Curious Index, 12/6/07
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A new pig in the blanket? Reports indicate that Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe has accepted an offer to become Arkansas’ new head coach. This seems like a fine hire to us, especially because Nutt Job stayed in the SEC, keeping him in the news and us in business. Grobe was the 2006 ACC Coach of the Year when he led the Deamon Deacons to the conference championship and an Orange Bowl appearance. For his sake, we hope there are no skeletons in his closet because by God the people of Arkansas will dig ‘em out, if so. Good luck, sir. There is one thing we can promise Mr. Grobe as he departs the ACC for a more… indulging… fan base. There won’t be any of this in the SEC. UPDATE! Jim Grobe is staying at Wake Forest. I should know better than to nap on an Arkansas coaching hire… The drama continues. Soooooooey! Fulmer Cup points? The arrests are trickling in, including two Aggies on drug and robbery charges, but we remind the eager readers that Fulmer Cup official scoring does not begin until after the season concludes. Certainly for teams heading to bowls then, these arrests are just unofficial warm ups. Orson will have to rule on whether teams not heading to bowls may begin accumulating points. Make yourself comfortable, Jimbo. Florida State is set to announce on Monday that Jimbo Fisher will succeed Bobby Bowden when he finally decides to retire. This would normally qualify as exciting news for an assistant coach, but we imagine Fisher handled the news like he had been told he’d inherit Montgomery Burns’ estate upon his death. AD: “Jimbo, we’re gonna promote you to coach when Bobby hangs ‘em up!” Fisher: “Hoo. Ray.” AD: “You don’t seem as excited as I’d hoped.” Fisher: [mimicks waving pom poms] “Oh, no. I’m thrrrrrilled.” AD: “What’s wrong, Jimbo?” Fisher: “Bah. Nothing. It’s just… I dunno, a man hopes to make head coach before he turns 65.” Professor, I have a question. With SMQ taking a week off to catch his breath and Orson chasing livestock in the southwest, the mean IQ of the CFB blogosphere took a pretty nasty hit this week. It’s sort of the opposite of what might happen to Sports Illustrated if they shipped out Stewart Mandel and Peter King. Fear not, though, readers: we’re not totally doomed to an Oklahoma education this week. Others have picked up the slack. The M Zone asks a smart question about the utility of the “records against winning teams” statistic (it’s bunk, he says), prompting LD to respond with some interesting follow-up thought. Thus concludes our “The More You Know” segment for the week. Back to regularly scheduled snickering and rumor-mongering. Any chance of a split? My good friend Adam Jones has written a guest editorial spot for CFB News with a paragraph at the end that caught my eye: We are all left not quite knowing who reigns supreme in the college football world. I shudder to think what the newly independent and historically mischievous voters of the Associated Press will leave us with after this bowl season. The cacophonic clamorings for a playoff—at least of the “plus-one” variety—will continue, but likely on deaf ears; a 12-0 romp by USC next season will make everyone forget this ugly anomaly. We’ve spent plenty of time discussing how wack the 2007 season has been, but we’re not sure we’ve seen anyone yet discuss the possibility of a split national title. It’s pretty difficult to imagine a situation where that would happen, but it can’t be discounted at this point. Question of the day: Is there any scenario that might tempt AP voters into casting votes for a team other than the LSU-Ohio State winner? |
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81
Yeh, And a terrorist takes out Santa with a Stinger
Comment by Dr. Ed PHD.XYZ — December 8, 2007 @ 5:42 am
80
LSU narrowly defeating anOSU in triple overtime, but only because of a horrible call/non-call…..
AND
Hawaii blowing out Georgia by 3TDs+…..
AND
OU steamrolling WVU……
equals split title. (And who knows who the AP would give it to - it could be split split title
I’m by no means predicting the above, but it would result in a split in any sane world.
Comment by Timgen — December 7, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
79
EiG,
Yeh, the BCS has pretty much sucked the life and significance out of the Bowls by presuming to crown the “National Champion”. With raree exceptions (Texas/USC) the old system was clearly better. Some of the games turn out great but in general there is much less excitment.
A set 8 or 16 team playoff would be worse for any number of reasons. However, over at BON there’s a pretty extensive discussion of the Flex System Peter is talking about. Its not entirely realistic but if we were to have a playoff that would certainly seem to be by far the best opion.
Comment by marcillac — December 7, 2007 @ 7:50 am
78
# 59, 77
You’re right, I’m wrong, sorry.
It’s getting hard to keep up with the BCS’s yearly reactionary tweaking. This is just another example of how their tweaks generally cause just as much harm as good.
Comment by SD SMP — December 6, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
77
SD SMP: You missed a key point there. The “Iowa Rule” (put in after the Orange Bowl took Iowa the year of Miami-OSU) states that the bowl that loses its normal representative because they’re #1 can’t choose a team from the conference of the #2 team unless the bowl that would normally have that team consents. Meaning that the Sugar Bowl could have (and almost certainly would have) vetoed the selection of Georgia.
Basically, the rule guarantees that the bowl that loses the #2 team can have a team from that conference if they want one. And there’s no way the Sugar Bowl didn’t want Georgia.
Comment by SpartanDan — December 6, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
76
@34 “The fine folks at the AP can vote for whomever they wish after the seasons end, but it won’t give us a split championship. 1997 saw the end of that. The AP’s choice of national chamipon will carry no more weight than, say, mine. If it did, then all of the folks clamoring for Pete Carrol to have two (’03 and ‘04) should actually be saying that he has three (’03 and two in ‘04). Likewise, if we could still have split championships, Tressel would have two in the past few years, as would Mack Brown and Urban Meyer. But alas, they do not. The aforementioned three coaches each have one. Because we now have one national champion each year, the winner of the BCS championship game. End of story.”
I generally agree, and think we’ll see fewer split championships, if any from now on. But, it’s really not the “end of story.” There is no offical NCAA Championships. There can be split championships as long as anyone is willing to recognize them. And, many commentators, fans, and pundits still recognize split championships. Yeah, the BCS is supposed to be “offical”, but given its so convoluted, if there is any opportunity for the AP to vote otherwise, and a significant number of people agree, then there is a split championship. And, obviously, whether or not someone recognizes such a split, is often dependent on their affiliation. But, let’s say Oklahoma played USC or Georgia and beat them pretty good, while LSU had an ugly win over OSU. I think more than just OKlahoma fans would recognize Oklahoma as having won a champiosnhip, even if it is from the AP.
Comment by D-nice — December 6, 2007 @ 6:55 pm