This e-mail is making the rounds. I've seen it several places, so not quite clear who to give the hat tip to.
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After determining the Big-12 championship game participants, the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
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Perhaps I'm biased as a Utah partisan, but seems about right to me ....
Related Posts (on one page):
- Why the Utah Utes Football Team Should be the National Champions:
- BCS Declares Germany to be the Winner of WWII
So Vietnam and Afghanistan were set to go to war for the title of World Champion.
If every battle in WW2 had a time clock, each country was allowed the same limited number of people on the field at a time, and there were no carryover effects from one game to the next...
...or if the object of football was to injure the other side as much as possible, points from one game carried over to another, and football actually mattered....
then the analogy might make some sense. Also, France having a preseason ranking of #1 is either the only sensible swipe at the BCS in the e-mail or it shows ignorance of history.
Untrue! The US also defeated Italy. And while not on par with Germany and Japan it was a major part of the Axis. If Germany's victories against mid-majors such as Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands count as "each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event" then the US does get a victory over Italy as well.
Um, no. France had a larger army than Germany in 1939; more tanks; about the same number of front-line aircraft (which, by the way, downed more of the Luftwaffe's during the six-week campaign of 1940 than they lost of their own) and an incomparably stronger navy. The successful German strategy in May and June 1940, on the other hand, was the military equivalent of a Hail Mary pass: potentially high reward for a hideously high risk. If a strong mobile reserve had been retained, it could have cut off Guderian's tanks from behind, encircled them, and chopped them to pieces at its leisure. Exactly as the Soviets were to do in 1942.
History is like religion. Those who haven't bothered to study it still are convinced that they know everything about it they need to know, and feel themselves entitled to make statements whose inaccuracy is exceeded only by their dogmatism.
(On another topic entirely, the Brits hammered the stuffing out of Graziani's army in 1940, pretty much putting an end to Italy's pretensions as a military power. Even the Greeks gave the Italians all they could handle. At best the U.S. gets an assist on that one.)
Also - in terms of the past being different - keep in mind that when the Netherlands surrendered in May 1940, the US went from having the 17th largest army in the world to having the 16th.
However, I get really annoyed at all the hate heaped on the computer models. In fact what horrifies me about the BCS system is the heavy reliance on human rankings. If your goal is to pick the teams which will be most satisfying to the fans to play then that's fine but don't pretend you are picking the teams who are most likely to win.
I mean c'mon if you wanted to know if your building would stand up in an earthquake, determine whether a food additive was harmful or what the right dose of chemo was for your cancer would you prefer seat of the pants guesses or a sophisticated computer model based on past experience fitting the data? Doesn't seem a touch question to me.
Of course this doesn't mean humans shouldn't look over the computer models to suss out casses they may be inaccurate but that doesn't mean disagree with your intuitions. We know people are going to be disproportionately impacted by certain kinds of evidence (many wins against weak teams) and that team image is going to bias them.
I do feel bad for Utah, they tried to schedule a real team like Michigan. How where they to know 3 or 4 years ago when the contract was signed that Michigan would suck.
Speaking of bad Michigan teams, Utah won by less than a field goal over a Michigan team that lost to a MAC team with a losing record, and won by a field goal over an 8 loss New Mexico team.
Or, perhaps this is just another example of the wonders of the BCS computers. You know, USC didn't play New Mexico, but based on everything we know about the teams, USC would have clobbered them.
And Japan would have shut out Mexico.
2. The BCS (and bowl system in general) will not die for the following reason: money. It's very simple. The last time there was a real move toward a playoff system, it nearly destroyed the NCAA. If they have a playoff, the smaller schools will demand a share of the pot. The larger schools will tell them to eff off and form their own league. The BCS is a compromise- it allows the traditional football powerhouses to keep most of the money generated while keeping the overall NCAA together. Utah might be good this year, but does anyone think that in the next 5-20 years they will consistently be in same tier as USC, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, Ohio State in terms of revenue production?
3. I was incredibly impressed by the Utes victory over Alabama; they overperformed my expectations as well as their statistical averages for the season (see footballoutsiders.com for more info).
They simply weren't that great of a team. Not as good as the Urban Meyer Utes team. They outcoached and outclassed (in both senses of the word) an injured Bama team. But I think they would lose 7/10 times they played that team. I think they would lose 9/10 times they played the following teams:
Florida
USC
Oklahoma
Texas
I also know that if they played in a real conference (SEC, Big12, Pac10) they would have at least 3-4 losses.
So, in the end, I think this ridiculous talk devalues what they have done. They had an amazing season. They did everything they could possibly have done. They pulled off an upset for the ages (against Bama). But they're not the #1 team in the nation. They're not even #2 (I'm looking at you, USC). Or #3 (Texas). Or #4 (Oklahoma).
The B
CS is not an improvement over the old bowl "system" and a playoff is not necessarily going to eliminate all controversy (thank goodness.)The B
CS ranking appears to be objective but is based on the subjective opinions of poll voters and "black box" computer programming. Any playoff would be based on those flawed premises. And, unless you have a playoff involving, say, the top eight teams, I don't see how you are going to eliminate controversy--there will always be some university claiming it got jobbed.I would prefer to go back to the old bowl system which fostered rivalries between conferences and left lots of room for argument. I used to spend my New Year's Day happily watching all the bowls. This year, I watched one and one/half on New Year's Day, and the "Championship Game" only because I thought that Tim Tebow was shafted by the Heisman Committee and wanted to see if he could prove that he was the better quarterback. This is the first "Championship Game" that I've watched.
Loved the original post, BTW.
The first half of that sentence is correct, but the second is not. The way the BCS sets up two teams for a final match is by comparing a number of different teams, most of which have not played each other. For example, this year's BCS compared around five or six one-loss teams (as well as Utah) to see who would play in the final match. Oklahoma-Texas and Alabama-Florida had played each other, but all the other comparisons were between teams that had not played.
You know this, huh? I assume you also know the outcome of the Super Bowl. If so, please share.
2. Utah's premier victory was a 2 point win against a 3 win Michigan team (the same Michigan team that got spanked by 25 points by a terrible Illinois team - an Illinois team that didn't even make a bowl and lost to WESTERN Michigan). If you want to play for the title, you have to play somebody. It's not enough that you intended to play somebody. If you don't like your conference, become an independent.
3. The BCS, for all the talk about the computers, is essentially just a really advanced way of justifying the AP Poll. Initially, when the BCS first came out, it operated as a moderately objective ranking system. The problem was that the objective ranking didn't match the AP Polls, so they kept tweaking the BCS until it matched the AP Polls. If Utah could have convinced the voters they deserved a shot at the title, chances are they would have been in the title game. It's just that nobody looked at their close wins over a bunch of mediocre teams and thought "wow - that's the best team in the country."
4. Not only was Alabama not that good, they were missing their best player and not just any player, an offensive lineman. Anybody who knows football knows that when you lose your left tackle, everybody else on the line has to play out of position. For a running team like Alabama, that destroys their entire offense. It'd be nice if Utah's fans didn't walk around acting like they had just beaten the New England Patriots.
5. The idea that non-BCS conference schools can't schedule big name schools is one of the worst falacies in American media today. Every BCS school in the country pays their rent-a-victims hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to come and play. Cute little teams like Utah generally can't get schools to agree to home-and-homes, but that certainly doesn't mean they can't schedule the games. I guarantee that if Utah didn't insist on a return game they could schedule as many tough games as they wanted and really prove themselves. They just don't want to. They'd rather insist on a home-and-home, schedule one historically good team and then cry about it at the end of the year.
I dunno. We fought in 1812 and it was a draw, and we lost when we invaded. IJS ...
Sounds like the Bears beating Washington 73-0.
"We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation
With your T Formation."
Germany had a tremendous ground game, but the Brits exposed their weak air attack.
Plus, the Germans had a poor recruiting class, and should have gone after the ME and Caucuses prospects earlier on.
Their special teams U-boats were strong, but they didn't commit to them enough.
And scheduling that game with the United States so early in the season was a strategic blunder.
Plus, the Allies got ahold of the German playbook ahead of time, so they always had a solid gameplan against them.
While I give the Germans credit for their coaching depth, which shone through particularly in the France matchup, the head coaching was poor.
No, I'd have to go with the results on the field, and seed the US as #1.
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And Florida #1 in college football, of course.
Yeah, sure. But you notice that they made Italy their "warmup game." At the so-called "Avalanche Bowl," I think.
IB Bill
I didn't need to see Canada fight the US to know we would have whipped them.
I dunno. We fought in 1812 and it was a draw, and we lost when we invaded. IJS ...
OK. True. But many of us are still bitching that they brought their own officials over from Britain. (We were like totally penalized for being an independent.)
In retrospect, I think France was ranked too highly. Probably because of that storied "Notre Dame de Paris" history. And the German team had a twenty-year bye-week to prep its offense for Coach Maginot's defense.
I recall Winston Churchill, who, upon learning that Italy was joining Germany as an Axis country, smirked that this would be one of the few times in history that adding a country to your ranks would count as a disadvantage. And of course, he was right.
The thing wrong with this computer model is that the German army, in the end, was NOT superior to the allied forces. I recall during the 50th anniversary of the war, I saw a great many interviews of veterans, and they said that one of the reasons that we won the war is because we valued initiative. If you saw an opening for a hit or win, you were encouraged to go for it. They often said that this is a result of democracy. On the other hand, the germans were a top-down disciplined group that valued following orders above all else.
These veterans stressed that we won because we are a democracy, not a dictatorship, and those values made the difference in fighting. I wonder how you input that into computers.
That's like claiming the Florida freshmen beat Oklahoma. It kind of helped that they had Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow...
Heck the Detroit Lions were 4-0 in exhibition games this season.
Having Tebow on your team is the WWII equivalent of having 1,000 fully equipped Enola Gays that you aren't afraid to unleash. That jump pass, the greatest play in the history of college football, was the final knockout punch, more destructive than the firebombing of Dresden or the nuclear weapons unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tebow rocks!!!
Oklahoma over TCU in Norman 35-10.
Utah- 2 point win over a Michigan team that lost a game at home to a MAC team with a losing record, and a 3 point win over an 8 loss New Mexico.
Oklahoma's 2 losses were to Top 5 teams, Texas and Florida.
Oklahoma had a couple of cupcakes, Texas A&M, Chattanooga and Baylor come to mind, Florida played the Citadel, but Utah played Weber State, Utah State, SDSU, New Mexico, Wyoming and UNLV. They played two Top 25 teams before the bowl selection.
To say Utah should rank ahead of OU, or, say, Texas, which lost one game on a last second touchdown on the road playing their fourth Top 25 opponent in 4 weeks, is laughable.
Florida fully deserves to be #1. And USC and Texas have an argument for #2. Utah, as best, is #4, and probably #5.
On the other hand, since Miami, VT and Boston College left, the Big East is a basketball conference, not deserving of an automatic BCS bid, and the Mountain West has at least as much right to be a BCS conference.
I say the MWC should invite in Fresno State and Boise State, split into 2 divisions, play a title game, and there would be no legitimate way to deny them an automatic BCS bid. Or maybe Utah should sniff around for an invite from the Pac 10.
McCoy or Tebow should have won the trophy. Bradford had the best O-line in college (most are graduating, however), and was rarely hurried or pressured.
Plus, Mack Brown, being a classy individual, pulled McCoy early in the 4th quarter most games, and let John Chiles hand the ball off, even on 3rd and long.
The classless Boob Stops left Bradford in, passing the ball with 3 and 4 touchdown leads. To pad Bradford's stats, or just because he enjoyed humiliating weak teams, who knows.
Speaking of, self proclaimed Christian Tim Tebow likes to trash talk defeated opponents.
If Nazareth High was playing Jericho High for the Israelite High School Title, would winning quarterback Jesus Josephson been smack talking the other team?
I think not.
Come on. At yalta FDR was injured and had to coach from the press box. Cut him some slack.
In earnest, single elimination playoffs are exactly the opposite of a system to determine which team is best.
Likewise Notre Dame and, say, Pittsburgh should join the Big 10, so it could have divisional play and a title game.
The burden of proof rests with the teams playing in the smaller/weaker conferences.
All that being said . . . it's only a game.
Right there with you, though we both know that billions of reasons prevent that from happening. The problem is compounded by the coaches being bound to vote the BCS victor #1, regardless of how they voted the teams before the "title" game.
The best 2 teams did not play each other. Texas' struggle against Ohio State proved that the Big 12 was an average conference. The PAC 10's 5-0 bowl record suggests that USC deserved a shot in place of Oklahoma. Any team that was eligle for the championship had a loss.
Bottom line: Only one team was undefeated but it was denied a chance to prove on the field whether it could beat the best. That I'm convinced it would have lost is not a reason not to play the game. Nobody gave it a chance against Alabama (the #1 team for much of the year) either.
The root problem with the BCS is that it creates an illusion of a legitimate champion. Some years it works better than others. That we are able to engage in this debate demonstrates that the BCS didn't work so well this year.
Perfect. "If you can beat me with one hand tied behind your back, then I might acknowledge that you're almost as good as me."
But, since they didn't get to play each other (cough, cough), we'll never know--will we?
To be honest, I'm not sure if I could come up with a worse champion-crowning system. The old bowl system was leaps and bounds better than the BCS, and a playoff would quite obviously be far superior to even that. The BCS works if, and only if, there are two clear-cut teams that should play each other for the national title. The last time that happened was in 2006, following the 2005 season.
In 2007 (Michigan), 2008 (Georgia) and 2009 (Texas, USC, Utah), teams got screwed out of what they rightfully earned: an opportunity. Why did they get screwed? Two entirely asinine things: (1) regionally biased human voting that is either self-interested (coaches poll) or uninformed (Harris poll, see link), based on both divergent criteria and undefined and arguably irrelevant concepts such as "style points" and (2) unreviewable data compilations created by either math majors (Sagarin poll) or people who never made it into college (Billingsley poll).
I agree with everything you said.
This isn't really true, (although I don't doubt you saw such interviews). Ask any military professional: the German Army invented the modern concept of combined arms warfare that has been copied by every major non-soviet professional military organization in the world. Small unit leaders exercising initiative is absolutely essential to the entire approach to war. Read anything written by Rommel, Guderian, or Manstein and you'll learn the same thing.
What GI's were taught about their enemies, particularly this type of cultural determinism, is not particularly likely to be accurate. They were also taught that Japanese soldiers were nearsighted weaklings and certainly would be no good at nighttime jungle warfare.
There are shelves full of books on German tactical and operational warfare (including the Germans' own manuals and U.S. Army operational histories and analyses) that advance the opinion that the WWII German army valued, developed, and relied upon leader initiative more than any of its opponents did. Thus the postwar NATO armies' fetishization of all things German, above all Auftragstaktik.
So Bradford is penalized because his team couldn't punch it is on running plays from the one and couldn't convert later in the game on a 3rd and 1 running play? Because "the best offensive line in the country" couldn't punch the ball in, Bradford, who is overrated because he plays behind the best line in the country, is penalized? What?
Bradford made three mistakes all game. The first was hanging his receiver out to dry on a deep ball during the first quarter. The second was taking a big sack early when he could have thrown it away. The third was the first pick, just before halftime. His mistake was throwing to a guy that might not have crossed the endzone. Still, coaches should take the primary blame for poor clock management.
Bradford faced a fair amount of pressure and still put the ball on his receivers hands virtually every time (even the two picks). Tebow is an average throwing QB and an above average runner. Everyone says his intangibles are great, and I'll take their word for it. Still, for a guy who, to my knowledge, had never lead his team to a big win in a close game until two games ago, he sure gets a lot of credit for "willing his team to victory."
I've frequently heard him referred to as a one-in-a-generation player or one of the best of all time. Didn't anyone see Vince Young play? Tebow couldn't hold his jock as a runner, and he's not as good of a passer, either. Plus, Vince Young did actually will his team to several huge victories. He didn't throw two terrible interceptions, get stuffed on runs for three quarters, then ride Percy Harvin's coattails to victory.
The root problem with the BCS is that it creates an illusion of a legitimate champion. Some years it works better than others. That we are able to engage in this debate demonstrates that the BCS didn't work so well this year.
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The fact that I'll argue that North Carolina is the best team in the country regardless of what happens in the tournament demonstrates that the NCAA basketball tournament won't work so well this year.
Um, no. France had a larger army than Germany in 1939"
Yes, but they had the ultimate backstabbing team camraderie.
France was doomed the day its Conservative Party taunted Prime Minister Blum the Jew with the slogan "better Hitler than Blum". They got what they asked for.
First of all, why couldn't Utah be able to schedule a home-and-home with good to great teams? They got Oregon St. to visit this year, didn't they? Oklahoma has played Air Force, TCU &Tulsa on the road in recent years and will play at Cincinnati and a neutral site game with BYU in the coming year/years.
Secondly, it's not an individual game that people question whether Utah could win, it's a 12 game season filled with mostly decent opponents. Getting up for two or three good opponents a year isn't that difficult, especially when none of them are road games. Look at USC the last few years. They lose to obviously inferior opponenets once or more a year because their opponents are very excited to play USC and USC is just playing another game against Stanford, Oregon St., etc.
30 teams will finish their season with a trip somewhere (some, sadly, to Detroit or Boise, Idaho, but many more with trips to Miami and Hawaii and San Diego and Orlando) and a win, the cities involved make a little coin, the fans get a road trip.
A playoff means either cutting way back on the out of conference schedule, or playing games through the holidays. At least in theory, these are student athletes, and playing through final exams and the holidays- no fun. A playoff means only a week's notice for all but the highest seeds where the next game will be at.
If one eliminates conference play, what happens to Georgia vs Florida, Texas vs Oklahoma, USC vs UCLA. Even non-conference classics like USC-Notre Dame go away.
Even though Utah still would have been left out, the best compromise is a 4 plus 1, two of the four BCS games, switching each year, pair #4 vs #1 and #2 vs #3, and the two survivors play for the title.
Utah gets left out, but I don't remember Oklahoma, Florida, USC or Texas struggling to beat 8 loss teams like New Mexico by a field goal.
You got bowls in college, you got playoffs in the NFL. Learn to love both.
BTW, what did Utah get cheated out of? A crystal trophy shaped like a football? And they didn't get cheated, Florida is very deserving as national champs.
Somehow the Football Championship Series (fka Division I-AA) teams somehow manage to do this, year in and year out, on a lower budget than the BCS schools.
I have to chime in as well that (based on what I have read) the above characterization of the Germans is not true. While it may be nice for the U.S. veterans to think that we were better quality troops than the Germans (and it may be true with respect to some of our elite units such as the airborne divisions and the experienced 1st Infantry Division), in general we beat the Germans because (a) by June 1944, when we began to fight in France, we had overwhelming numerical and material superiority (and control of the air) and (b) the Germans we were fighting on the western front were mostly not their best units (with some exceptions). Gotta credit the Soviets for gutting the German army before June 1944 when we finally invaded France. And credit Churchill for letting the Soviets do so, and credit FDR and his advisors for letting Churchill convince them not to invade France in 1943.
For example, look at the Italian front where we never had great numerical superiority and where the terrain negated many of our material advantages. There we advanced only slowly against the Germans, compared to the fighting in France, the Low Countries and Germany.
The Germans were well known for pushing responsibility down to lower unit commanders and for emphasizing prompt counterattacks (which can only occur in a timely manner if initiated at the lowest possible level).
GG
You act like I expect them to play with 10 players. Give up the persecution complex. Nobody with half a brain (which excludes most sports writers) claims that Utah's schedule is even remotely close to as difficult as almost any BCS conference team's. Quit whining about home-and-homes and how you're having to play "with one hand tied behind your back" and play some good teams and people will give you credit.
Until then, stop whining about what everyone else is saying and what you already know but don't want to admit - Utah simply isn't as good as second-tier schools like Penn State, Ohio State, Texas Tech or Missouri (any one of whom would have gone undefeated against Utah's creampuff schedule) - not to mention top teams like USC, Florida, Oklahoma or Texas - and has no reasonable basis for making a claim that they're the best team in the country.
I favor a return to the old bowl system.
Nick
No, you just expect them to beat someone else on their own field before you even acknowledge the possibility that maybe--just maybe--they might actually be as good as the team they just beat.
Hey, I'm first and foremost a BYU fan. I'm quite willing to acknowledge the possibility that the Utes suck.
But, as I said earlier--we'll never really know, will we?
What? If your point is that I'm not acknowledging that Utah isn't better than an Alabama team that doesn't have Andre Smith, I don't know where you're getting that. I'll readily admit that Utah is better than an Andre Smith-less Alabama team. Of course, so are half the teams in the SEC, so I'm not sure that gets you very far. If you're simply whining about having to play real teams in their stadiums, tough luck. BCS schools have to play in hostile stadiums (see e.g. PSU's loss in front of 80,000 fans at Nile "People Before Profits" Kinnick Stadium) all the time. You can't claim you're better than Oklahoma when don't play a schedule than's even remotely close to as difficult as Oklahoma's.
Does anybody honestly think Utah is the best team in the country? Seriously? It seems that most of the whining we hear is just Mountain West fans upset that one of their cute little teams can't backdoor their way into the National Championship Game. Nobody says you have to be in a BCS conference to get a shot at the title. If Charlie Weis didn't suck, Notre Dame could work themselves into the national title picture. Why? Notre Dame plays a real schedule.
There's lots of ways to prove you're good enough to deserve a shot at the national title. One would be scheduling some real teams. Another would be obliterating every team you play instead of squeaking by mediocre teams by 3 points (and no, the fact that Utah beat the snot out of a terrible BYU team doesn't make them good). I'm suggesting one of the alternatives.
But, as I said earlier--we'll never really know, will we?
Anyway, I like the idea of bowls, even the ones with retarded names like The Meineke Car Care Bowl, and the former Peach Bowl (which was a fine name for a bowl game in Georgia), the Chik-Fil-A Bowl.
This was actually good for Utah. If they had to play several good teams in a row, they'd be gone 1 or 2 weeks into the playoffs.
Under the current system, they can play a series of absolute cup cakes, Big Sky Conference Runner-Up Weber State, with big wins over Dixie State and Montana-Western, 7 game loser UNLV, 8 game loser Wyoming, 9 game loser Utah State, or 10 game loser SDSU, go undefeated, and play up for one big game against an over rated Alabama team that struggled against LSU, and had its best NFL caliber O-linemen suspended for the game, and win, and actually pretend they could have competed with USC or Texas or Florida.
The Utes got a nice trip to New Orleans, and saw things a team that is half Mormon might never see back in the Mountain Time Zone.
Bowls mean almost every team with a winning record goes on a nice vacation after all the hard work of practice and games, and half of those teams will end their seasons on a winning note.
There are problems with that argument, but I have not seen anyone around here seriously assert that the Utes are actually better than Florida or Oklahoma.
For what it's worth, as happy as I was to see the Utes defeat Alabama, I have to think that the emotional imbalance played a big role -- the Utes were playing to make a statement, while Alabama was playing a consolation game. Emotion seems to be a big factor in college football, probably more than any other sport, and Utah had a big edge there.
To pick two teams I'm familar with
University of Northern Iowa (FCS)
08/30/08 at BYU Provo, Utah L, 41-17
09/06/08 vs. South Dakota UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 24-13
09/20/08 vs. South Dakota State* Family Weekend UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 34-20
09/27/08 at Southern Illinois* Carbondale, Ill. L, 27-24
10/02/08 vs. Nicholls State UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 34-14
10/11/08 vs. Illinois State* Homecoming UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 31-17
10/18/08 vs. North Dakota State* UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 23-13
10/25/08 at Youngstown State* Youngstown, Ohio W, 21-20
11/01/08 at Western Illinois* Macomb, Ill. W, 30-6
11/08/08 vs. Missouri State* UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 42-0
11/15/08 at Indiana State* Terre Haute, Ind. W, 28-0
(playoff games)
11/22/08 at Southern Utah Cedar City, Utah W, 34-24
11/29/08 vs. Maine UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 40-15
12/06/08 vs. New Hampshire UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) W, 36-34
12/13/08 vs. Richmond UNI-Dome (Cedar Falls, Iowa) L, 21-20
University of Iowa (BCS)
08/30/08 vs. Maine Iowa City, IA W, 46-3
09/06/08 vs. Florida International Iowa City, IA W, 42-0
09/13/08 vs. Iowa State Iowa City, IA W, 17-5
09/20/08 at Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA L, 21-20
09/27/08 vs. Northwestern * Iowa City, IA L, 22-17
10/04/08 at Michigan State * East Lansing, MI L, 16-13
10/11/08 at Indiana * Bloomington, IN W, 45-9
10/18/08 vs. Wisconsin * Iowa City, IA W, 38-16
11/01/08 at Illinois * Champaign, IL L, 27-24
11/08/08 vs. Penn State * Iowa City, IA W, 24-23
11/15/08 vs. Purdue * Iowa City, IA W, 22-17
11/22/08 at Minnesota * Minneapolis, MN W, 55-0
01/01/09 vs. South Carolina (2009 Outback Bowl) Tampa, FL W, 31-10
UofI (BCS) played *one* more regular season game than UNI (FCS). Both teams played eight conference games. The difference was UNI played only three non-conference games to Iowa's four.
I'm not arguing that the Bowl system has to be replaced with a playoff, just that none of the justifications given for *why* BCS doesn't have a playoff avoid the real issue, which is the money the bowls, schools, and others receive from the current system.
Just junk the idea that what is being produced is a 'national champion' and enjoy the games.
We're talking about an Left Tackle - it's not as if they lost a quarterback, running back, or even defensive back. If they'd had Andre Smith, they would have (perhaps) held down the number of sacks on Wilson to less than eight, but that's it.
As it is, scheduling tough teams is a two-way street. I'd love to see the Utes play against at least 2-3 more tough teams in addition to Oregon State in the regular season, including USC among others. But these teams would have to agree to the scheduling, and then there is the whole "you must play games in your conference".
"I'm disappointed there is no mention of Finland, who took gold in Full Contact Team Biathlon at the 1940 Winter Games."
In 1983 I taught at an Olympic shooting coaches school in Germany in preparation for the games. One of the participants was the president of the Finnish rifle association who talked about WWII some. I asked him what he did and he replied: "I shot Running Russians." (For those of you shooting sports deprived, there is an Olympic sport called Running Boar.)
Is this a serious post? Did a poster just compare the importance of a Left Tackle to a DB? Seriously? Did a poster just insinuate that having an Outland Award winner isn't important to a school's running game? Seriously?
You people in Utah need to stick to...whatever it is you do when you're not drinking or gambling...and leave football to the rest of us.
Outstanding!
Rice will never win a national title, but two years ago, first time in 40 years, they got to go to New Orleans for the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. They make those kids go to class. Real college students at Rice.
Back when John Mackovic was still around, and Texas had 7-4 and 6-5 seasons, I had the uplift (as did the players) of beating future coaching legend Mack Brown's North Carolina team in the John Hancock Sun Bowl. (Now the Brut Sun Bowl).
Bowls are wholeseome entertainment for the whole family.
Hell, it wasn't one year. They sat out four, and just came in for the mopping up and the victory parades at the end.
Technically what happened was that after the US scored a couple big touchdowns at the end of the third quarter Italy fired the coach and its team walked off the field. I'm not sure the BCS counts a forfeit the same as a win.
Goose-gander and all of that.
Really? Their premier win is Michigan? Not Alablama? Not TCU? Not Oregon State? Not BYU? Utah beat 4 teams that finished in the top 25. 2 teams that finished in the top ten. They beat New Mexico by a field goal, but they still beat them. And everyone else they played. If you look at the final rankings, Utah beat as many top 10 teams as anyone (2). They beat as many top 25 teams as most of the top 10. (Utah 4, Most was OK with 5) They lost to zero teams- ranked or not.
And winning championships is rarely about who the best team is. It's about who gets it done on the field/court. The final four is no exception. If teams played each other 10 times, there would be no upsets. But we crown the team that earns it. Utah earned it. Nobody else got it done. Utah played top 25 teams and beat them. Utah played top 10 teams and beat them. They earned it.
Over on my blog I performed a little thought experiment - how would things have turned out in the FCS if they playoffs were run like the BCS?
The National Championship game would have been played between Appalachian State (which bowed out in the quarterfinals) and James Madison (which bowed out in the semi-finals).
Northern Iowa, which made it to the semi-finals would not have been a participant.
Neither would have Richmond, who were crowned national champions after winning on the field, rather than in the polls.
As much as I revere the contributions of the greatest generation (said without irony or scare quotes), I have to agree with the view that this is almost certainly soldiers' propaganda. From top to bottom, the Germans were very, very good.
In BCS terms, the Germans were the undisputed #1 seed, and their coaching staff developed plays and positional concepts that would be copied by every team in every conference for decades to come. Ultimately the Germans failed to win the championship because their megalomaniacal head coach insisted on booking two bowl games with #2 USA and #5 Russia and then playing them at the same time. I don't care how good your starting 11 are, they're not good enough to beat a starting 22.
As other posters have noted, #2 USA started the season ranked around #17 and in its first game struggled against the unranked University of France-Morocco. However, the team improved quickly and dramatically over the course of the season, ultimately blowing out #3 Japan so badly that Japan's head coach Hirohito conceded in the 4th quarter rather than watch USA run up the score in a humiliating fashion.
Russia, seeded #5, had one of the worst starting line-ups in the BCS but almost infinite bench strength, allowing them to continously rotate in fresh players who ultimately overwhelmed the vastly more talented (but numerically limited) German team.
TCU? Oregon State? BYU? Are you serial? None of those teams belong in the top 25 in the first place and the only reason TCU or BYU were ranked was because of this ridiculous small-school love that all of the sports writers have had ever since Dan Dickau led Gonzaga all the way to the Sweet Sixteen (by the way, did you see Oregon State's atrocity of a bowl game - I'm going to guess no, since you wouldn't be citing them as evidence of how awesome OSU is if you did). We saw what TCU did when they played Oklahoma. If any of those 3 teams played, say, Iowa, Iowa would beat them by 2 touchdowns.
By the way, Florida beat 4 teams in the top 10 (including #1 in back to back weeks - and Alabama wasn't missing their best player at the time), 2 more in the top 25 as well as Hawaii, @Tennessee, Miami and the rest of the SEC. If you think I'm impressed by beating Oregon State, TCU and BYU, you're nuts (I'd guess you were drunk, but to make that argument you have to be from Utah, so I think that's unlikely).
They did? Did I miss when they played Florida? What was the final score? I can't believe nobody told me about that game!
For some reason I'm reminded of the classic line from the movie Top Gun: "That was some of the best flying I've ever seen -- right up to the part where you got killed."
The undefeated New England Patriots were perhaps the best team in football history -- right up to the part where they lost the Superbowl. And ultimately that's what it's about. You want to be the best, then you've got to win the big game. If you don't win the big game, nothing else matters.
Forget the polls -- the college football champ should be decided using the classic system of win or go home.
If Notre Dame and Pitt join the Big Ten's invasion of Manchuria, will the downfall of Florida be urban warfare, or Urban Meyer?
However I expect Tebow to be able to calm the waters before any Manchurian invasion becomes necessary... he has those kinds of intangibles.
Really? Tennessee? The worst of the Mountain West Conference (Wyoming) beat Tennessee AT Tennessee. This shows two things: (1)It's what happens on the field that counts, and (2) the SEC and the other "select" conferences aren't as tough as they'd like to think. Utah did everything it possibly could have to prove its national stature, but a money-grubby system full of elitist snobs kept them out. I'm not saying Utah's better than Florida, but at least let us try.
Imagine how boring the other 9 months of the year would be if everything was neatly solved and there was a consensus #1-25. ;)
Maybe I'm too cynical; still living in the days of Rocknean diplomacy and Bismarckian Division-I NCAA athletics. I have always just assumed that there was a "secret agreement" in the NBC treaty that would obligate ND to come to the aid of Purdue if it ever fought a preventive war against Russia.
But perhaps things have changed since the Versailles Bowl.
I just said it exactly - and I also said that, at best, he would have prevented more sacks on Wilson. The onus is on you to prove that it would have been the drastic game-changer that you seem to think it is, since it's not as if Smith was the foundation of their offense or defense.
Is it lonely up there, on your self-imposed pedestal?
Yet apparently Oregon State was good enough at one point to beat USC, in-season. Pardon me if I don't exactly take a random poster over a bunch of sportswriters and the BCS System.
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Not so. Their first game action came very soon into the season, and without benefit of a training camp, as the undermanned US took on the powerful Japanese Naval Academy, at a nuetral site near Midway, and gave them a merciless seal-clubbing.
Following that laugher, the US squad showed their mettle and prevailed in a long, hardfought, turnover-prone matchup on Guadalcanal.
Fortunately, while the Japanese initially has some success with the long bomb, their offensive bench proved to be surprisingly thin after several of their key starters went down. And although their defensive squad played with a lot of heart, they eventually proved to have more in common with the Detroit Lions than the Pittsburgh Steelers...
The perhaps surprising answer is Jello. Utah leads the nation in per capita consumption of Jello:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1156021.stm
Perhaps surprising, perhaps not so surprising.
Well yes, but the Japanese side displayed poor sportsmanship here. Those ruffians attacked the US players in the warmup tunnel, before the opening kickoff. I understand the sanctions imposed on that infraction were quite severe.
Ah yes, "The Versailles Bowl", the cruel injustice that set the stage for the carnage which we are no doubt soon to witness
Yes, quite.
And to think the Mauser Rifles Versailles Bowl could have gone the other way, if the US head coach hadn't been too old and enfeebled, and just plain inflexible, to do the job right.
History will not soon forgive you, Mr. Paterno.
Yeah, I'm not going to accept the burden to "prove" some hypothetical in a random sports argument. Suffice it to say, if you don't think the absence of an Outland Award winning LT is important to a team's running game, I have nothing else to say to you.
What better measure of Smith's worth is there than the amount this young man will be paid by some NFL team in a matter of months? His initial contract is likely to be significantly higher than the combined NFL paychecks of every player on Utah's roster. Heck, I'll bet his first NFL contract (maybe even just the signing bonus) is greater than the combined ticket receipts the University of Utah's cute little football team generates in an entire season.
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