC overall is any bigger, stronger, or faster than, say, the B10, Pac12, or B12.  Their top teams have been very impressive in the last decade, but USC was as dominant for as long as the top SEC teams, and didn't take JuCo transfers or over-sign recruits.

"And didn't take JuCo transfers or over-sign recruits." The average SEC fan sees no nobility in that, the only thing that matters to them is winning. The fact that you would even say that like it made USC's achievement more honorable shows you are out of touch with the red necks of the SEC, to them anything that isn't maximizing your chance to win isn't noble at all. I'm actually a little shocked the conference passed rules to limit oversigning; I don't know if schools like Miss. State/Kentucky/Vandy were doing it, but Alabama and LSU have essentially made it their trademark.

I suspect maybe Florida opposed it as they are one of the few SEC schools that seems to have any interest in propriety whatsoever.

That article summed up a lot of the reasons I think the SEC has become the dominant conference. The demographic argument is legitimate, and is supported by some statistics in the article. Are the fastest and strongest players in the Big 10 slower and weaker than the best in the SEC? I doubt it, but with the SEC generating more NFL talent per population unit than Big 10 country it is hard to deny there is a demographic advantage in the deep south.

The SEC is in the growing sunbelt and especially has a large population of blacks, who tend to reproduce rapidly and have a population weighted more to younger age groups. The rust belt is in stagnation and tends towards an older population, as many of the people who haven't left the rust belt are retired and thus don't need to move to get a job.

I don't think a conference championship in and of itself intrinsically helped the SEC, I think the business deal behind the SEC's championship helped the SEC. The SEC I think did a much better job of making money off of their conference championship game than the ACC has. Of course, the ACC is also plagued by a lack of competitiveness and programs that generally don't have strong fan bases. In the ACC you have Virginia Tech, Clemson, and Florida State that have strong fanbases. Of those schools, since the ACC went to a divisional format with a championship game only VT has been consistently good.

FSU and Miami being terrible has truly ruined the ACC's product. And then when you have really mediocre Wake Forest or Georgia Tech like schools winning the conference on occasion it just makes the whole league look bad. The SEC has some weak schools, but I think something that helps them is aside from Vanderbilt every SEC school turns out serious football attendance. In the ACC aside from literally Virginia Tech, Clemson, and FSU none of the schools take their football very seriously.

The SEC making a lot of money certainly helps them buy the best coaches, but Ohio state, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn State are all in the top 10 of AD revenues; so there is really no reason aside from cultural ones those schools don't have $5m/year coaches. I don't know if it's still the case after the recent changes at OSU and Michigan, but I know just a few years ago Kirk Ferentz was the highest paid coach in the Big 10, which makes little sense that a school like Iowa is paying more than any of the four I've already named (especially more than Michigan and OSU.)

Of course this is all just chatting about the little stuff while ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The real reason the SEC has been so dominant is the SEC has extremely high levels of institutional expertise at cheating. The SEC has boosters that are so deeply involved in the program, to the point of buying players and such, that I think the whole Cam Newton thing was literally just the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, even when they caught Auburn red handed note that Auburn didn't receive any penalties whatsoever, because as the saying goes, in the SEC "cheating is an art form." It's really telling that a school like LSU has received virtually no meaningful NCAA infractions at all in the past decade, but Michigan got sanctioned for a piddling practice time violation and OSU players got caught selling memorabilia for a few thousand dollars in benefits. At Auburn you have big money deals going on that result in no penalties whatsoever.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Houston has only run the ball 7 times (they just had two runs in a row) for 40 yards or so.  Keenum is 35/51 443yds 3td 0int passing though.  Well it's more now, they're running plays so fast I can't keep up. 

For comparison, PSU has 266 yards total if you want to count kick and punt returns. 

E:  Hey the PSU QB got his third completion: A 63 yard TD    And...like a minute later, Houston has run 6 plays and is inside the PSU 15.   

[Valmy]

Man, back in the day, Miami was so good. They could have beaten some NFL teams.

I remember when they beat Arizona 8-7.  Ah Desert Swarm.

[Ed Anger]

Ohio State's offense couldn't beat a Special Olympics football team. Pfft.

Fickell, you suck.

[MadImmortalMan]

Well, 2 anyway.  The Gator Bowl has 2 great names, but they're hardly great teams this year.  Though it still could be a good game--they seem pretty evenly matched--I can't really get excited about a match-up of 2 6-6 teams.

Figure I'll start out with the Outback Bowl.

It's amateur hour out there. I turned over to watch Michigan state instead.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Sparty had a nice drive at the end of the game, but damn that was a bad pick in OT.  Saved, for the moment at least, by shitty kicking.

Oooooohhhhhh Sparty wins with the block!