CURIOUS INDEX, 7/13/09

Why should we play a BCS school in a non BCS bowl game?

It’s stunning to hear that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the last time the Gators beat a non-conference opponent outside of the state of Florida…arguments like “UF doesn’t need to play a tough OOC schedule because the SEC is so good” aside, that’s a REALLY long time. It would be good for college football in general if teams like UF and LSU traveled more. Even Georgia is starting to do it, and Saban says he wants Bama to do it more as well…

Bama is coming up to State College in 2011, with Penn State venturing south the year before. Hopefully, out of conference, outside of the home region matchups will begin to be the norm.

@smorris – 2006, Tempe, Ohio State, 41-14.

Other than that, I totally agree with you. Bring on some Pac-10, Big-10, Big 12 teams on a regular basis I’m all for it.

Isn’t this “UF never plays BCS team outside Florida” thingy just another way of saying, yeah, you guys play FSU every year and Miami from time to time, but they don’t really count. In many cases, going out of state would only diminish the schedule.

Possible Fulmer Cup points for Arkansas State.

http://www.kait8.com/global/story.asp?s=10713924

Today’s lesson: Don’t break into the house of an Iraq vet who’s packing heat.

Running 135 miles in Death Valley just sounds like one of those ideas that sounds awesome, but just turns out to be utterly shit. That being said, masochism can be fun.

Does anyone here consider Washington to be a “BCS caliber” opponent other than Mr Alleva? Of course, coming from Dook to LSD, he does.

@ALGator: I was focused on games the Gators had control over scheduling, not bowl games…if they had been playing OOC games out of state the last few years, they would have been winning them…

@Claws: I hear what you’re saying, if you are playing UM and FSU in a season, then sure, there’s a reason you wouldn’t want to schedule a game in Austin that year (and it does make it tough to plan ahead, since you have to schedule a few years out and don’t know how good teams will be). But if you’re just playing FSU, UF doesn’t need to have 2 cupcake games at home in addition. Playing one cupcake and scheduling a home and home series vs a BCS opponent would be fun to see.

@ 8

being that Washington plays in a BCS conference, then yes they would be considered BCS caliber.

Can anyone else imagine Bobby Bowden as Matlock, proclaiming his client’s innocence?

“My client had no idea that his roommate was running a meth lab in their studio apartment. Sure, he was receiving $1200 cash from said otherwise unemployed roommate. But that doesn’t mean he did anything wrong.”

It’s amazing how little people cared about how far UF travelled in the 90’s when FSU and UF were in the top 10 for some of the decade’s most compelling matchups.

Only Georgia has a right to point fingers. Both schools lose home revenue every other year because of the game in Jacksonville. Georgia has more proactively used the extra 12th game this decade, and UF should follow suit. Scheduling flexiblity is actually the only compelling reason to give up the Cocktail Party, but is losing one of the SEC’s best traditions worth the fun of seeing some new matchups now and then? Georgia is proving it doesn’t have to come down to that, but I wonder if these games (Az. St., Oklahoma St) would have been scheduled if the Ga. Tech “upswing” had been foreseen…

That’s where Orson is? I thought he was covering the Mint 400…

Morris, I completely admit that, as a UF fan, the 09 non-conference slate does’t exactly inspire the sort of healthy rage that makes me feel alive on a good Saturday in the fall. I was mostly directing to the comment to the pithy “UF athletic department take note” lead-in, which suggests that a non-conference BCS game is completely foreign territory for the Gators (as well as an apparent ignorance of the fact FSU is not in the SEC). In fact, I’d go so far as to say UF usually do a better job than most in the scheduling department.

A hefty FAIL to the CBG plan. Kicking a defending BCS conference champion (Cincinnati) to the curb seems like a pretty bad idea.

It’s superior in execution, but the plan is lacking, I agree.

10

Technically true. However, LSU playing UDub at this time is like SoCal playing Iowa State or Dook and calling them BCS caliber.

Or Louisiana Tech beating us (MSU) last year and saying they beat a BCS caliber team.

Hey now, 17. Vandy disagrees with your assesment of Duke, and since Vandy was able to beat the likes of Boston College, SCar, Auburn, and Ole Miss, but not Wake, last year, I would say they are qualified to judge.

I can’t wait for a playoff so college football can experience the intensity of NFL week 14.

I have a couple of problems with the premise that a majority of college football fans prefer a playoff. A majority of sports fans probably prefer a playoff, but that does not necessarily mean a majority of college football fans prefer the system.

I follow MLS somewhat casually. I know the top teams, and I pay attention to the playoffs. However, I am not an MLS fan. I am unlikely to know any player that hasn’t been called up to his national team, can name only one head coach and none of the player awards (assuming they have names beyond “MVP”), and know hardly any players on the non-marquee teams. I’m not much better with MLB.

Many of the “Why don’t they just have a playoff?” crowd are college football equivalents of my MLS fandom. They are vaguely aware of college football, but it is far from their number one sports priority. A playoff is what they are familiar with in their sports of choice, and a CFB playoff would make it easier for them to ignore the regular season,(unless Notre Dame is doing well) and pay attention to the final month.

The very fact that these two proposals either treat the bottom third of D-I as equals deserving a seat at the table, or consider this set of geography centered eight team leagues to be a fair and equitable solution shows that they were written by people who lack a firm grasp of the college football landscape.

PS- One of my favorite retorts from the casual fan is “President Obama even wants a playoff.” This has absolutely nothing to do with his political views or platform, but his entire personal and educational resume screams “casual fan at best.”

That’s odd. My longer post did not appear, but the postscript did.

Super Conferences….

This clown put Nebraska in the Mountain Conference… Has he ever been to Nebraska???
also I would hate an away game on the smurf turf. The only appealing aspects of his arrangement is that us Nebraska fans can continue our hatred of CU, and we could start up a rivalry with Wisconsin. The rest of the teams frankly suck or are way the fuck away from Nebraska. Phoenix (so Arizona IMO) is 14 hours drive from Lincoln. Actually the closest team in his Mountain conference is CU at 8 hours. Currently CU is about the furthest school from NU in the big 12 north. Larry, Manhattan, Ames, and Columbia are all within 6. So are the Oklahoma Schools, only the Texas schools are further away and not by much.

Stanford and Cal in separate conferences. Sure, boss.

Then why is D1-AA’s playoff system not a train-wreck?

Why March Madness? There are press and coaches polls for college basketball, why not simply take the no. 1 and 2 teams at the end of the year and have them do a best of 7 series?

24, the reason March Madness works in basketball is that nobody watches the regular season games except the hardcore fans. They just don’t really matter as long as you win enough to get into the tourney.