All Things SkunkBear

[ACamp1900]

He's not wrong. With their schedule it would be conceivable that they win the B1G. They probably won't, but they could.

EDIT: This is a fine opportunity for me to reiterate how much I hate the playoff. A B1G team that suffers an early blowout loss but then runs the table in conference play should have the opportunity to cap their season off with a trip to Pasadena. No such luck with the Rose Bowl serving as a semifinal game. We now have a system where anything less than "playoff" is seen as a failure, and that feeling will grow when the tournament is inevitably expanded to 8 teams.

This man.

He knows.

 

[ACamp1900]

If we are true ND fans, we don't allow short-sighted hatred obfuscate the clear outcome we should root for:

They need to win enough games to be slightly improved from last year. 8 wins would be great, because they'll keep Hoke and continue talk about rebuilding. Originally, I'd have wished 0-12 but Saturday night clued me in to how outmatched Hoke is, in comparison to Kelly.

I would love to see them win the BIG... I'm definately not expecting it... but it's not impossible and it would help retain Hoke and, most of all, help our resume.

 

[gkIrish]

He's not wrong. With their schedule it would be conceivable that they win the B1G. They probably won't, but they could.

EDIT: This is a fine opportunity for me to reiterate how much I hate the playoff. A B1G team that suffers an early blowout loss but then runs the table in conference play should have the opportunity to cap their season off with a trip to Pasadena. No such luck with the Rose Bowl serving as a semifinal game. We now have a system where anything less than "playoff" is seen as a failure, and that feeling will grow when the tournament is inevitably expanded to 8 teams.

Wait...why should the Big Ten champ be rewarded by playing in the Rose Bowl if they aren't one of the top 4 teams? Because that's how it has always been? Please....

 

[connor_in]

A) With their schedule, how could U of M help our SOS?

2) If they do have a nine win season, and beat OSU, they may get Hoke back; that is more apropos than the gift that keeps on giving . . .

I gotta agree. I don't think they win the B1G. Even tho Sparty lost to Oregon, I don't think they'll lose to Brady's Boyz. Now, I think Brady could get past pOSU possibly if scUM is up for it and pOSU plays like the last couple of weeks but I don't think I would put cash money on it.

Oh, and Hoke will stay if he runs te table and may stay if he beats pOSU and not Sparty, but if loses to pOSU and Sparty...buh bye

 

[ResLife Hero]

Wait...why should the Big Ten champ be rewarded by playing in the Rose Bowl if they aren't one of the top 4 teams? Because that's how it has always been? Please....

I actually liked the traditional conference ties. Led to a lot of historical "grudge match" meetings in the bowls.

 

[gkIrish]

I actually liked the traditional conference ties. Led to a lot of historical "grudge match" meetings in the bowls.

I don't really agree. I never get the sense that the Big 10 hates the Pac 12. If anything, the Big 10 hates the SEC more than any other conference.

The Rose Bowl is all about the venue, the parade, and 2 great teams playing each other. If the Big 10 isn't fielding great teams anymore, screw 'em.

 

[RDU Irish]

so they play pOSU and MSU, they win one and hope the other teams lose more than them. Easily be a year that has two 6-2 conference records facing off in the title game.

 

[Buster Bluth]

I never get the sense that the Big 10 hates the Pac 12. If anything, the Big 10 hates the SEC more than any other conference.

+1.

 

[Emcee77]

I don't really agree. I never get the sense that the Big 10 hates the Pac 12. If anything, the Big 10 hates the SEC more than any other conference.

The Rose Bowl is all about the venue, the parade, and 2 great teams playing each other. If the Big 10 isn't fielding great teams anymore, screw 'em.

I agree with the first part of your post, but not the bolded. I think Pac-10/Big-10 was an essential aspect of the bowl. The Rose Bowl pitted teams from two totally distinct, non-overlapping regions of the country against each other, both of which have great football tradition, and that was one of the things I always liked about it. I never liked that the BCS watered down that aspect of the game, and now that the Midwest/West Coast dynamic is totally gone I am really sad. Excited about the playoffs, but sad to see the traditional Rose Bowl go.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

 

[greyhammer90]

He's not wrong. With their schedule it would be conceivable that they win the B1G. They probably won't, but they could.

EDIT: This is a fine opportunity for me to reiterate how much I hate the playoff. A B1G team that suffers an early blowout loss but then runs the table in conference play should have the opportunity to cap their season off with a trip to Pasadena. No such luck with the Rose Bowl serving as a semifinal game. We now have a system where anything less than "playoff" is seen as a failure, and that feeling will grow when the tournament is inevitably expanded to 8 teams.

So you hate the playoffs because it cuts into the ability for the B1G champion to get a consolation prize?

 

[gkIrish]

Possibly the greatest image of all time.

 

[ulukinatme]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Captain Hindsight's thoughts on the Devin Gardner hit:
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MichiganSucks?src=hash">#MichiganSucks</a> <a href="http://t.co/XiyTHWB0hN">pic.twitter.com/XiyTHWB0hN</a></p>— Knute Rockne (@Rocknes_Ghost) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rocknes_Ghost/status/508987847433805824">September 8, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[ACamp1900]

Truf

 

[wizards8507]

So you hate the playoffs because it cuts into the ability for the B1G champion to get a consolation prize?

No, I hate the playoffs because it makes the Rose Bowl a generic semifinal some years and largely irrelevant the other years. It seems silly that we need to end a season contested by 128 teams with "one clear champion" blah blah blah, especially in a sport where a blown call or random bounce of the ball can decide the outcome of a game. In sports that can play a 5- or 7-game series in their playoffs, the best teams usually advance and win because all those random bounces have time to work themselves out. Equating "tournament champion" with "best team in college football" is a mistake IMO. If Alabama wins 13 games 42-10 and then loses 29-28 in overtime to 11-2 Stanford, they should still be in the conversation for the best team that year. "The Argument" is part of what makes College Football such a great sport. The emphasis on the outcome of a single head-to-head match or two at the end of the year devalues every game that came before it.

 

[ab2cmiller]

Seems like lots of Michigan fans complaining about the cornerbacks and the fact that the assistant coach responsible for their development has never played or coached cornerbacks prior to this year. I guess I can't blame them.

 

[Emcee77]

No, I hate the playoffs because it makes the Rose Bowl a generic semifinal some years and largely irrelevant the other years. It seems silly that we need to end a season contested by 128 teams with "one clear champion" blah blah blah, especially in a sport where a blown call or random bounce of the ball can decide the outcome of a game. In sports that can play a 5- or 7-game series in their playoffs, the best teams usually advance and win because all those random bounces have time to work themselves out. Equating "tournament champion" with "best team in college football" is a mistake IMO. If Alabama wins 13 games 42-10 and then loses 29-28 in overtime to 11-2 Stanford, they should still be in the conversation for the best team that year. "The Argument" is part of what makes College Football such a great sport. The emphasis on the outcome of a single head-to-head match or two at the end of the year devalues every game that came before it.

Goddammit wizards this is an amazing post. I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw it this way.

 

[gkIrish]

No, I hate the playoffs because it makes the Rose Bowl a generic semifinal some years and largely irrelevant the other years. It seems silly that we need to end a season contested by 128 teams with "one clear champion" blah blah blah, especially in a sport where a blown call or random bounce of the ball can decide the outcome of a game. In sports that can play a 5- or 7-game series in their playoffs, the best teams usually advance and win because all those random bounces have time to work themselves out. Equating "tournament champion" with "best team in college football" is a mistake IMO. If Alabama wins 13 games 42-10 and then loses 29-28 in overtime to 11-2 Stanford, they should still be in the conversation for the best team that year. "The Argument" is part of what makes College Football such a great sport. The emphasis on the outcome of a single head-to-head match or two at the end of the year devalues every game that came before it.

I don't agree with a single word you just said.

 

[wizards8507]

Goddammit wizards this is an amazing post. I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw it this way.

I don't agree with a single word you just said.

Therein lies my true genius.

 

[Emcee77]

Goddammit wizards this is an amazing post. I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw it this way.

I don't agree with a single word you just said.

Lol.

wizards is a guy who evokes strong reactions.

 

[greyhammer90]

No, I hate the playoffs because it makes the Rose Bowl a generic semifinal some years and largely irrelevant the other years. It seems silly that we need to end a season contested by 128 teams with "one clear champion" blah blah blah, especially in a sport where a blown call or random bounce of the ball can decide the outcome of a game. In sports that can play a 5- or 7-game series in their playoffs, the best teams usually advance and win because all those random bounces have time to work themselves out. Equating "tournament champion" with "best team in college football" is a mistake IMO. If Alabama wins 13 games 42-10 and then loses 29-28 in overtime to 11-2 Stanford, they should still be in the conversation for the best team that year. "The Argument" is part of what makes College Football such a great sport. The emphasis on the outcome of a single head-to-head match or two at the end of the year devalues every game that came before it.

Well if simple pride and seeing good football isn't good enough, the Rose bowl is completely "irrelevant" every year in the current system.

I guess what I don't understand about your point of view is that every reason you give for disliking the playoffs is the exact same (or worse) in the BCS system. So at worse for you this is a sideways move, at best it's just more games for you to watch while you ignore the "flawed championship" hooplah around it.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

"The Argument" is part of what makes College Football such a great sport.

Mr. Worldwide Leader endorses ESPN's slogan of "Embrace the debate!" Because no one really wants a comprehensible and fair post-season system. What they want is more uninformed popularity polls and hand-waving bullsh!t from Bill Simmons!

wizards is a guy who evokes strong reactions.

#HotTakes

 

[Emcee77]

Well if simple pride and seeing good football isn't good enough, the Rose bowl is completely "irrelevant" every year in the current system.

I guess what I don't understand about your point of view is that every reason you give for disliking the playoffs is the exact same (or worse) in the BCS system. So at worse for you this is a sideways move, at best it's just more games for you to watch while you ignore the "flawed championship" hooplah around it.

I won't speak for wizards, but I never liked the BCS, either.

I think what you say is fair enough, though. I wouldn't say I "hate" the playoffs. I'm certainly not going to boycott them; on the contrary, I'll watch with great interest. But I don't think it is a good system for determining a "champion." The reality is that there is no good system in college football; there just aren't enough games. I would prefer to just embrace that reality, rather than crown a fictional "champion."

 

[wizards8507]

Mr. Worldwide Leader endorses ESPN's slogan of "Embrace the debate!" Because no one really wants a comprehensible and fair post-season system.

Come on Whiskey, you usually think a level deeper than that. The "holy grail postseason" at ESPN would be a 64 team playoff (to which ESPN has exclusive rights). If anyone wants the hype that a bracketed postseason brings, it would be the media networks broadcasting those games. ESPN is "all in" for the playoff.

What they want is more uninformed popularity polls and hand-waving bullsh!t from Bill Simmons!

Interesting, because Grantland is where I've read most of the reasons (in mainstream sports media) against the playoff.

 

[Cackalacky]

I'll just add that in reality it is not 128 teams competing for a championship, lets be honest and not sensationally exxxtreme. At best in any given year, only 30 teams really have a shot of moving up the traditional polls into the top 4 spots over the course of a season.

 

[greyhammer90]

I won't speak for wizards, but I never liked the BCS, either.

I think what you say is fair enough, though. I wouldn't say I "hate" the playoffs. I'm certainly not going to boycott them; on the contrary, I'll watch with great interest. But I don't think it is a good system for determining a "champion." The reality is that there is no good system in college football; there just aren't enough games. I would prefer to just embrace that reality, rather than crown a fictional "champion."

And I want it to rain gin and tonic, but it's never going to happen. There will always be a championship. So between the two, I'll take the one where the players on the field get to decide who wins it, and skip the pollster bullsh*t.

 

[connor_in]

so they play pOSU and MSU, they win one and hope the other teams lose more than them. Easily be a year that has two 6-2 conference records facing off in the title game.

My own two cents...I think this is doubtful

 

[wizards8507]

I'll just add that in reality it is not 128 teams competing for a championship, lets be honest and not sensationally exxxtreme. At best in any given year, only 30 teams really have a shot of moving up the traditional polls into the top 4 spots over the course of a season.

But those 30 teams don't exclusively play each other. They play the 128 and beyond. Because the field is so huge, there aren't enough head-to-heads among common opponents to make a 12-game record very meaningful. You didn't play a large enough sample of the competition to make any statistical claims to superiority.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

No, I hate the playoffs because it makes the Rose Bowl a generic semifinal some years and largely irrelevant the other years. It seems silly that we need to end a season contested by 128 teams with "one clear champion" blah blah blah, especially in a sport where a blown call or random bounce of the ball can decide the outcome of a game. In sports that can play a 5- or 7-game series in their playoffs, the best teams usually advance and win because all those random bounces have time to work themselves out. Equating "tournament champion" with "best team in college football" is a mistake IMO. If Alabama wins 13 games 42-10 and then loses 29-28 in overtime to 11-2 Stanford, they should still be in the conversation for the best team that year. "The Argument" is part of what makes College Football such a great sport. The emphasis on the outcome of a single head-to-head match or two at the end of the year devalues every game that came before it.

Goddammit wizards this is an amazing post. I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw it this way.

Strongly disagree. Just because you can't follow the exact same format that lower intensity/collision sports take for post-season doesn't mean you shouldn't do the best you can. Combining the human element in ranking the top teams while taking into account all available data, it makes sense to have a playoff that allows teams to move forward and prove how good they are.

The idea that a 3 or 5 or 7 game series allows all of the bad breaks to even out refuses to look at a game in it's entirety and realize that bad bounces have a chance to even out through the course of a game.

I understand that you want to increase the number but it's impossible with a sport that plays 1/5 - 1/8 the games like the others.

It's still great to have a knockout tournament that allows each team to give it's best shot to be crowned champion. I wouldn't want it any other way.

 

[greyhammer90]

But those 30 teams don't exclusively play each other. They play the 128 and beyond. Because the field is so huge, there aren't enough head-to-heads among common opponents to make a 12-game record very meaningful. You didn't play a large enough sample of the competition to make any statistical claims to superiority.

Putting aside the fact that I still don't see why the BCS is any better in your eyes, I'm curious if your position on this would change if the P-5 conference (and ND/BYU/Navy) agreed to only play each other (as has been discussed)