More Bowl Thoughts

I'm by no means a mathematician. In fact I suck horribly at math. The last math class I took was called "Math 1343: Math for Liberal Fine Arts Majors." You laugh but I kid you not. The first lesson we learned was that in a normal election... whoever gets the most votes, wins. But you can also do a point/ranking system. Then electoral college... etc.

The last lesson was balancing a check book.I wish I was joking with you or something but I'm not. Dr. Dimminie ruled. All that to say I'm not qualified to put out the stats I'm about to put out.


But back to the addition of the bowls thing I thought about it some more and let's say that we have 120 teams who only play amongst themselves (I'm dropping the 1-AA games just for math's sake, It shouldn't make a difference)

So:

120 teams
12 games apiece

720 games played (120*12= 1440, 1440/2=720 ***divide by two because each game is shared between two teams)

That means you have an even amount of losses and wins distributed amongst the 120 teams. 720 wins and 720 losses to divide out.

It takes 6 wins to make it to a bowl and there are 34 bowls (68 teams)

68x6=408 wins needed to fill the bowl allotment.

So, every year 408 wins (out of 720 total) need to be shared by 68 teams to meet the bowl fulfillments. That means that it takes 56% of the total number of wins possible to be spread amongst the 68 teams.

Since we have to win 50% (and lose 50%) of our games the differential is 6%. Throwing out the concept of 120 6-6 teams, 6% of the total wins have to be shared amongst your top teams.

That's not hard to do really.

Last year, how many 6-win(or better) teams were left out of the bowl picture?

Six, that I could find.

USCe 6-6
Iowa 6-6
Troy Trojans (8-4... ouch didn't even notice this during the season)
Northwestern 6-6
Louisiana-Monroe 6-6
Miami OH 6-7

So it's not like there's a ton of teams that are there to slip in... but you figure that we just added four more teams out of that group right there with two bowls.

I'm far too lazy to look up the left out teams from two years ago but I don't imagine more than 6-7 teams were given the cold shoulder.

So right now it looks like it'll be OK. We add one more bowl or that bad year nobody wants comes and we just may get to see what happens when we don't have enough bowl spots for teams.

Interesting enough I guess.

Ummm... how many days till kick off now? 114? K thanks.

Fuzzy Math

So this week the NCAA allowed for two new bowls.

The St. Petersburg Bowl and the Congressional Bowl have been added to bring it to a whopping 34 bowls

68 teams out of 120 (Go Western Kentucky Hilltoppers)

Yes... that is over50% of your teams that will be playing in a bowl this year.

Now say that you take away 1-AA victories as wins that count towards bowl eligibility.

It would be mathematically impossible with the 6 win minimum for a bowl for all the teams necessary to fill all the bowl slots as you have to have as many losses shelved out as wins.

Awesome. It's like getting the snow cone after the baseball game even though your team was run-ruled in the second inning.

Not that that happened to me ever. I ruled and took the losers' snow cones and wimmuns.

Meeting of the Minds

The transcript from the meeting of the BCS Commissioner in south Florida

Mike Tranghese - Big East
Dan Beebe - Big 12
Mike Slive - SEC
Kevin White - ND Athletic Director
John Swofford - ACC and BCS Commissioner
Thomas Hansen - Pac 10
Jim Delany - Big 10




JS: Hey guys thanks for getting together again this year. Great year all around for everybody. Mike nice championship. Two in a row for you.

MS: You're @#$% right nice year. The SEC rules all.

JS: Calm down, calm down... ok ok. Old Business?

KW: Yes. We talked last year about changing some of the revisions to get Notre Dame into the BCS more easily...

JS, MS, DB, JD, TH, MT: ... grumble grumble grumble.............

KW: ... well I think we need to change it more.

JS: Why the heck do we need to do that?

KW: Well we got left out this year.

DB: You guys won 3 games man... what do you expect?

KW: We're Notre Dame. We're the definition of...

JS: We'll talk about it later Kev.

KW: OK... but don't forget like last year.

JS: We won't. OK new business?

MT: I would like to make a motion. I want to kick out you, John, and Jim Delany

JD: What? Why?

JS: That's ridiculous Mike. Why would we do that?

MT: Well.... we're still pissy about the whole raid of Virginia Tech and Miami thing.

JS: Mike that was over five years ago man.

MT: And our only good coach left for Jim's league to Michigan

JD: That's not my fault.

MT: I don't care. I'm tired of sucking. We've sucked for too long. It's somebody else's turn to start sucking for a while. Why not the Big 10. They've sucked up their last four BCS appearances. Or the Big XII We beat OU. Yeah let Dan for a while now. He's the rookie.

JS: It doesn't work like that. Maybe y'all need to get some more competitive teams. Kevin, I don't get why you guys can't just join up like in the other sports.

KW: We're Notre Dame. We don't need a league. We'd dominate the East. No question.

MT: Y'all sucked last year. We won our BCS game against Oklahoma. You won three games and lost to Navy for the first time in forever.

JS: OK we'll talk about that one later to guys. Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

BCS.
Controversy.
Playoffs.
Plus-one.

All: ... ... ...

JS: Come on guys you have to talk about it this year. They said we would and I have to say something to the reporters.

Jim, Thomas have y'all made any head way.

JD: #$@$#%$#% you and #@$%$%$ your @$#@$% playoffs. Rose Bowl or bust &^%^*%.

TH: Yeah. What he said!

DB: Guys come on you have to at least talk to us about this... why not?

TH: The Rose Bowl stays. It is the Grand Daddy of them all.

DB: Look guys, I know you hate losing the match up but we all have to at one point or another. It's just part of the deal. We didn't get to be in the Fiesta Bowl for two years there. It's just a part of trying to find the best teams.

JD: The Pac 10 and the Big 10 are the best teams.

MS: Y'all have two championships this decade guys.

TH: 2003 counts.

MS: Like heck it does. LSU won that fair and square.

TH: The AP says otherwise.

MS: The AP also has Pitt ranked before the start of the season

MT: Hey!!! What's wrong with that!

DB: Shut up Big Least.

JS: Calm down calm down guys. Come on. Now look. This is why we have to figure this out. All the arguing and fighting has to stop. We set up a solid system and this stuff goes away.

KW: I'll only accept a plus-one/playoff if ND is guauranteed an invite.

JS: We can't do that Kevin.

KW: Why?

JS: Is it fair if we invite a 0-12 Notre Dame over a 12-0 Boise State?

DB and KW: Yes!!!

KW: Dan... why do you care.... oh yeah. Forgot about that.

DB: Shutup.

JS: Stop it all of you. Am I going to have to call Myles again.

All: No sir.

JS: Good. Now seriously. We've got to decide on something. We're taking too much heat.

Jim.
Thomas.

I need you guys to be serious and help us out here. We're going to have to be serious here and have some intelligent discussion. Playoffs. ABC. Rose Bowl. Breakup.

JD, TH: (begin singing) We shall be free.... We shall be free. So stand straight, Walk proud, 'Cause we shall be free.

(JS begins crying quietly)

DB: How about we keep the Rose Bowl and the match up, but just make it a part of the playoffs?

JD: The Rose Bowl is the MNC each year.

MS: No it's not, man. It hosts the MNC game once every four years like every other Bowl.

JD: No it's the MNC.

TH: He's right.

JS: (wiping his tears and speaking through a broken voice) Let's just bump it to next year.

sob..

sniff...

JD: Anything else wainch?

NH: Yeah got got something else to say?

JS: No. Good meeting.... See you guys.... sniff... sob... next year.

(Delaney and Hansen slap each other on the back and walk out for a night of bar hopping and loose living. Swofford curls into a ball continues crying.)

KW: Wait what about the BCS and the...

MT: Not this year man... next year maybe... next year.

DB: Are all the meetings like this?

MS: Well a lot of them involve some fighting so this was a relatively good one.

MT: You get used to the crying after a few years.

2007 CFB Review

This is a 5 part post/article (delayed as it may be) detailing the 2007 College Football Season. We'll discuss the teams, the upsets, the players, the coaches..... and as always, the controversy.






Part 1
The Teams:

Your recent traditional powers stayed on top (LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Georgia, USC, and Texas to name a few)

Some teams had their surgence season. I can't even call it a resurgence as they came from nowhere (Kansas, Florida Atlantic, Illinois, UConn, Virginia)

Another team came back from tragedy to a good, solid season (Virginia Tech)

Some more prominent teams struggled (Texas A&M, Miami, FSU, Nebraska, Wisconsin, California, and UCLA)

One tanked (Notre Dame.)

The Cinderella team (Hawaii) fell short unlike the previous two (Utah and Boise State.)

The bottom Dwellers stayed there (Baylor, Duke, North Carolina, Northwestern, Stanford, and FIU)

Some of your mediocre to good teams pulled themselves up by their boot straps to have decent seasons (Kentucky, Texas Tech, Wake Forrest, Colorado.)

The SEC proved to be the strongest conference with the juggernauts of LSU and Georgia being pretty dominant all season. Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, and Miss State all turned in good seasons to round out the mid-teams. Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina all had sub par seasons for what's expected. Vandy and Ole Miss were Vandy and Ole Miss

The Big XII was considered one of the weakest conferences to start the year. By the 11th week of the season the conference had 3 teams in the top 5 (Oklahoma, Mizzou, and Kansas). Combined with good season's from Texas and Texas Tech, the conference looked alright in the end. Colorado, A&M and Oklahoma State all ended up bowl eligible w/ some strong wins along the way.



The ACC was expected to blow this year in general. Boston College looked to be the savior as they maintained the #2 ranking after getting by VaTech in a low scoring game. They then lost two in a row and the conference championship game. Virginia Tech showed that Kansas may not have in fact been that overrated. Virginia and Wake had some good wins as well.

The Pac-10 looked to be killer coming out of the gate with California, Oregon, and USC all garnering top 10 rankings early in the season. The bears knocked out the ducks, who then knocked out the Trojans, who in turn lost to .... Stanford???? Oregon lost Dennis Dixon and California apparently lost their play book and direction. They were never the same team after a loss to Oregon State. ASU turned in a decent 10 win season.

The Big Televen came into the season criticized as they lost poorly at the end of last season, highlighted by an outstanding showing by the Buckeyes in the MNC last year. Michigan started out losing to a 1-AA and getting blown out at home by Oregon. Wiscy had a decent enough season but never seemed to get as good as we thought they were going to be. Illinois had a resurgent season getting 9 wins and beating #1 OSU w/ Juice Williams. The bowls however were not so kind to any of the above teams except Michigan which sent Lloyd Carr out with some flair.




The Big East looked like a monster at some points and looked like a joke at others. WVU seemed
ready for prime time with Pat White, Steve Slaton, Owen "wrecking ball" Schmitt. Rutger and Louisville also looked to be poised for good seasons with key starters returning on both teams. Louisville flopped under Kragthorpe. Rutgers was shown to merely be decent. The surprise coming out of the Big East was South Florida who was actually ranked up to #2 at one point in the season. WVU ended up winning the conference despite losing to a bad Pitt team to close out the season.

8.6 yards a carry and we still lost to Pitt?

The regular top teams finished on top. Your bottom dwellers stayed there. Despite the overall flipflop of rankings and how the season itself played out... it was nothing too exciting , if you don't count...

(To be Continued)