Damaikis
Fairway Finder
Looks like we finished #11 in the AP Poll and #9 in the USA Today poll. Not too shabby. I can't see a team ahead of us that I think we should be ahead of. Right where we belong.
Official College Football Thread (Spoilers)
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For me, Missouri, Tennesse, Auburn, Ole Miss, Kentucky, they didn't win any bragging rights. Maybe texas A&M did. But the bottom of that conference didn't get any better because Alabama won the NC
Damaikis
Fairway Finder
Agreed. Those teams still suck even if Bama is amazing.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
I guess.
I do find it funny that when Florida and LSU lost their bowl games, a lot of ESPN pundits were quick to say "bowl games don't matter" or "[insert SEC team here] didn't want to be there." But, within seconds of Bama's win last night, the same pundits reaffirmed the dominance of the SEC over everything, as evidenced by Bama's win.
It's pretty obvious that ESPN is trying its hardest to market for its business partner instead of "reporting" on sports. That's my biggest issue with the whole thing. It will stay that way, though, until there is a legitimate playoff system in place.
I would rather see the Championship won by someone in the conference than someone out of the conference. It has nothing to do with bragging rights, it has nothing to do with making my team better. It shows that when my team has a good season, that they are playing exceptional football in the toughest conference in College Football. They are playing against the best competition there is in the country, and to me, I would rather say that I beat a National Championship Team, rather than say that we beat a team that lost in the championship game.
It has to do with exposure. It has to do with money for the schools. It has to do with the "brand" of football we play.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
If there were only some way for the best teams in college football to play each other at the end of the season to determine which team was the best. That way, the team that wins it all can say that it honestly beat the best teams in the country to win the championship. We could, for example, take the best 16 teams and have them play each other, with the winning eight teams then playing each other until they were down to four. Then, those teams could play until there were two teams left, with one game to decide a true champion.
Of course, such a plan would take far too much time and effort. Instead, we should just let the media and computers decide for us, and then let everyone else play in a bowl game at some point during the last four weeks of the year.
We witnessed this year why a playoff for College Football would be so amazing. Alabama vs Georgia in the SEC championship game was for a spot in the Title Game, all was on the line, and it was perhaps, the best game of the year.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
There are plenty of people who make that exact argument. Heck, you can turn on an Atlanta sports talk radio station this week (especially today) and hear the hosts make that claim.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
Completely agree. I'd love to see that happen over a four to five week period instead of two weeks of bowl games and then a hope-for-the-best "National Championship" game.
Wake
Active member
You have heard people saying Auburn is a good team because Alabama won? I don't doubt you are hearing people say that the SEC proved that it is the toughest conference, but I doubt you are hearing anyone say Auburn, Kentucky, or Arkie are good because Bama won.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
What people consistently say is something like "Of course my team is good, we're in the SEC." The other popular one is, "My team is terrible because we have to play in the SEC." The argument varies based on the W/L record of the school that particular year. 6 wins is about the cutoff point.
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- #13,914
Best line of the day. We don't need a playoff. We have one. Its called the SEC regular season.
Not a SEC fan, but sometimes its hard to argue.
Not a SEC fan, but sometimes its hard to argue.
Arkie_3_fan
Active member
In all fairness, most people that watched much SEC football this year knew that Florida really wasn't as good as their ranking suggested. They benefited from a healthy dose of luck and a nice smoke and mirror show to get where they were. I'm sure the SEC's reputation didn't hurt Florida either... After all, why would voters not vote an SEC team with 1 loss ahead of a single loss team from a conference that hasn't had the recent success of the SEC?
In my personal opinion, I feel like ND and Florida had very similar seasons in that it took quite a bit of luck to get where they did in the final weeks of the season. Both teams looked impressive at times, but were also shown to be quite vulnerable multiple times this season. I really wish they had a chance to play each other as I'd like to see how they would match up.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
It's a shame that Bama couldn't play Oregon. I think everyone would have thoroughly enjoyed that game from a matchup perspective.
Another thought just came to mind. At the beginning of the season, the media pundits knew that the NC game was going to be Bama/USC and that Matt Barkley was likely going to win the heisman. Did anyone have a more disappointing season than USC (at least from an expectations standpoint)? Arkansas, maybe?
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- #13,917
I agree, but we all thought that the year Auburn did and the result was the same.
ATLGolfer
#ATLClive75
You make a good point on Florida and ND. Both had several lucky breaks throughout the season to finish where they did. Florida's defense looked really, really solid (until they faced a "crappy" team from the Big East), but they needed some breaks to only lose one game. Notre Dame had to have a very questionable call go against Stanford and also needed several breaks against freaking Pitt to win those games.
All I could think about before last night's game was the Pitt/ND game, which made me think that ND had no chance of competing against Bama. Sure, it could have been a flukey, "looking ahead" performance. But, Pitt was downright awful this season and honestly should have beaten ND without question. It's just tough to find that a team is national championship caliber with performances like that.
1fairway2anothe
New member
I think what my fellow non sec fans are trying to say is that its getting real old hearing, "such and such team wouldnt have that record if they played in the sec". This seems to come from all sec teams. Its like saying that no team other than sec teams should get any credit because they dont play tough schedules when in fact they do. To be fair their are some absolute amazing sec schools, but their are also a lot of mediocre teams as well.
I think he was saying that people always say they want Oregon in the big game for a fun "matchup", but when the ducks get the shot, it's always underwhelming.
I agree 100% I really don't care for the SEC at all, but you can't argue with the facts of how dominant they are as a conference. I heard someone say once that SEC teams consider the SEC Championship game the real championship, that would be right for the last 6 out of seven years!!! And the year out was when LSU beat Alabama in the regular season and got into the champ game.
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- #13,923
This..
Arkie_3_fan
Active member
I'm sure it gets annoying, but after the last few nights of bowl games, one almost has to agree that Oklahoma and Notre Dame wouldn't have faired as well this season had they been members of the SEC.
If you are wanting a fun "matchup", the one I'd like to see is Oregon vs. A&M. That could turn into a barn burner for sure.
MSB256
Well-known member
This... Would Notre Dame have gone 12-0 in the SEC if they played Alabama, LSU, South Carolina, Georgia? Doubt it. There is some merit to the argument "how would said team do in the SEC?"
Now, the people who say well, my SEC team who stinks would beat your 12-0 team is somewhat silly, but I don't really hear those fans I guess.
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