hawkeyecub

Agreed. But they are in the top 14 of the BCS and the Fiesta could feel some pressure to take a Big 12 replacement for Texas since they have the Big 12 tie-in. If it were about who "deserved" it more, no one would even be considering PSU over Iowa.

You think the Fiesta would take a Big Ten team and Okie State? Here's how I see it as of now: NC- Fla/Bama vs. Texas Rose- Ohio State vs. Oregon Sugar- Fla/Bama vs. Cincinnati Orange- Georgia Tech vs. TCU Fiesta- Iowa/PSU vs. Boise I think it would be tough to sell two 2 loss teams over undefeated Boise with a win over Oregon. If they got Iowa they wouldn't have to worry much about ticket sales and Boise would probably bring nearly as many people as Okie State. The Fiesta Bowl is tied to the Big 12 and from what I hear, they might want to stay in conference for their at-large. I'm pretty sure they're a bigger draw than the Broncos as well, though not as much as some other BCS teams. For selections, I would guess it goes: Sugar - SEC loser Fiesta - Oklahoma St Orange - Iowa/PSU Fiesta - TCU Sugar - Cincinnati Leading to: MNC: SEC winner v Texas Rose: Ohio St v Pac10 Sugar: SEC loser v Cinci/Pitt Orange: Iowa/PSU v ACC Fiesta: TCU v Oklahoma St That's assuming Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, which would be a sizable upset. Now that I look at that, that's a terrible match up for the Fiesta. Maybe they do go Big 10, but I think the Orange would still take a BCS team like Oklahoma St or (gasp) USC. We'll see who's eligible at the end of the season, but I still think the bowls avoid taking Boise if they can. Edit: VT is in the hunt too, but the Orange can't take them. USC is out of it unless a bunch of teams lose. Virginia Tech is toast. The SEC loser and TCU are locks for at-large picks. The pool to choose the next two teams will come from Iowa, Penn State, Boise, Okie State and Pitt/Cincy loser. Unless something crazy happens I think it will be a Big Ten and Boise. The first picks go to the Sugar Bowl and then the Fiesta. Sugar will definitely take the SEC loser. Iowa needs to hope the Fiesta selects them with the next pick. Supposedly they're in good shape for the Fiesta but if they were passed over on the first pick, the Orange would rather have PSU than Iowa so they would be shut out. The Big East will be the final pick to the Sugar playing Bama/Fla and I don't see either of them being an at-large draw. If OU beats Okie State and Michigan State beats PSU and Cincy beats Pitt I think it becomes academic. First three would be as you said then GT vs. TCU and Iowa vs. Boise in the Fiesta.

You think the Fiesta would take a Big Ten team and Okie State? Here's how I see it as of now: NC- Fla/Bama vs. Texas Rose- Ohio State vs. Oregon Sugar- Fla/Bama vs. Cincinnati Orange- Georgia Tech vs. TCU Fiesta- Iowa/PSU vs. Boise I think it would be tough to sell two 2 loss teams over undefeated Boise with a win over Oregon. If they got Iowa they wouldn't have to worry much about ticket sales and Boise would probably bring nearly as many people as Okie State.

This was the best thing to come out of that postgame:

Well I'm a lot less discouraged by this loss than Sunday's. As you said, at least Duquesne is a top 75 team. Again it was just missed shots. We had even more open looks than the first game but shot 6-27 from 3. I insist this is a good shooting team. In my opinion better than the last two years which shot 36% from 3. Defense was really good, rebounding is good. Just cannot make an open 3 to save our lives.

Mangino may deserve to leave but that's a bad break for KU on the field. I wonder how much more desirable that job has become.

The Vikings currently have the top rated passer in the league, the #2 rusher in the league, the #4 leader in receiving yards in the league and #2 leader in sacks. They may get Antoine Winfield back. They're playing the Seahawks at home. Don't lose.

I'm willing to listen to your arguments why in his 5th year Weiss is still haunted by Ty. Hayden Fry completely mailed in recruiting during his last 2-3 years. We were awful his last year. Awful in Ferentz' first year. Terrible in his 2nd year but built toward the end. 3rd year went to the Alamo Bowl. 4th year was a Big Ten title, BCS bid and 3 consecutive top 10 finishes. I'm not saying it's an apples to apples but it is a comparable situation where recruiting reached a major low and the program wasn't in its best shape when the new guy took over. ND has enough prestige and he has supposedly recruited well enough that I don't understand why Willingham is still haunting him. Plus he had the two BCS bids immediately following Ty to carry momentum.

Smart ND fans won't put Weis anywhere near Willingham or even Davie when they look back on the last 5 years. As jersey said, you're making his point. But I don't agree with his reasoning. You're making his point by claiming Weis was some terrible coach when he took the team to a bowl game, including 2 BCS games, in 4/5 years and ended the damn bowl drought (I could give a rip who they played). He took over a program that Ty had run into the ground and proved you can recruit great players to ND and turn them into pro players. Clausen, Tate, Floyd, etc are only going to strengthen that reputation. Weis has made his share of mistakes and will probably never be a great head coach, but he's still paying for Ty's lazy ass. I hope he's the OC for the Bears next year. Weis has had more than enough time to make up for the mistakes Willingham made. His teams are getting worse the farther he's getting away from the Ty years and recruits. Besides, Charlie already told us it didn't matter who the players were. He would out X and O everyone. In '02 Ty was the savior was bringing ND and all their fans back to glory. Then he sucked and Charlie was the new savior. Now he sucks and the next guy will be. Then if he doesn't they'll still all insist it's an elite job and they're just stuck with another bad coach. If you don't know anything about either situation and just hate ND, just say so and we'll move on. Spouting ignorant BS that ESPN feeds you isn't good for anyone. Tell me what I don't know. I know that Weiss has had 4.5 recruiting classes come in. He was 19-6 his first two years playing primarily with players who were already there when he took over. He's 16-19 in the 3 seasons since when he's had to lean on the players he has recruited. It's his 5th [expletive] year and you're still blaming Willingham. Come on. He has a top 5 QB and top 5 college WR (two of them in top 10 when Floyd has been healthy) and barely has a top 40 team this year. He was the one who was over the top arrogant and basically saying he would outcoach everyone on national tv. I didn't meet many ND fans who didn't eat it all up and after the 2nd BCS game were all loving him up. Now the majority want him out and are like Andy saying their problems are based on hiring all bad coaches. It will be the same refrain if the next guy doesn't work out also.

i've heard from writers that have been cold-calling GMs and front office people asking whether there is any interest in Iverson and the results have been a resounding "no." In fact, the only response that wasn't a no, was a "hahaha." As it should be. I don't understand why a winning team would want to bring him into the mix. His only appeal is to sell tickets for a terrible team. And I say this as someone who loved AI pretty much his whole career. Then he came to the Pistons...

Smart ND fans won't put Weis anywhere near Willingham or even Davie when they look back on the last 5 years. As jersey said, you're making his point. But I don't agree with his reasoning. You're making his point by claiming Weis was some terrible coach when he took the team to a bowl game, including 2 BCS games, in 4/5 years and ended the damn bowl drought (I could give a rip who they played). He took over a program that Ty had run into the ground and proved you can recruit great players to ND and turn them into pro players. Clausen, Tate, Floyd, etc are only going to strengthen that reputation. Weis has made his share of mistakes and will probably never be a great head coach, but he's still paying for Ty's lazy ass. I hope he's the OC for the Bears next year. Weis has had more than enough time to make up for the mistakes Willingham made. His teams are getting worse the farther he's getting away from the Ty years and recruits. Besides, Charlie already told us it didn't matter who the players were. He would out X and O everyone. In '02 Ty was the savior was bringing ND and all their fans back to glory. Then he sucked and Charlie was the new savior. Now he sucks and the next guy will be. Then if he doesn't they'll still all insist it's an elite job and they're just stuck with another bad coach.

So is Thad Matta cheating? Who knows. I don't think he has to because of the crazy resources OSU has and the fact that they're a Big Ten team. I was probably too broad in my original post. I'm not talking about everyone outside of the top 5-10 programs historically. College basketball recruiting is just so shady.

I'm just so skeptical when anyone is that good of a recruiter at a non-elite school. You could say Memphis has been a name brand to most of these high schoolers since they've really been watching basketball, but they still play in C-USA. They also have all the bells and whistles that recruits like I guess. Iowa fans are all frustrated with Lickliter (which I am partially) and want us to hire a big-time recruiter. It doesn't work like that. You can recruit better than he has, but you'll never be able to recruit at the level of the name brand schools unless you're cheating.

Are you [expletive] serious? Look at your post that's quoted up top. I will bet you every dime you own that this team wins well over 5 games. They lost one [expletive] game they should have won and you're saying they might be the worst BCS team of all-time. You're being an idiot so people are calling you an idiot. If you want to cry about it, fine, but it won't change anyone's opinion. You've been a knee-jerk in all of the football game threads and you're going nuts in this one. Calm the [expletive] down. Again, the reason we lost was we missed shots and our best players played terribly. If we hit our shots, Gatens, Tucker, Fuller and Cole played well but we still lost because we couldn't defend and the young guys were awful, I would be more worried. Are you really worried about them making shots? Do you really think Gatens and Tucker are that bad?

This team is horrible. I said that when all the transfers happened that we would struggle to win 5 games. In reality I thought I was overreacting, because it's really tough for a BCS team to lose that few but after tonight, maybe not. Maybe our basketball team is what Washington State football team is to college football. That is the worst BCS program of all time. Stop. You're being an idiot. How? We just lost to Texas-San Antonio. Give me some reason to be optimistic. Or you could just insult me. Whatever. What SSR said. The reasons for the loss were actually the guys that I'm not worried about. Gatens had his worst game of his career easily. Tucker couldn't hit a shot. Fuller missed bunnies. Those guys are going to be fine. May looked really good. Payne was pretty good for the most part. Cole looked good except at the free throw line. We're a bad team, everyone knows that. There's reason to be upset with the loss, just don't freak out like a maniac. It's the first game of the year. We aren't going to shoot 5-27 from 3 very often against a team that shoots 50% from 3.

This team is horrible. I said that when all the transfers happened that we would struggle to win 5 games. In reality I thought I was overreacting, because it's really tough for a BCS team to lose that few but after tonight, maybe not. Maybe our basketball team is what Washington State football team is to college football. That is the worst BCS program of all time. Stop. You're being an idiot.

5-27 from 3, while they were 9-19. It's that simple. That and 16 turnovers. It's not really going to matter who we play, if we shoot that poorly we're going to lose. A lot of open looks too. The good news is we're a lot better shooting team than that. The bad news is that's the only way we're going to beat teams.

Favre is a top 3 QB in the NFL through 9 games. Please don't get hurt.

Unless they go to the rose bowl they should not make the BCS. Good to know. Texas has no business in the title game if Cincy wins out either. Hard to disagree with that, and for TCU and Boise St too. What teams does Iowa legitimately deserve to go to a BCS game ahead of though? Instead of just throwing out the general Big Ten comments, why don't you actually look at the BCS slots and tell me which teams are clearly more deserving? Wait, that would probably be too much work for you. 10 BCS slots. 6 automatics, 4 at-larges. Give 2 of the at-larges to TCU and Boise and 1 to Alabama/Florida loser. Still have 1 left. SEC can't get 3 by the rules, second place teams in Pac-10 and ACC all have 3 losses. The only teams that don't are Pitt, Oklahoma State, Iowa and Penn State. Iowa is clearly more deserving than PSU. Oklahoma State is going to lose at OU. Pitt still plays at WVU and Cincinnati. If they win out you can say they're deserving.

sulleymon, is that you? I'm so sick of the conservative coaching bullcrap. In college 1 minute is enough to get a field goal especially when you are on the freaking 40 or what ever it was. There is no way Iowa shouldn't be in the Rose Bowl. I'm going to puke hardcore. 52 seconds with the ball on the 33. It's fun for all Iowa fans to act like tough guys and call it cowardly, gutless and all that stuff. All the while ignoring that in Vandenberg's last 2 possessions he basically threw 3 INT's. The one that counted, the one on the screen (offsides didn't affect the play) and the one that should have been picked but ended up with a catch to Moeaki. I didn't love the decision but can see the reasoning. It sure would have helped to have won the coin toss in overtime. Hopefully we still get into the Fiesta Bowl.

I'm assuming he's a future replacement for Corso when he leaves. That's my only explanation. I don't like him either. That would be horrible but that's my thought too. Unless they want to keep the wacky old guy role and Lou is still alive. Mark May is kind of an idiot but I at least get the sense that he watches games. Howard gives you nothing but a guy who sounds like he's trying really hard not to screw up while reading off cards.

What has Desmond Howard done to keep his job other than being the token black guy? This is the first time I've seen Gameday in like a month and he hasn't said anything meaningful yet. Corso seems to be in much better shape than he was earlier in the year.

I liked Illinois better when Weber didn't like recruiting. Your really not gonna like Illinois next year and the year after then. Maybe they'll get hit with some sanctions.

I liked Illinois better when Weber didn't like recruiting.

What has MJ done since the time LeBron entered the league to change his mind? I think it's good, but why did you pick 23 to begin with?