NCAAF Nat'l Championship

[kjr_trig]

Originally Posted by Rylan1
Try playing someone out of conference... it seems SEC is afraid to. We've been playing quality opponents. When you decide to play a better nonconference schedule that you can talk.
OSU was cupcake city this year Rylan...Kent St., Akron, and Youngstown St....Washington made you look even worse by being terrible again...Even next year, you have to go to USC, other than that you have Youngstown again, Ohio and Troy, 3 more cupcakes.

 

[liverock27]

When you play a better in confrence schedule then we can talk. I will agree with you that yall recruit well and have turned in to Linebacker U in the past couple of years.

 

[liverock27]

UGA has 5 top 16 teams from this year according to the AP poll on their schedule for next year and 4 of them are from the SEC. Ohio State only has four teams in the top 24 and all three that are ranked 18 or below are in confrence games. I give you credit for heading to USC, but you play another weak schedule next year.

 

[rylan1]

Originally Posted by LiveRock27
When you play a better in confrence schedule then we can talk. I will agree with you that yall recruit well and have turned in to Linebacker U in the past couple of years.
not our fault conference is down. Big Ten is a legit powerhouse conference. Problem is that LSU's non sec schedule was just as light. Hey Kent State has 3 probowlers

 

[liverock27]

Where do you see that LSU's schedule was just as weak as yours? They played 7 teams ranked at the time and yall played three. They played VA Tech the second week yall played Akron. Your best out of confrence game was Washington.

 

[rylan1]

LSU plays N.Texas, Troy, Tulane
Georgia has lightweights too.
At least OSU plays a quality out of conference game
Did you see Troy's schedule... they are pay days but LSU,Ohio State, Oklahoma State.. Wow.

 

[liverock27]

I heard Troy is getting paid a ton for each of those games too.

 

[liverock27]

UGA has ASU at ASU, which isn't USC, but should be an interesting game with ASU returning alot of their starters and this is the first west coast trip in a long time. I guess you would consider that west coast, they play in the Pac10 so I am going to. Plus they have South Carolina and Alabama on either side of that game.

 

[burch2006]

OSU dropped either youngstown or ohio for TCU.

 

[reefraff]

Cavalcade of Whimsy - The Overrated SEC
By Pete Fiutak
CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Sep 25, 2007
Fiu's Cavalcade of Whimsy
a.k.a. Frank Costanza's Festivus Airing of the Grievances
In an attempt to surpass the record number of frighteningly angry e-mails received, recently set by the “passionate” college wrestling crowd … As of right now, with the caveat that I'll likely change my tune as the season goes on and as teams start to jell, today, Tuesday, September 25th, 2007, marks day one of the rest of my life. From this day forward, I will try to be brave enough, and strong enough, to stop blindly kissing the SEC's butt.
For years, everyone’s been afraid to poke the bear with a stick (as opposed to the legend of The Bear poking Nick Saban), knowing that anything short of continuous genuflecting at the altar of the almighty SEC will bring nothing but great vengeance and furious anger from the most passionate fans in college football.
Yes, with Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi State not being that bad, from top to bottom, the SEC is the best conference going right now (please note what I just wrote when your bile starts to build), but it’s time to start taking a really hard look at the league this year, and it's time to stop assuming it’s the dominant force everyone thinks it is.
You’re 100%, rock-solid, bet-the-house certain that LSU is one of the two best teams in the country right now. It's been driven into your head so much, it's now become an unquestioned fact. The defense has been so dominant, ranking first in the nation in almost all categories, and seventh in pass defense, that no one can do anything against it, right? Yeah, and last year's Ohio State offense couldn't be shut down. Take a look at the offenses LSU has faced so far: Mississippi State (102nd in the nation), Virginia Tech (107th), Middle Tennessee (108th), and South Carolina (79th). It won't get much harder once the meat of the season kicks in. Right now, half the SEC offenses are ranked 74th or lower, none are in the top ten, and only Florida, Kentucky, and Arkansas are in the top 25. I'm not saying LSU isn't fantastic, or that the D stinks. I'm merely saying that there might be more to the story.
You’re 100%, rock-solid, sell-the-house certain that Florida has simply reloaded, and it automatically belongs among the national title contenders, right? (Actually, I do believe this, but more on that later.) Western Kentucky is barely D-I, Troy is dead last in America in run defense, Tennessee has a great brand name, but isn’t Tennessee right now, and Ole Miss is 107th in the nation in defense. You're basing everything on one dominant performance against an average Vols team.
There's no question about it, LSU and Florida are good, but I want to see more. Unfortunately, I won’t, because now the SECers basically play each other, and everyone likes to pump up SEC teams based on what they do in conference play. You have to remember that just because one or two teams are top-shelf dominant, that doesn’t mean the entire conference is great. Did you rank the Pac 10 as one of the best conferences over the last few years because of USC? No, so why are you doing it now?
Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt aren’t awful like the true bottom feeders in other leagues, but they’re at a lower level compared to the rest of the league (even after MSU's win over Auburn). South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia are all at a similar level of average, with a few differences here and there.
continued

 

[reefraff]

Part II
Arkansas can't throw more than three feet down the field with any sort of accuracy (but to be fair, it's missing top WR Marcus Monk), Auburn is woefully short on playmakers and on the offensive line, Alabama can't find any sort of a pass rush no matter what the situation, Georgia is as flaky as they come thanks to a reloading young team, Kentucky can't stop the run, South Carolina's offense is more painful to watch than an Oprah/The View double-feature, and Tennessee has apparently decided to not play defense this year. I'm not saying the programs stink, and I'm not saying these teams won't be really good at the end of the year, or dominant next year. I'm talking about right now, and if you're watching the entire college landscape, then you can't objectively look at the mid-level SEC teams and say they're anything remotely special.
And then there are the big non-conference games to compare and contrast. In the big ones, Tennessee lost to Cal, Auburn lost to South Florida, and barely beat Kansas State, LSU dominated a Virginia Tech team that’s still playing like the weight of an entire region is on its shoulders, and Kentucky beat a Louisville team that couldn’t stop you and ten girl scouts from putting up 500 yards and 43 points. That’s it.
The best non-conference wins for the other nine teams: Alabama (Western Carolina 52-6), Arkansas (Troy 46-26), Florida (Troy 59-31), Georgia (Oklahoma State 35-14 … this was good, even with the Cowboys’ loss at Troy), Ole Miss (Memphis 23-21), Mississippi State (Tulane 38-17), South Carolina (UL Lafayette 28-14), Tennessee (Southern Miss 39-19), Vanderbilt (Richmond 41-17). Oooh, a bunch of real BCS killers in that bunch.
Basically, I'm asking the world to actually watch the SEC games like it would games from

 

[liverock27]

At the time of that article the SEC did look bad and this was a down year (BCS champ, 7-2 in bowl games, 2-0 in BCS games) for them, but what major confrence wasn't down this year? Scouts Inc. has 3 out of the top 4 recruiting classes for next year in the SEC (UGA, Alabama, and LSU only behind ND). So that shows they are not going to stay down. I have never argued that the SEC plays a tuff out of confrence schedule and other than TN nobody plays a tuff team year in and year out. TN, UGA, and Ark. travel to UCLA, ASU, and Texas this coming year and UF always plays Miami and FSU (i know both are down, but aren't we saying all confrences are down). SC and AL have Clemson and MSU is traveling to GA Tech. It's not great, but it's a start. I would love to see my Dawgs play an USC, Ohio State or Texas. They could replace either GA Southern or C. Mich which they open with, but look at their schedule next year. A run of @SC, @ASU, AL, and TN. Then to rap up the season @LSU, UF in jacksonville, @KY, @AU, GA Tech with no off date between any of those games. If they do win out then they are rewarded with another game against the best in the SEC West.

 

[ctm474]

Originally Posted by Rylan1
Try playing someone out of conference... it seems SEC is afraid to. We've been playing quality opponents. When you decide to play a better nonconference schedule that you can talk.
They just went out of conference 9 times during bowl season and won 7 of them. When Ohio St finally beats an SEC team then YOU can talk.

 

[triggerphish]

Originally Posted by LiveRock27
Then to rap up the season @LSU, UF in jacksonville, @KY, @AU, GA Tech with no off date between any of those games.
Ohio State hasnt had a bye week in 2 or 3 seasons.

 

[liverock27]

and they haven't had a confrence chamionship game either. If the Buckeyes were playing LSU, AU, and UF Ohio State would be bragging about how tuff their schedule is, but because they are inconfrence games for UGA our schedule is some how weaker?

 

[ctm474]

You need a 12 team conference before the NCAA will let you have a championship game. It's bad enough that there are 11 teams and they call it the Big Ten.
I think what ends up hurting Ohio St is the 2 month layoff between the Michigan game and the title game.

 

[pontius]

please, I laugh thinking how anyone could talk down about an SEC team's out of conference schedule.
as a Carolina fan, here is who we play every single year:
Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Vandy
then our main rival is out of conference: Climpsun
then, we rotate in 2 of the following teams every year:
Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, Miss State
this year, we played UNotCarolina as an out of conference game, next year we play NC State.
and that's just a sample of an SEC schedule. not only is our schedule tougher than Ohio State's, but pretty much EVERY GAME on our schedule is tougher than Ohio State's. it's almost laughable.
it should almost be illegal to have a conference as nasty as the SEC. hell, we started off 6-1 this year and finished 6-6, and I bet we'd beat 75% of the teams that played in bowl games this year.

 

[reefraff]

Yeah but you fail to mention your other two out of conference games, Louisiana Laf and South Carolina State. Impressive

 

[liverock27]

They played those teams in the first 3 weeks of the schedule and in between traveled down to Athens. I'm still stinging over sept.15th. It was my bday weekend too. and after S. Carolina State they traveled to LSU.

 

[pontius]

Originally Posted by reefraff
Yeah but you fail to mention your other two out of conference games, Louisiana Laf and South Carolina State. Impressive

geez, you expect us to play a top 25 team every freaking week? show us any other team that does.
the point is that every SEC team's schedule trumps everybody else's just because they play other SEC teams. we had a 6-6 record at which everybody would go, "eh". but 3 of those 6 wins came against teams that won bowl games. one of them was against Georgia at their home stadium and the other 2 (Kentucky and Miss State) we beat pretty bad. and that's what I'm saying....if a Big 10 team finishes 9-3, they're lucky if they even are ranked at the end of the season. if a SEC team finishes 9-3, you can believe that you want no part of that team in a bowl game because they are for real.