NCAA Football '11-'12

[Berkut]

Still, I think it's good too. Many of the  quality programs have been trying to schedule big home-and-home sets with good schools in September anyway. This will make it easier.

What is needed is some actual incentive to do so however, especially for the mid-tier programs.

Basketball has the NCAA tourney committee that has a subjective imput that includes quality of play in their consideration, and since it is subjective, everyone knows that a "good loss" early in the year does not really hurt you in basketball. Going out and playing good teams away or on neutral courts in general isn't going to hurt your shot at getting into the tournament, unless you aren't good enough to get in anyway. But it can certainly help you given a so-so conference record.

There really isn't anything similar in football though, except for programs that are in non-BCS conferences, and THEY cannot get good games because nobody wants to play them for the exact same reason - it can only hurt them.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Ash looked pretty decent as well.

I thought he actually looked pretty good, especially with the C basically not blocking (seriously, WTF), and Mike Davis just deciding not to catch at least a couple early passes that hit him in the hands that would have actually made some differences, like the easy one that bounced off of him on 3rd down in the...first Q, I think. 

Ash made some mistakes, of course, but didn't seem to freak out really at all like he did earlier in the year or...you know...like Gilbert.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I'm starting to think I may have made the wrong decision by not going to the Alamo Bowl this year.

[dps]

Big Ten and Pac 12 announce a new scheduling collaboration to increase inter-conference scheduling in all sports http://www.bigten.org/genrel/122811aae.html

This means one inter-conference football game per team per year, starting no later than 2017.  Other sports to pick this up sooner, as scheduling allows, but certainly not within the first year. 

Great, great news.  I loved those inter-conference match-ups in football, even though the home teams had huge advantages.  I have been calling for their return ever since they stopped doing them seven or eight years ago.

I almost don't want to comment on this, because it seems kind of unreal to me in todays college football meta-game for the Pac-12 and Big-10 to do something like this, yet it is *exactly* what I love to see happen.

Does this hurt both conferences chances of putting a team into the title game? Yeah, probably. The SEC has made it clear how the meta-game works - you play nobody OOC, and *certainly* nobody any good away from home. You play as few in conference games as you can get away with, and you ensure that your top couple teams make a BCS bowl and a title game, and everyone gets paid. Rinse and repeat. The regular season only exists to get the best possible ($$$) bowl invites.

This flies directly in the face of all of that, and combined with the Pac-12 staying with their 9 game conference schedule, it is very surprising.

I love it. I love the focus on the regular season, which is where the focus should be in college football IMO. I love the fact that playing tough OOC games better prepares you for a winning in conference record, and IMO that should matter more than anything else, and DOES matter more than anything else for the 9 or 10 teams in each conference who are not going to play for a title whether they play a decent OOC game or not.

Finally, it creates the kind of inter-conference rivalries that are just plain fun. I am looking forward to each year lording the Pac-12 record over the BIg-10, and how that proves how much better we are, or alternatively excusing how our showing was really just a set of unlucky match-ups, and losing 75% of the games this year doesn't really mean anything at all....

It seems the Big 10 and the Pac 12 want to be permanently "behind" the SEC. They aren't following the easy-win-and-get-espn-praise formula.


Still, I think it's good too. Many of the  quality programs have been trying to schedule big home-and-home sets with good schools in September anyway. This will make it easier.

It certainly seems that in recent years, the PAC-10 had done the best job of any of the BCS conferences in actually scheduling tough OOC games.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I'm starting to think I may have made the wrong decision by not going to the Alamo Bowl this year.

Yep.  Wrong decision.  This game is ridiculous.

Then again, you can see everything a lot better on TV.  53 - 49 Baylor at the end of the 3rd. 

[sbr]

Look at Keith Price showing up the Heisman winner.  7 TDs.

[Valmy]

Washington cannot handle Baylor's wide open unpredictable Big 12 attack with their crazy 'Run Terrence Gannaway up the middle' trickeration.  Seriously has Washington never seen a team run the ball before?  They sure act like it.

Of course Baylor has not stopped anybody (except Case McCoy) all year so maybe Washington has their talent level on defense.  If that is the case the Alamo Bowl sure picked a great match up.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Look at Keith Price showing up the Heisman winner.  7 TDs.

Still 2:30 left!  He could make it 8.  Or 9.      Oh shit nevermind fummmmbbbllllleeeee.  Griffin will just hand it off again (40 yard TD).

Why did Washington just burn their last timeout when the clock was stopped?

67 - 56 Final.  479 rushing yards for Baylor.  777 total yards.  617 for UW, with 437 through the air.

[sbr]

I had a feelign that would be a fun game but that was absurd.

[sbr]

If the Ducks don't win the Rose Bowl, which I am not feeling very good about, the Pac-12 is probably going to get shut out this bowl season.

EDIT: Of course I would have posted this before the bowls started.  There are only 2 left to play right?  Oregon and Stanford?

[MadBurgerMaker]

If the Ducks don't win the Rose Bowl, which I am not feeling very good about, the Pac-12 is probably going to get shut out this bowl season.

EDIT: Of course I would have posted this before the bowls started.  There are only 2 left to play right?  Oregon and Stanford?

Three.  Rose, Fiesta, and the bigtime Fight Hunger Bowl.

[Valmy]

Notre Dame ended the 2011 season in exactly the same manner they started it.  They really have to fix that red zone thing.

[sbr]

If the Ducks don't win the Rose Bowl, which I am not feeling very good about, the Pac-12 is probably going to get shut out this bowl season.

EDIT: Of course I would have posted this before the bowls started.  There are only 2 left to play right?  Oregon and Stanford?

Three.  Rose, Fiesta, and the bigtime Fight Hunger Bowl.

I had to look it up to see if the Fight Hunger Bowl was real.

I had forgotten about that game.  Thinking UCLA could beat anyone is a major reach but I heard one guy calling UCLA one of his bowl game locks, taking UCLA and the 2.5 points.  I can't imagine they can win a game and I think Stanford is going to get run out of the stadium in the Fiesta Bowl.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I had to look it up to see if the Fight Hunger Bowl was real.

  No worries.  It pretty much....isn't.

I had forgotten about that game.  Thinking UCLA could beat anyone is a major reach but I heard one guy calling UCLA one of his bowl game locks, taking UCLA and the 2.5 points.  I can't imagine they can win a game and I think Stanford is going to get run out of the stadium in the Fiesta Bowl.

Well, the Illini can't get Zooked anymore, but then again, the Bruins can't get Neuheiseled anymore.  Good matchup?

[dps]

If the Ducks don't win the Rose Bowl, which I am not feeling very good about, the Pac-12 is probably going to get shut out this bowl season.

EDIT: Of course I would have posted this before the bowls started.  There are only 2 left to play right?  Oregon and Stanford?

Three.  Rose, Fiesta, and the bigtime Fight Hunger Bowl.

I had to look it up to see if the Fight Hunger Bowl was real.

I had forgotten about that game.  Thinking UCLA could beat anyone is a major reach but I heard one guy calling UCLA one of his bowl game locks, taking UCLA and the 2.5 points.  I can't imagine they can win a game and I think Stanford is going to get run out of the stadium in the Fiesta Bowl.

You also have Utah (now a Pac-12 member, remember?) against Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl this afternoon.  Utah is certainly capable of beating GT, I think.  Not saying that they will, just that it's not a hopeless mismatch on the face of it.

EDIT:  Sun Bowl is tomorrow afternoon.