BG Bowl Pick Em

[Mizango]

best game i have ever seen in my life. more exciting than that UT/USC game because of the trick plays. I can't believe I picked OU for the win >.>

I think in a way we all did. BSU is a very very good team and everyone knows that but I am with you on leaning towards OU in the game itself. Great game.

[LAGUNA]

So damn happy for my USC and BSU picks lol

[Avvesione]

Playoff prz.

I remember Michigan was the big supporter for a playoff system this year... and how they deserved to be in the national championship game with OSU...

That's the sweetest victory this year (for me at least)

[Gregorio]

The WAC and big east are owning the bowl series' games. Only loss between the 2 conferences was a one point loss to miami. Playoff prz.

Let's not be silly here. Yeah the conferences are winning their bowl games...but aside from Boise look who they're playing.

Hawaii W vs. Arizona State who's only decent win is Nevada
San Jose W vs. New Mexico...a team who's middle of the pack in the MWC.
Rutgers W vs. a crappy Kansas State team
WVU W vs. a mediocre GT team without their starting QB
S. Florida W vs. East Carolina...who?


Rutgers and WVU are the onle ones with a respectable win. Louisville should beat Wake...but lots of people should beat Wake. The Big East is decent, which is more than I can say about the WAC though.

[Tyche]

The WAC and big east are owning the bowl series' games. Only loss between the 2 conferences was a one point loss to miami. Playoff prz.

Let's not be silly here. Yeah the conferences are winning their bowl games...but aside from Boise look who they're playing.

Hawaii W vs. Arizona State who's only decent win is Nevada
San Jose W vs. New Mexico...a team who's middle of the pack in the MWC.
Rutgers W vs. a crappy Kansas State team
WVU W vs. a mediocre GT team without their starting QB
S. Florida W vs. East Carolina...who?


Rutgers and WVU are the onle ones with a respectable win. Louisville should beat Wake...but lots of people should beat Wake. The Big East is decent, which is more than I can say about the WAC though.

Is this ignoring the point that the decemeber bowl games are ALL "mediocre" teams. WAC and Big East teams that the media dub as unworthy are winning against whom they are put up against, it isn't like they can control who the play in the bowl games. They are winning with the cards they are handed. Whether you want to believe it or not, college football has a certian degree of parity. Nothing like college basketball, i'll give you that much, but don't dismiss the fact that some of these teams cannot knock off some of the big boys. Take off your "tradition" sunglasses, they are blinding you.

[Gregorio]

Is this ignoring the point that the decemeber bowl games are ALL "mediocre" teams. WAC and Big East teams that the media dub as unworthy are winning against whom they are put up against, it isn't like they can control who the play in the bowl games. They are winning with the cards they are handed. Whether you want to believe it or not, college football has a certian degree of parity. Nothing like college basketball, i'll give you that much, but don't dismiss the fact that some of these teams cannot knock off some of the big boys. Take off your "tradition" sunglasses, they are blinding you.

I wouldn't say they don't control who they play in bowl games. If one or two of the Big East teams didn't shit the bed in a couple of their games they could very well have been in the national championship now. Boise had a terribly weak schedule and still made a BCS game. Basically any D1A team is very much in charge of their own dcestiny for the most part.

And although they don't have any direct control who they play in bowl games, they do control what conference they are in, and who they schedule and/or beat during the regular season. While many schools which are in lesser conferences and unwilling to move seem like they're out of luck, they CAN schedule big time OOC games. If Boise had scheduled a better OOC schedule and ran the table with it, then maybe they could have made a better argument for a national championship shot or even the playoffs.

And if you think about it, Boise may not have even been invited to a playoff spot. Ignoring what we know about them now (that they beat OU), could you put them in a playoff spot just because they ran the table with a schedule that basically anyone in the top 20 could do the same?

Yes some of these teams can knock off the "big boys", but they are few and far between. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a playoff totally, I just think it'd be basically the same situation with mid-major schools not getting in because their competition is so weak. My "tradition" sunglasses aren't blinding me, my "reality" ones are. The big boys are the big boys for a reason.

[Akiyama]

Bah. In my opinion, there will always be big boys, but those big boys can make mistakes just like any team and when they do, the underdogs take advantage. Just look at BSU for example.. and even Kentucky. Everyone in our league just about picked Clemson, and lol @ that. x.x In the NFL, there is no real underdog.. any team can win. I feel that way about College. You make mistakes, you lose. Plain as that.

[Tyche]

You do realize that you schedule college football games up to three and four years in advance. Some schools even have obligations to play a certain OOC school. eg (louisville vs KY). Some of these programs were not big boy programs when they made the schedule either, so we have these 2 year old schedules made when the team was shitty being played by a really good program. Boise state (who've been a good team for a few years) did beat a really good hawaii team, and TROUNCED oregon state. Oregon state beat..umm...USC? These schools don't have a rich tradition so when they have down years (rutgers) they schedule weaker teams to build up recruiting. They get good, and they people complain about conference schedule. Why people think an 8 team playoff would dillute the regular season boggles me. Why is the NFL the fastest growing sport in america? Face it, mid american schools can and have been going toe to toe with the big boys. WVU over Georgia (last year), Boise state over Oklahoma. I'll agree however, scheduling is problematic for the reason i listed, as well as some of the tougher conferences getting the shaft. If a team is truly great though, they'll break into the top 10. Don't play like running through boise's schedule even in the WAC is an easy task either, USC couldnt have done it.

[Akiyama]

I do laugh everytime someone brings up the fact that Team A lost to Team B while Team C owned Team B therefore Team C should beat Team A. (If I lost anyone, woops.)

Basically I'm saying just because USC lost to Oregon State and Hawaii beat Oregon State, do you think that automatically means Hawaii could crush USC? If so, that means they could crush Michigan too and Arkansas and so forth. I find that laughable. Any given day, any given team can win.

Edit: Also, it was Auburn's lack of schedule in some areas of 04 that caused them to miss a National Championship. That's one reason people think a Plus One system or a playoff system would solve some issues. Admit it. It'd be great to see Williams/Brown/Cambell up against that USC defense and vice versa with USC's offense and Auburns defense. That'll never happen though and that's one great game we can never see, only play out in your college football video games.

Do I think Boise State could run the tables in the SEC? No, not really. It's tough to run the tables in the SEC. Why do you think hardly any teams other than Auburn in 04 lately finished undefeated? SEC teams beat themselves. Arkansas did get crushed by USC, but everyone agrees that was a totally different Arkansas team then. I live in Alabama, but don't think SEC is the shit though. It's just tough to predict things because as I said, any given day any given team can win.

[Byrd]

Basically I'm saying just because USC lost to Oregon State and Hawaii beat Oregon State.

Ahem. As Oregon State's representative on the BG forums, I would like to point out that Oregon State beat Hawaii, and got their asses handed to them by Boise State.

[Gregorio]

You do realize that you schedule college football games up to three and four years in advance. Some schools even have obligations to play a certain OOC school. eg (louisville vs KY). Some of these programs were not big boy programs when they made the schedule either, so we have these 2 year old schedules made when the team was shitty being played by a really good program. Boise state (who've been a good team for a few years) did beat a really good hawaii team, and TROUNCED oregon state. Oregon state beat..umm...USC? These schools don't have a rich tradition so when they have down years (rutgers) they schedule weaker teams to build up recruiting. They get good, and they people complain about conference schedule. Why people think an 8 team playoff would dillute the regular season boggles me. Why is the NFL the fastest growing sport in america? Face it, mid american schools can and have been going toe to toe with the big boys. WVU over Georgia (last year), Boise state over Oklahoma. I'll agree however, scheduling is problematic for the reason i listed, as well as some of the tougher conferences getting the shaft. If a team is truly great though, they'll break into the top 10. Don't play like running through boise's schedule even in the WAC is an easy task either, USC couldnt have done it.

Yes, I realize teams schedule certain games years in advance. But there's usually room for teams to drop out and get put in for a long time before the season starts, so it's not impossible to schedule some good games. It happens almost every year...a certain team drops another and they have to switch around the schedule and play someone else.

And yes, Boise beat Hawaii and Oregon State...but I wouldn't go so far as to call Hawaii a really good team. They're okay. They lost to a terrible bama team and even had trouble vs. Purdue, who's been bordering as a Big 10 bottom feeder as of late. And do you really think Oregon State is a better team than USC because they caught USC sleepin? I just realized something... USC lost to Oregon State, and Oregon State lost to Cal, but Cal lost to USC. This clearly means that USC could beat USC. Also, Oregon State lost to Washington State, who lost to Auburn, who lost to Arkansas, who lost to Wisconsin, who lost to Michigan. Michigan is clearly better than USC. Yeah it's an exaggeration, but common opponents arugment is BS.

And the Big East is not considered a mid-major conference. People say that it's one of the weaker conferences of the major ones, but it's not in the same league as the WAC, Sunbelt, Conference USA, whatever. With an 8 team playoff, Boise wouldn't be included anyway.

This is Boise's schedule and their records (pre bowl games)
Sac St (4-7)
Oregon St (9-4)
Wyoming (6-6)
Hawaii (10-3)
Utah (7-5)
La Tech (3-11)
New Mexico St (4-8 )
Idaho (4-8 )
Fresno St (4-8 )
San Jose St (8-4)
Utah St (1-11)
Nevada (8-4)

No ranked teams played...best win was over Oregon State who, aside from beating USC, did nothing really impressive this year. Pre-bowl game, could you really vote them into the top 8 based on this schedule?

[Anyway]

Roflmao. I totally called like 6 pages ago that I'd come in 2nd. 2nd in BG fantasy football, 2nd in BG Bowl. Not bad I guess.

[Makaveli]

After looking at what people picked that are behind me... im pretty sure i wrapped this up, shit is mostly luck though with the points.

[Akiyama]

68-79 overall Schedule record isn't exactly hot stuff.. I'll pick Florida, Ohio State and Auburn as examples.

Auburns schedule: 87-65 .. and they finished with 2 losses, granted both losses were really bad losses.

Florida: 108-64 which is fucking amazing for a schedule. Basically all but 3 teams they faced went to bowl games. Faced almost all of the SEC which is a tough gauntlet to go through and have your only loss coming to a controversal fumble that turned the game in Auburn's favor.

Ohio State: 87-76 which isn't as impressive as one would think. Granted, all 3 teams in comparison aren't in the same type of scheduling as Boise State, but a record is a record.

I bet if you put Auburn, Ohio State and Florida all in Boise's position, they'd run the table as well, but with Ohio State doing what they did in their conferance and Florida doing what they did in the SEC, you've got to show some respect. Being undefeated is a great accomplishment. Then again, we'll never know how a team like Florda would do against a 68-79 overall record worth of schedule, who knows. Scheduling is what supposedly kept Auburn out of the National Title game against USC in 2004, which I called BS on, but meh. Opinions are just that, only opinions. Worrying if "Oh no, are schedule isn't hard enough, and if we make it too hard we may lose more games and I may get fired" mentality is something I feel goes on sometimes. Anyway as it stands, our national title game is Ohio State vs Florida. Not Ohio State and Michigan, not Ohio State and USC, but Ohio State vs Florida. Deal with it. It may surprise you as I think it'll be a rather good game.


Edit: Grats Makaveli on basically wrapping it up. I may end up 5th at the end, but eh. Who knows. Sleeping through my first couple picks up top where I didn't even finish picking is what kinda screwed me. x.x

[Tyche]

68-79 overall Schedule record isn't exactly hot stuff.. I'll pick Florida, Ohio State and Auburn as examples.

Auburns schedule: 87-65 .. and they finished with 2 losses, granted both losses were really bad losses.

Florida: 108-64 which is fucking amazing for a schedule. Basically all but 3 teams they faced went to bowl games. Faced almost all of the SEC which is a tough gauntlet to go through and have your only loss coming to a controversal fumble that turned the game in Auburn's favor.

Ohio State: 87-76 which isn't as impressive as one would think. Granted, all 3 teams in comparison aren't in the same type of scheduling as Boise State, but a record is a record.

I bet if you put Auburn, Ohio State and Florida all in Boise's position, they'd run the table as well, but with Ohio State doing what they did in their conferance and Florida doing what they did in the SEC, you've got to show some respect. Being undefeated is a great accomplishment. Then again, we'll never know how a team like Florda would do against a 68-79 overall record worth of schedule, who knows. Scheduling is what supposedly kept Auburn out of the National Title game against USC in 2004, which I called BS on, but meh. Opinions are just that, only opinions. Worrying if "Oh no, are schedule isn't hard enough, and if we make it too hard we may lose more games and I may get fired" mentality is something I feel goes on sometimes. Anyway as it stands, our national title game is Ohio State vs Florida. Not Ohio State and Michigan, not Ohio State and USC, but Ohio State vs Florida. Deal with it. It may surprise you as I think it'll be a rather good game.


Edit: Grats Makaveli on basically wrapping it up. I may end up 5th at the end, but eh. Who knows. Sleeping through my first couple picks up top where I didn't even finish picking is what kinda screwed me. x.x

What did Ohio state do lol? They ran the table is an incredibly weak big ten conference. Their big win was against an excessively overrated michigan team whose big win was against...Notre dame lol. They did beat a texas team who turned out to be not real good and starting a red shirt freshman in his second game. That was a stupidly easy schedule that probably more schools you can count on one hand could have ran through. If one of the mid major teams would have ran through a schedule that easy, do you honestly think they would be the unanimous #1?

[octopus]

Wait a minute... are you saying Ohio State is not deserving of a #1 ranking?

The Big Ten is incredibly weak? I'll give you that the bottom of the conference sucks, but Penn State did beat Tennessee, and Wisconsin did beat Arkansas the other day, and Ohio State did beat Penn State and Michigan beat them both.

Edit: Talking about a weak conference... how about the Big 12?
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 3c6bb.html

lol

[Insanecyclone]

Well well..Saban actually accepted the Alabama offer. I dont like him anyways and I didn't care if he even did accept it but I'll bet he'll just leave alabama 2years later like he did LSU and now miami and since mal moore is paying him 4m a month or w/e I just think he's doing it in for the money. Either way lets see how this bullshit will go .

[Byrd]

Face it, mid american schools can and have been going toe to toe with the big boys. WVU over Georgia (last year), Boise state over Oklahoma.

I don't get why you would lump West Virginia in with Boise State, West Virginia's played in the Big East since it was formed as a football conference, wasn't it? And played for a national title in the 90's?

And yes, Boise beat Hawaii and Oregon State...but I wouldn't go so far as to call Hawaii a really good team. They're okay.
They lost to a terrible bama team and even had trouble vs. Purdue, who's been bordering as a Big 10 bottom feeder as of late.

Hawaii is a good team at home, mediocre on the road. Hawaii lost road games this year to Alabama and Boise St, and a home game to Oregon State. I don't get why you would consider Bama horrible, and Purdue finished fifth in the Big 10, and has played in a bowl game nine of the last ten years. Not exactly what I would call a bottom feeder. Not in the top tier, especially considering they didn't play UM or OSU, but certainly not a bottom feeder.

Pre-bowl game, could you really vote Boise State into the top 8 based on this schedule?

I think any team that goes undefeated in their conference needs to be in a playoff. There is a reason the BCS expanded to 10 teams this year, and that's to throw a bone to the little guy to avoid going to litigation or otherwise getting congress involved. Excluding Boise State from a playoff would cause the same uproar. Right now, a non-BCS school finishing in the top 12 of the BCS standings gives you an automatic berth in the BCS, which should probably be the same criteria were an 8-team playoff to follow. This is a drawback to the playoff system, in that it might actually discourage Boise States to schedule Oregon State (or Georgia from last year), and would sure as hell discourage Georgia and USC from scheduling the Boise States and the Fresno States. An undefeated Boise State playing nobody might get into the playoff, whereas a 1-loss Boise State who lost to USC wouldn't. Playing tough non conference games will help USC get into the national championship game, but they wouldn't need to schedule them to get into an 8-team playoff. Simply winning the Pac-10 and beating up on the Sacramento States of the world would be enough to get in.

What did Ohio state do lol? They ran the table is an incredibly weak big ten conference.

What? Head to head, I would take the Big 10 against any conference in the country except maybe the SEC (and Wisc and Penn State are making me question that). The Big 10 isn't as deep as it normally is, but I don't really see it as being Incredibly Weak -- two top five teams and a top ten team at the end of the year tells me otherwise.

If one of the mid major teams would have ran through a schedule that easy, do you honestly think they would be the unanimous #1?

Absolutely. Beating 8 Big 10 teams and Texas and going undefeated? Any team who did that would be #1, I don't care what conference they are (or aren't) in. (Barring someone from another BCS conference with a higher preseason ranking also being undefeated).

I used to be a huge proponet of the playoff system. Every year, I become less and less so. Not saying I'm opposed (yet), but I see the benefits of the current format more every year. There's far more discussion about college football on message boards like this and on talk radio than for any other sport. You wouldn't see the same level of discussion if there were a playoff, especially if it got bigger than about eight teams.

[Akiyama]

Exactly the way I feel about Ohio State. I wasn't saying by the strength of schedule that Ohio State did no deserve #1. If they had one loss, then it'd be a valid argument between them and Florida, but they went undefeated. No arguments there. Big Ten is a tough tough conferance just like the SEC and each conferance has their strengths. I guarantee Arkansas would have won if their quarterback play was better. With two beasts at HB in Felix Jones and McFadden being triple threats basically, the best thing Wisconsin did was just weather the storm.


Oh yeah, just heard about Nick Saban on Cold Pizza (ESPN 2). He coached LSU from 2000-2004 btw. Either way, that was the longest coaching stand he had (other than 1995-1999 with Michigan State) so I'm interested to see if Alabama is hoping for a one hit wonder here. Coaching these days is just aggrivating with the way colleges just "buy out your contract." Puts less meaning on contracts now.

[Tyche]

Don't give this almighty big ten bullshit. Michigan was overhyped. Their coach just may be one of the worst coaches in their conference, and they consistantly blow the big games. Ohio state, given, is probably leaps and bounds above the rest of that conference. Penn state is still riding last season, which btw, was incredible for 1 reason...they returned like 10 5th year seniors. Now all of them are gone, and they go into the dumps aside from playing a couple of decent games. Their premier QB carried them in those. Wisconsin did extremely well, but look at that schedule, horrible. The big ten isn't great, and Ohio state's schedule wasn't that great either. The ranked teams on their schedule ended up laying some fucking eggs. Iowa ended up with like 7 loses, penn state played well in one game against a decent tennesee (who btw, played 3 bowl teams right before the penn state game, rested much?).

Also, do you not find it funny that you seem to avidly support the BCS system but scoff at the fact i was trying to compare common opponets? Why do you think teams jump other teams in the BCS, someone's "common opponet" will blow some game to a weak ass team, and that drives their SoS down because their "common opponet" blew an easy game.

The reason i bring up the big east, is that because less than 2 months ago, there were 3 teams that could potentially go undefeated and next to NOONE was giving them love for a national championship bid. "Oh the OOC schedule isnt great". They were on the fucking verge of losing a BCS bid as a conference. Well, it turns out, the in coference schedule wasn't easy and louisville tried like hell to schedule tough OOC games. 3-4 years ago, miami and kansas state were really good teams. Now, jump two months ahead and the big east is 4-0 in bowl games and 2 of the teams are becoming juggernauts with 2 of the best coaches in football. One of those teams was a "mid-major" team out of conference USA just 2 years ago. So in two years, they go from mid-major to BCS bowl, and you don't think other mid-majors are capable of that? C'mon.