Go Dogs!  Georgia whooped up on some Hawaii grass skirts.  Of course, somebody is going to say they knew that was going to happen all along but the fact of the matter is that few people did because of the Oklahoma vs. Boise State game last year.  It wasn't a particularly interesting game, but it was enjoyable for me.  Georgia should start out top 10 and maybe top 5 next year.

FormCritic wrote:The Pac Ten went 3-2  (just a whisper away from 4-1 with the UCLA loss)

4-2, actually ... by finishing with four straight wins (Oregon State, Cal, Oregon, USC).

FormCritic wrote:An astonishing 8 out of 11 teams in the Big Ten earned bowl berths, and half the teams in the Pac Ten made it to bowl games.

Sadly, the "percentage of teams" argument really doesn't mean much, as all bowl matchups have been "tie-ins" for many, many years now. Each of the nine Division I-A conferences is guaranteed X number of total spots in the 32 games, provided X is filled by teams with six or more wins.

SEC fans, for instance, like to crow about getting nine bowl spots this year ... as if every single spot wasn't guaranteed before the season started. Then again, SEC fans often occupy a separate version of reality than the rest of us.

The only exceptions to the guarantees are the at-large spots in the five BCS bowls. Teams that "move up" into an at-large spot usually create a vacancy for a fellow conference member to go to a lesser bowl ... although if no one else in the conference has hit the six-win minimum, that spot can end up going to a team from some other conference.

Kingofpain89 wrote:Wheee....that was a damn good game.

It really was. It had everything a good bowl is supposed to have — mostly an interesting matchup between two solid teams — and then lived up to its billing.

It's also interesting to note that the defending national champions just lost to the same team that managed to begin the season by losing to Appalachian State.  

FormCritic wrote:
Not a bad bowl season for the nation's two premiere conferences.

The Big Ten went 3-4 (chance for Ohio to make it 4-4)

The Pac Ten went 3-2  (just a whisper away from 4-1 with the UCLA loss)

The two conferences of 21 teams (about 10% of the total), scored 13 of the possible 64 bowl berths (about 20% of the total).

An astonishing 8 out of 11 teams in the Big Ten earned bowl berths, and half the teams in the Pac Ten made it to bowl games.

It is possible for a Big Ten team to win the national championship without going undefeated (a Pac Ten team has to be undefeated).  If it weren't for that, the two conferences would be better off bagging the BCS and going back to the de facto national championship game...the Rose Bowl.

Whatever Mark....

It sounds as if you are saying that because the Big Ten and Pac-10 sent so many teams to bowl games that they are better than the other conferences.  I hope that isnt the case because the ACC and Big 12 both sent 8 and the SEC sent 9.  And since the ACC is currently 2-5 in bowl games I am pretty sure you don't equate being "a premiere conference" with the number of bowl games played in.  The Big 12 has a chance to finish the bowl season with a 6-2 record with a Oklahoma win tonight and a Kansas win in the Orange Bowl.  Even if Oklahoma and Kansas both lose the Big 12's bowl record will still be .500....better than the Big Ten's .429.

The BCS is here to stay....at least until someone comes up with a better alternative and I seriously doubt it will happen anytime soon.  Your poor Rose Bowl with all its history and significance is now just another BCS bowl.  It's too bad they couldnt have had a better matchup for USC this year.  Maybe you could lobby the decision makers to make the Cotton Bowl a BCS site and the Rose Bowl could go back to being Pac-10 v. Big Ten every year.  Especially since the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in all it's ridiculous steel and glass glory will be the new home of the Cotton Bowl soon enough.

All I gotta say is this:  Texas 51, Arizona St. 34.

Kingofpain89 wrote:

The BCS is here to stay....at least until someone comes up with a better alternative and I seriously doubt it will happen anytime soon.  Your poor Rose Bowl with all its history and significance is now just another BCS bowl.  It's too bad they couldnt have had a better matchup for USC this year.  Maybe you could lobby the decision makers to make the Cotton Bowl a BCS site and the Rose Bowl could go back to being Pac-10 v. Big Ten every year.  Especially since the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in all it's ridiculous steel and glass glory will be the new home of the Cotton Bowl soon enough.

All I gotta say is this:  Texas 51, Arizona St. 34.

I refuse to invest too much time into bowl games until they someday do the logical thing and work out a playoff system.  Coming from a college with no football team (Texas Wesleyan University), I have always been able to stay just a little bit emotionally out of the fray.  And in the last 30 years or so have gotten quite sick listening to college football fans leverage their 6th ranked team's win over a 5th ranked teams win in the Jalapeno and Cheddar Cheese Bowl into a mythical  "championship'...which, in my mind, will always be mythical until they develop a playoff system.

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:And in the last 30 years or so have gotten quite sick listening to college football fans leverage their 6th ranked team's win over a 5th ranked teams win in the Jalapeno and Cheddar Cheese Bowl into a mythical  "championship'...which, in my mind, will always be mythical until they develop a playoff system.

Ahhh yes, the Queso Bowl...  My favorite...

urp!

bonk!

*****

Okay, that does it ... college football lesson coming! Especially for you heathens in the South and Southwest.    

*****

Kingofpain89 wrote:Sure it's the "Granddaddy" of all the bowl games but its still just another bowl game.

But it's not ... although I agree that it's mostly misunderstood by football fans outside of the Midwest or Far West.

Here's the thing about the Rose Bowl: it is a partnership with very loyal partners. The Big Ten, Pac-10, and Rose Bowl committee are exceptionally loyal to each other and they have a deep respect for the history of not only the respective conferences but for their shared experiences in the Rose Bowl. Especially in the current show-me-the-money world of sports, it's a very unique partnership.

This loyalty has been tested many times before, but the three partners have almost always stuck together. Anyone remember the Bowl Coalition and the Bowl Alliance from the 1990s? They were pretty much the current BCS system ... except that the Pac-10 and Big Ten were not members and the Rose Bowl was not included in the bowl rotation. It took a lot of convincing before those three partners would agree to sign on with the current BCS system (which debuted after the 1998 regular season) ... and there's still some officials within the Rose Bowl partnership who wish they never would have signed.

Or take this season as a most recent example. The Rose Bowl committee, which lost Ohio State to the BSC title game, had some very nice consolation prizes to consider during the selection process. Hey, look, it's West Virginia! They would only bring about 6 million fans to the game. Hey, look, its Georgia! They are only the hottest team in the country. So we'll take ... Illinois.

I doubt the committee even really hesitated over this decision. Again, it's back to the loyalty and tradition. Illinois is part of the "Rose Bowl family" ... you can laugh, smirk, or howl all you want, but here's the thing: anyone who doesn't understand why the Rose Bowl committee would choose Illinois just doesn't grasp how loyal the three partners are to each other. This is sort of an understood thing if you're a college football fan in California or Michigan, but I suppose I can understand that's it's not common knowledge elsewhere.

And here's the best part about the Rose Bowl: it is definitely not like the other 31 games. It is the only bowl that could choose to go its own way and still get huge TV ratings, still sell 95,000 tickets every year, and still be talked about by casual and rabid fans alike. That's one of the benefits to being 33 years older than the next-oldest bowl game.

Or, as someone in the partnership once said (and I wish I could remember who it was): "What we have is the one football game that is important to all those people who only watch one football game every year." Now as stupid as that sounds on the surface, it's also pretty much true ... and that's a lot of people.

Kingofpain89 wrote:Why is it that UCLA can be a twenty point underdog, unranked, 0-2 against subpar non-conference teams and still find a way to beat a Texas team ranked fourth in the country

Ah ... would that be the 1997 game? UCLA 66, Texas 3. I'll tell you, not even rabid Pac-10 fans can explain that one.

It's a good trivia question, too: what is the largest margin of victory for an unranked team over a ranked team in college football history?

Xaxaxe wrote:*****

Okay, that does it ... college football lesson coming! Especially for you heathens in the South and Southwest.    

Let me reiterate my previous statement.  My feigned ignorance of the Rose Bowl was for Mark's benefit.  That's what the winky face was for.  I may not know every single iota of information about the history of college football or the Rose Bowl but I would much rather sit and watch a college football game than an NFL game any day of the week.

Both times Texas played in the Rose Bowl I was thrilled.  For them to get to play in the most storied bowl game of all time was a dream for the players and the fans.  For them to beat both Michigan and USC for the national championship was simply the ultimate feat for the Longhorns.  I dont think I will ever see a football game quite like the national championship game of 2005.

And yeah, you nailed it on the head with that UCLA shellacking of Texas.  That was simply the second most embarrassing loss that they have endured while I have been watching Texas Longhorn football.  The worst was as Mike stated, the Cotton Bowl loss to the Hurricanes.  I did watch that game and it was equally embarrassing.  Texas was ranked number two going into that game and anyone that was a Longhorn fan was thinking national championship if we could beat the 'Canes.  It was apparent real quick that Texas just couldnt hang with Miami.  

Kingofpain89 wrote:Both times Texas played in the Rose Bowl I was thrilled.

Those were both great games, especially the USC game. I was glued to my chair for every single play.

I think those games also helped the Rose Bowl/Big Ten/Pac-10 triumvirate see that maybe ... just maybe ... the world would not end if tradition had to go out the window every so often. Actually, the 2002 game was pretty funny, too ... despite hosting the national championship game, there was still a lot of grumbling from some sources that it would be the first Rose Bowl game since 1919 to not include a Pac-10 team. Ah, tradition and grumpy old men ... you just can't beat it!

Xaxaxe wrote:And here's the best part about the Rose Bowl: it is definitely not like the other 31 games. It is the only bowl that could choose to go its own way and still get huge TV ratings, still sell 95,000 tickets every year, and still be talked about by casual and rabid fans alike. That's one of the benefits to being 33 years older than the next-oldest bowl game.

Yeah, it still can sell that many tickets and generate that much excitement for now and probably the near future, but if it keeps picking non-top ten teams like Illinois, it'll become more and more irrelevant.  The match-up was surprising to say the least.  Every tradition has momentum, for good or for bad.  I think the positive Rose Bowl tradition is not primarily a product of age, but of the best teams in the nation playing each other for high stakes. That's what made the Rose Bowl great; and that was lacking this year.