College Football - Postseason

[Derwood]

1 hour ago, Brian707 said:

Going up against the NFL too

This wasn't well thought through. ESPN has college basketball all day and NBC/FOX have games on Saturday.

[BigbadB]

10 hours ago, Derwood said:

This wasn't well thought through. ESPN has college basketball all day and NBC/FOX have games on Saturday.

It's almost an afterthought. I didn't understand that break either. Is it because ticketing/travel for attendees? 

And what exactly is the reason transferring players can't finish out their season with their respective teams?

[Derwood]

3 hours ago, BigbadB said:

It's almost an afterthought. I didn't understand that break either. Is it because ticketing/travel for attendees? 

And what exactly is the reason transferring players can't finish out their season with their respective teams?

Transferring players need to be rolled at their new schools for spring semester, and at some schools, that begins January 6. 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

21 minutes ago, Derwood said:

that begins January 6

[Andy]

8 hours ago, BigbadB said:

And what exactly is the reason transferring players can't finish out their season with their respective teams?

Technically there is nothing stopping that if the players and coaches both agree. In the Penn State player's case, it seems as though he had to leave in order to go on visits and pick his next school. And as Derwood points out, there's an academic calendar in play as well.

[Andy]

18 hours ago, Derwood said:

This wasn't well thought through. ESPN has college basketball all day and NBC/FOX have games on Saturday.

If you're going to have a several-rounds-long playoff that starts after Thanksgiving and ends in January, there is essentially no way to do it without going head to head with the NFL at some point.

The semifinals, taking place in the Cotton and Orange bowls, were placed on a Thursday and Friday, Jan. 9-10, in order to avoid the NFL, which should make for some interesting attendance situations.

[CubColtPacer]

10 hours ago, BigbadB said:

It's almost an afterthought. I didn't understand that break either. Is it because ticketing/travel for attendees? 

And what exactly is the reason transferring players can't finish out their season with their respective teams?

Are you referring to the break since the championship games?  My guess is that is partially to make it closer to traditional bowl season, and partly because of the Army/Navy game last weekend blocking that out from being a playoff weekend.

[Derwood]

They could make everything earlier so that New Year’s day is the championship game. 

[Derwood]

Indiana looks terrible so far

[cwood218]

5 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Indiana looks terrible so far

I would say that it is more a case of they are a solid notch below the top 10 or so teams. The expanded conference and the teams on the schedule that they missed saved 2-3 losses this year.

Penn St, Iowa (Maybe?), Illinois all would have beat them. A normal Michigan team would have beat them.

 

[Old Style]

Indiana suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. 

[UMFan83]

Well Indiana had 3 shots to play +.500 teams.  They beat 7-5 Michigan at home by 5, then lost by 2-3 scores to CFP teams Ohio State and Notre Dame.

Sucks that they will likely be known as a mediocre team that benefitted from a historically weak schedule given how badly they beat everyone else.  It's possible that's the case I guess, but I still fell like they are better than they will be remembered.   But they had 2 chances to prove themselves and they failed both times so that's how they will be remembered now - the king of the bum slayers.

Edited December 21, 2024 by UMFan83

[mul21]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

Well Indiana had 3 shots to play +.500 teams.  They beat 7-5 Michigan at home by 5, then lost by 2-3 scores to CFP teams Ohio State and Notre Dame.

Sucks that they will likely be known as a mediocre team that benefitted from a historically weak schedule given how badly they beat everyone else.  It's possible that's the case I guess, but I still fell like they are better than they will be remembered.   But they had 2 chances to prove themselves and they failed both times so that's how they will be remembered now - the king of the bum slayers.

Given the same schedule or a head to head, I'm taking Illinois all day.  

[BigbadB]

21 hours ago, Derwood said:

Transferring players need to be rolled at their new schools for spring semester, and at some schools, that begins January 6. 

I'm old. I thought new calendar years for college started in August, or Fall to be more technical. 

[bukie]

The whole "Indiana wasn't deserving" discourse is so tired and lame.

It's possible for both these things to be true at the same time:

1. Indiana and Notre Dame are two of the top 10 teams in the country
2. Notre Dame is head and shoulders better than Indiana

I mean, Indiana lost to Ohio State by 23 and ND by 10 and beat Michigan by 4 and blew everyone else off the map. If you look at their composite ranking across all systems (https://masseyratings.com/ranks?s=cf), they're 7th, while Notre Dame is 2nd. And to dismiss them as "just a couple of mediocre 11-1 teams" belies the fact that they were the only 11-1 teams in college football this season.

And slow the roll, Illini fans, Illinois was about the 40th best football team in the country this season, and lost at home to Minnesota, while not being able to blow out Purdue or Northwestern. They were good, but not on this level.

[bukie]

Also, screw the ESPN announcers and their boldfaced shilling for the SEC. Now I'm to the point of hoping no SEC team makes the semis so they can sit there looking stupid for the last two rounds.

[Derwood]

2 hours ago, BigbadB said:

I'm old. I thought new calendar years for college started in August, or Fall to be more technical. 

Not if they want to participate in spring practices 

[soccer10k]

2 hours ago, bukie said:

And to dismiss them as "just a couple of mediocre 11-1 teams" belies the fact that they were the only 11-1 teams in college football this season.

Indiana was only 11-1 because they didn’t play in a conf title game like Penn St, Texas and SMU had to.  So prior to that there were 5.

[Andy]

3 hours ago, bukie said:

The whole "Indiana wasn't deserving" discourse is so tired and lame.

It's possible for both these things to be true at the same time:

1. Indiana and Notre Dame are two of the top 10 teams in the country
2. Notre Dame is head and shoulders better than Indiana

I mean, Indiana lost to Ohio State by 23 and ND by 10 and beat Michigan by 4 and blew everyone else off the map. If you look at their composite ranking across all systems (https://masseyratings.com/ranks?s=cf), they're 7th, while Notre Dame is 2nd. And to dismiss them as "just a couple of mediocre 11-1 teams" belies the fact that they were the only 11-1 teams in college football this season.

And slow the roll, Illini fans, Illinois was about the 40th best football team in the country this season, and lost at home to Minnesota, while not being able to blow out Purdue or Northwestern. They were good, but not on this level.

This was a stupid discussion when Notre Dame was on the other end of it and it's stupid now.

Indiana was in because Alabama lost to TWO crappy teams (Oklahoma and Vanderbilt) and didn't have enough good wins to make up for it. If they had lost to only one crappy team and to Tennessee, then they're in and no one really bats an eye. But they lost to two.

If Ole Miss had just beaten a Kentucky team that literally beat no other power-conference team all year - and got utterly trucked by the same Louisville team that SMU beat - then they're in and no one really bats an eye. But they didn't.

If South Carolina had beaten any of the 3 teams they lost to, then maybe they're in. (This is probably the one team I feel bad for, because the refs arguably screwed them out of the LSU game.) But they didn't.

If we're going to ban every team that ever takes a lopsided playoff L from the playoff, we're going to be running out of teams very quickly.

[Andy]

I badly want Texas to yak it up against Clemson so we can ask why a team that beat zero ranked opponents and only one team that seems to be clearly at least good (A&M) was in. But somehow that wouldn't be the discussion even if that happened.

[cwood218]

4 hours ago, bukie said:

The whole "Indiana wasn't deserving" discourse is so tired and lame.

It's possible for both these things to be true at the same time:

1. Indiana and Notre Dame are two of the top 10 teams in the country
2. Notre Dame is head and shoulders better than Indiana

I mean, Indiana lost to Ohio State by 23 and ND by 10 and beat Michigan by 4 and blew everyone else off the map. If you look at their composite ranking across all systems (https://masseyratings.com/ranks?s=cf), they're 7th, while Notre Dame is 2nd. And to dismiss them as "just a couple of mediocre 11-1 teams" belies the fact that they were the only 11-1 teams in college football this season.

And slow the roll, Illini fans, Illinois was about the 40th best football team in the country this season, and lost at home to Minnesota, while not being able to blow out Purdue or Northwestern. They were good, but not on this level.

Indiana most defiantly was not a top 10 team this year. You could argue that they were maybe somewhere around #13-16. I think more likely they are around #18-22.

They played 3 cupcakes to start the year ( like most teams do ) and won impressively.

But come on ...

FIU ( 4-8 ) # 7 in the CUSA

W Illinois ( 4-8 ) # 6 in the BIG-SOUTH-OVC

Charlotte ( 5-7 ) #8 in the American

That's hardly anything to go crazy about.

Now the big 10.

With the exception of USC and Wisconsin, Indiana played the entire bottom half of the 18 team conference.

Purdue 0-9 ( 1-11 ) #18

Maryland 1-8 ( 4-8 ) #17

Northwestern 2-7 ( 4-8 ) #16

Michigan St. 3-6 ( 5-7 ) # 14

Nebraska 3-6 ( 6-6 ) # 13

UCLA 3-6 ( 5-7 ) #12

Washington 4-5 ( 6-6 ) # 10

That right there is 10 of Indiana's wins.

Take a look at the top 25-30 or so teams in the country. It would be easy to see around 20 going 10-0 against that lineup like Indiana did.

So the question is how many would have also beat Michigan? With an apology to UMFan83 my guess is around 15 or so.

Indiana was a solid 8-9 win type team if you compare to before conference expansion screwed up the schedules.

Indiana was a one trick pony this year. Either you could handle the RPO or you couldn't. Luckily they faced a bunch of teams that couldn't. It was obvious from at least midway through the season or earlier if you watched the games. This was literally their best season since the invention of the forward pass. But let's not get it twisted and think moronic things like they were an elite team.

As an IU fan I am thrilled that they had a great season. For IU this was a special season. But in terms of college football it was really a special schedule. 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2024 by cwood218

[bukie]

SMU's QB has thrown for 62 yards for SMU and 96 yards for PSU.

[Derwood]

SMU is utterly outmatched and outmanned 

[cwood218]

It will never happen but they really need to skip the automatic bye for conference champions.

Two of Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame or Ohio State should have had byes over Boise State and Arizona.

It's only going to get worse when the ACC eventually gets raided by the SEC and BIG 10.

 

[Old Style]

SMU suuuuuuuuucks.