I can't bring myself to like him. And there is no reason for me not like him. But I just can't like him.
National football championship tonight: who you got and why?
- Thread starter Bert Higginbotha
- Start date
That fake was on the level of the Colts fake a few years back....Laughing
That fake by Saban told me he felt he was beat.
No doubt. I expected much better. Clemson has dominated basically the entire game.
30 straight since Bama led 16-14. Never thought I'd ever see a Saban team get whooped like this. I mean, like, ever.
I don't know about favorite but he should definitely be in the mix. Haskins put up absurd numbers this year and he finished 3rd in the voting. Almost 5K yards, 50 TDs and only 8 picks. I would be pissed if I did that and didn't take home the hardware. Laughing
For Clemson to be playing this great, up this much, is impressive as hell. They're not letting up.
I knew he was going to the draft. I'm just saying the dude sets Big 10 records in yards and TDs in a season and that didn't even win him the Heisman, that's rough. Murray was deserving too though. I am sure Tua and Lawrence will be among the favorites but I think Clemson's offense will be too balanced for him to put up the numbers to win it.
GOO_HAM, why do you have to be nasty?
I have never seen you post here before and you start off with that kind of crap. Are you just a bitter little person or what?
**** you.
Last edited:
Georgia is still the only team to play Alabama close this year. That deserves some sort of trophy, I do believe.
In the last 3 years, the SEC is 17-19 in bowl games. Alabama probably isn't being properly prepared for these games due to playing in a weak conference.
3-6 against the Big 12. Only reason the SEC is so close to .500 is because they seem to dominate Big 10 schools (6-2).
For real though, Alabama has had a pretty easy schedule in recent seasons. They’re obviously still either #1 or #2 every year but beating up on a bunch of unranked or fringe top 25 teams throughout the season isn’t doing them any favors. Not their fault though that their best annual opponents, LSU and Auburn, are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from season to season and game to game.
Their out-of-conference schedule was insanely light: 2 Sun Belt teams, Louisville (0-8 in the ACC), and a FCS School (Citadel).
Honestly, the ACC and SEC are doing it the smart way by only having 8 conference games. Big 12, Big 10, and Pac-12 all play 9 conference games, which inherently makes your schedule much tougher. I still think we need an 8 playoff team system. 5 conference champs + best conf. champ from the Group of Five (UCF) + 2 at-large bids.
Under this scenario, the playoffs this year would have featured quarterfinal matchups of:
#1 Alabama vs. #9 Washington
#4 Oklahoma vs. #5 Georgia (at-large)
#2 Clemson vs. #8 UCF (Group of Five)
#3 Notre Dame (at-large) vs. #6 Ohio State
I’d also be fine with a 6 team playoff where the 1 and 2 seeds are rewarded with a bye as a reward. Regardless, I don’t really like the idea of each P5 conference getting an auto-bid. Just go top 8 (or 6) and let it be.
This is exactly what I think should happen. It's currently the case that if all P5 conference champs went undefeated, one would be left out by default. That's screwed up. Eight team playoff solves every problem I can think of.
Potential problems. Until they become actual problems, and for more than one season, nothing will change. See BCS.
Playoffs are fun but I see 3 blowouts in those hypothetical matchups for this season. I don’t think that would be the case every year though.
I’m a big fan of expanding it for selfish reasons as a fan but honestly 4 is probably perfect. And really the BCS got it right with 2 teams more times than not. Leaving it at 4 would keep out the occasional 8-4 conference champion and it would always include the 3 undefeated teams from 3 different conferences. The only thing that would make it seem like it didn’t work was if you had 5 undefeated champs from power conferences but I’m not sure that’s ever even happened in the modern era.
Still think Notre Dame should be eliminated from consideration until they join the Big 10 or ACC.
In most cases, it would essentially be a tune-up game. Alabama and Clemson playing against Washington and UCF, respectively. I think both teams would win by 3+ touchdowns.
But this system is fair to all 5 conference champs. And I think everyone would agree that there's usually 1-2 at-large teams that are deserving of a chance. A 4-team playoff isn't much of a playoff when you talk about postseason competition for a national championship. Two games? FCS teams have to win 4 playoff games.
Occasional 8-4 conference champ? Who exactly are you thinking of? Every single P5 conference champ, at least since the playoffs started in 2014, has had been a top 10 team with 10+ wins.
I didn’t have any particular school or year in mind. But I feel like there’s been some teams like that in the recent past (BCS era) that have had poor records but end up winning the conference. Maybe I’m thinking of teams playing in the conference championship with records like that because their division is so bad.
4 to me is perfect as well and expansion would have helped Georgia this season, but I think 4 is fine. BEST vs. Deserving is what is always going to be at the debate table.
The BCS would have picked Bama and Clemson for the National title game. We didn’t need an extra game to know that and we don’t need additional rounds to get to a final conclusion.
Expanding the playoffs diminish the regular season.
Northwestern almost won the Big 10 this season. They would have not deserved to have been in the Playoffs IMO
There probably has been a school in the past. But those are few and far between. And certainly there are 8-4 type teams in the conference titles seemingly every year (Pitt and Northwestern this year). But those schools don't have a very good track record; I can't remember the last time there was a major upset in a conference title game (ie: top 5 team verse a fringe top 25 team).
Most years, this system would feature 8 top-ten teams. This year might have seen a blowout or two. But 2017, for example, would have featured A LOT of competitive games. UCF was a better team last year, and they ended up beating Auburn. USC was the weakest of the P5 Champs, but they weren't exactly chopped liver. 7 games instead of 3? I think it will happen. Just a matte of time. You make a lot more money with 7 games.
6 or 8 would be fine with me. I’m just a bit concerned with watering down the regular season. What makes the season more fun is how much each game matters. Also, I would prefer to reward the top performers with something.
As for the selection, I don’t like when things are over-manufactured. I also don’t like the idea of the NCAA making distinctions between member institutions based on conference affiliations. I don’t believe that it was the NCAA that labeled universities as P5, or mid-major, etc. I think that was the media. The governing body making those distinctions, and then having to write it into their bylaws, doesn’t seem quite right to me.
This system would also potentially bump more deserving teams for less. Let’s say, somehow, a team from a weaker division wins the conference. Now you could potentially drop a top 10 team from the list because of a single upset. So this year Pittsburgh would have had a chance to play in the playoffs if by some miracle they had beaten Clemson?
It probably would happen every once in a while. But the margin for error is so much higher in football than basketball. You can beat superior teams in basketball simply by making 3-pointers. In football, you have to control the line of scrimmage, you have to limit turnovers, you need 3-down stops on defense, you need a balanced attack between the run and the pass. It takes A LOT of good plays for an 8-4 team to beat a superior squad like Alabama or Clemson.
And honestly, I can't remember the last time an 8-4 team defeated a top 5 squad in a conference title game. Has that ever happened? Seems like these 8-4 teams lose every year.
It’s pretty rare. Only time it happened in the Big 12 was in 1996 when unranked Texas beat #3 Nebraska 37-27 in the first Big 12 title game. Might have kept Nebraska from being declared the NCAA champions that season.
It kind of happened again in 2003 when #13 Kansas State beat #1 Oklahoma. That OU team was so good that year that they still finished in the top 2 of the BCS.
What are people’s thoughts on this Clemson team being talked about as the greatest team of all time? I believe they have an argument but I still think 1995 Nebraska holds that claim. They averaged 53 PPG and only gave up 14 PPG. Also played 4 Top 10 teams and won them all by an average of 30 PPG. Smashed #2 Florida in the championship 62-24, intercepting the Heisman Trophy winner (Wuerffel) 3 times and held the entire Florida team to -28 rushing yards.
I only started watching in the early 1990's... best team would either be 95 Nebraska or 01 Miami. Here's my top 5 from the team's I've seen play:
1. Nebraska, 1995
2. Miami, 2001
3. Texas, 2005
4. Clemson, 2018
5. Alabama (pick a year)
1. Nebraska, 1995
2. Miami, 2001
3. Texas, 2005
4. Clemson, 2018
5. Alabama (pick a year)
I agree, especially if PAC-12 football follows its basketball brethren into minor league status. The 8 team playoff is fine if we get rid of conference championship games, which are a de facto extra round of the playoffs. And the SEC needs to scrap the permament cross-division rival thing because Alabama gets a significant advantage by playing Tennessee every year and not Florida (LSU) or Georgia (Auburn). Yeah, it's cyclical, but the last time Tennessee was consistently as good as Georgia or Florida (or USC Jr., really) was the late 1990s/early 2000s.
Also consider that any expansion of the playoffs will entrench the elite teams even more. 2015 OSU and 2018 Alabama are not title contenders without the playoff, but at least it's possible to keep them out of the top 4 (although in Alabama's case I think it would take 2 losses). USC in the Pete Carroll years likely has another title or two. Same for Miami and Florida State (how many times did FSU end up top 5 but not playing for a title? Like 5?).
I think Florida State finished in the top 4 every year from 1987-2001 or something like that. Only 2 titles to show for it.
Could be wrong on exact years but it’s some ridiculous streak of being elite.
He called you a dumb mf’er, and you just agreed. Lol
Where does this Michigan team stack up against the all time greats @hailtoyourvictor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901_Michigan_Wolverines_football_team
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901_Michigan_Wolverines_football_team
