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Vikings come to Lambeau Field this Saturday.
I know. That's the bye to which I was referring.
Vikings come to Lambeau Field this Saturday.I know. That's the bye to which I was referring.
Erm ... you saw them play then? No bye week. *confused face*
RE: college bowl playoffs: not until the 2014-2015 season if what I read earlier is correct, giving Alabama a chance at a three-peat for the crystal football.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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List of FBS teams at the end of the 2012 postseason with 12 FBS wins:
Alabama
Notre Dame
Ohio State
StanfordBut Oregon gets #2, in both the AP and BCS. Pfah.
Oregon lost once, in overtime, and dominated every other team they played. No other bowl-eligible team can match that record, Alabama certainly gets the nod for being a conference champion however.
If you're complaining about Oregon playing a FCS team as part of their 12 win season, they had to fill the Kansas State hole somehow. And we saw what would have happened to Kansas State if they'd played Oregon in the regular season like they were supposed to.
Alabama - finished ahead of Oregon, no beef to be had
Notre Dame - humiliated in their bowl, multiple close games
Ohio State - the big 10 (ha ha) was awful this year, that cost them. Didn't have to play either a title game or a bowl game due to sanctions, that cost them more.
Stanford - lost to Washington, lost to Notre Dame, other close games. Won in OT when it counted against Oregon, but no one objectively believes they're a better team than Oregon overall. If they'd beat Oregon in regulation, might be a different story.
Oregon has an unreal offense and a strong defense, their ranking was earned. If we had the four game playoff by now, they'd have played for the title last year and this year. Their four year resume (4 BCS bowls in four years) can't match 3 titles in 4 years, but is still the second best performance in all of FBS.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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Sure, they talk about Oregon and that incredible offence, but guess what? They were talking the same way about Oregon a year or so back when LSU beat the crap out of them in the first game of the season. Would such a win over Bama have been possible? Of course. Would it have been likely? Not really.
The same game that Cliff Harrris's stand in (De'Anthony Thomas, no less) made critical new player mistakes. And the same game in which Oregon scored more against LSU than anyone else did all season. With a score of 40-27 and 4 turnovers, Oregon basically took themselves out of the game rather than "having the crap beat out of them". But the SEC seems to define beating the crap out of differently than anyone else, I've heard Oregon-Auburn described that way too :) It doesn't make it not a loss, it doesn't mean LSU wasn't dominant, but it wasn't a 49-0 blanking either.
So yeah, Oregon could beat Alabama. I doubt they'd be favored, but they'd have a much better shot at it than Notre Dame. So would Texas A&M (heehee) and Stanford. Ohio State would have been eviscerated even worse than ND.
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Meh, what can I say, I usually refer to a double digit lead as "beat the crap put of". Just part of my nature. And those 4 turnovers were helped along by pressure from a very good LSU defense.
All that doesn't change the fact that, going into the game, Oregon was overhyped. It happens. USC gets it a lot. That's not to say they aren't a damn good team. I very much think they are. But we're outmatched by LSU then and would have been by Bama this year. But they would definitely have put up a better fight than ND did.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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I don't think 2011 Oregon, which finished #4 in the nation with a 12-2 record, was particularly overhyped. Their losses were a close one to a USC team that was far and away better than this year's team, and to the LSU team that beat Alabama regular season and went to the NC. They won their conference and ended the season beating a very good Wisconsin team in the Rose Bowl.
SEC blinders get kind of old. Oregon's finished #3, #4, and #2 in the past three years, not much overhyping going on there.
Compare USC's overhyping - preseason #1 to postseason unranked. that's overhyping.
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I don't think 2011 Oregon, which finished #4 in the nation with a 12-2 record, was particularly overhyped. Their losses were a close one to a USC team that was far and away better than this year's team, and to the LSU team that beat Alabama regular season and went to the NC. They won their conference and ended the season beating a very good Wisconsin team in the Rose Bowl.
SEC blinders get kind of old. Oregon's finished #3, #4, and #2 in the past three years, not much overhyping going on there.
Compare USC's overhyping - preseason #1 to postseason unranked. that's overhyping.
Good points all around. I'm probably listening too much to the sports journalists. Every year they seem to pick some non-SEC team who's going to stomp all over everyone on their way to finally denying the SEC the National Championship. USC had their turn. Boise State had a turn. Now it's Oregon.
As for SEC blinders - What can I say? The last seven BCS championships belong to the conference, and nine total since the BCS inception in 1998. And just going back the last three years they've had 6 (2012), 5 (2011), and 6 (2010) teams finish in the top 25. They're simply one of the best (if not the best) conferences in college football these days.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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I'd agree they are the best. PAC-12 and Big 12 next, swapping orders depending on the year. I don't know if Oregon can win a national title game, but they're in the running for it year after year.
Where the SEC hype gets old is the "top to bottom" crap. The bottom of the SEC is crap. The huge conference size means more tough teams get missed than ever before. The 8 game in conference schedule is weak compared to the 9 that the Big 12 and PAC-12 play. The out of conference scheduling is often laughable, though only the PAC-12 schedules tough enough to complain about that. Yes, they are a dominant conference, but SEC teams also rig their seasons to get rest breaks that conferences with tougher scheduling lack. And that tougher scheduling, every year, knocks a few potential top teams out of the NC game. Good arguments for that 4 game playoff - which has good points for the SEC too, since they're likely to get two teams in every year.
We got a taste of what might happen if SEC powerhouses face quality offenses more than a few times a season in the Texas A&M/Alabama game. The SEC *does* have a few teams that play strong offense (and lots that play strong defenses), but it's not their mark. Playing tough offenses several times a season is a good part of why only one PAC-10 or 12 team ever made it through the 9-game rotation undefeated (Oregon, 2010).
Oregon does have the distinction of being the only losing team in that 7 game stretch of SEC wins (the true title games vs. the bowl rotation format) to actually take the game to the end of regulation :) I hope they get another shot, but that likely takes some luck to go along with their skill.
I don't think Oregon earned a shot at the title *in the existing format* this year, so they weren't robbed of a chance to win it all the way they were in 2001. I think it's ridiculous to claim that Oregon is a better team than Alabama this year (born out by the 0 first places votes they got), but I do think they earned that #2, and that's a good place to be in my book :)
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Top to bottom for the SEC this year: Of 14 teams on 5 had losing records. The records of the three non-ranked teams with winning records were 9-4, 8-5, and 7-6. Not necessarily crap.
And yes, some of those out of conference games were laughable. Nearly every team has games like that. But that's not just a product of big teams wanting an easy game. It also results from not-big teams wanting to take on big schools because they get a good pay day from it. One of the unfortunate side effects of big college sports being turned into a business.
Texas A&M is and SEC team. And yes, they beat Bama (something which made me smile) I think partly because everyone was assuming they'd suck in their first year (like Missouri), and they used that to their advantage to surprise the Tide.
Erm ... you saw them play then? No bye week. *confused face*Vikings come to Lambeau Field this Saturday.I know. That's the bye to which I was referring.
It was sarcasm. The point was that the Vikings are so easy to beat that playing them was equivalent to a bye week. :-)
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Top to bottom for the SEC this year: Of 14 teams on 5 had losing records. The records of the three non-ranked teams with winning records were 9-4, 8-5, and 7-6. Not necessarily crap.
And yes, some of those out of conference games were laughable. Nearly every team has games like that. But that's not just a product of big teams wanting an easy game. It also results from not-big teams wanting to take on big schools because they get a good pay day from it. One of the unfortunate side effects of big college sports being turned into a business.
Texas A&M is and SEC team. And yes, they beat Bama (something which made me smile) I think partly because everyone was assuming they'd suck in their first year (like Missouri), and they used that to their advantage to surprise the Tide.
Yeah, had nothing to do with having a roster filled with the second best recruiting classes of Texas blue chippers year in, year out {which are coveted even in the SEC, especially at skill positions), a stud coach, and a stud quarterback. It was the surprise factor ;-)
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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Texas A&M is and SEC team. And yes, they beat Bama (something which made me smile) I think partly because everyone was assuming they'd suck in their first year (like Missouri), and they used that to their advantage to surprise the Tide.
Yes, of course they are, but they're a historically strong team offensively, so they've improved that aspect of the SEC. That was my point :)
So yeah, Oregon could beat Alabama. I doubt they'd be favored, but they'd have a much better shot at it than Notre Dame. So would Texas A&M (heehee) and Stanford. Ohio State would have been eviscerated even worse than ND.
I don't think anybody could've beat Bama with the game they had that night. Oregon is a good team, no doubt. So is A&M but it is damn hard to beat Alabama twice in a year.
It was sarcasm. The point was that the Vikings are so easy to beat that playing them was equivalent to a bye week. :-)Erm ... you saw them play then? No bye week. *confused face*Vikings come to Lambeau Field this Saturday.I know. That's the bye to which I was referring.
^______^ My misreading then! (Although I doubt Green Bay would call it a bye week. )
I remember seeing some guys in purple show up, but I don't remember seeing them play.Erm ... you saw them play then? No bye week. *confused face*
Maybe it was the state HS football team? ;-)
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Yeah, had nothing to do with having a roster filled with the second best recruiting classes of Texas blue chippers year in, year out {which are coveted even in the SEC, especially at skill positions), a stud coach, and a stud quarterback. It was the surprise factor ;-)Top to bottom for the SEC this year: Of 14 teams on 5 had losing records. The records of the three non-ranked teams with winning records were 9-4, 8-5, and 7-6. Not necessarily crap.
And yes, some of those out of conference games were laughable. Nearly every team has games like that. But that's not just a product of big teams wanting an easy game. It also results from not-big teams wanting to take on big schools because they get a good pay day from it. One of the unfortunate side effects of big college sports being turned into a business.
Texas A&M is and SEC team. And yes, they beat Bama (something which made me smile) I think partly because everyone was assuming they'd suck in their first year (like Missouri), and they used that to their advantage to surprise the Tide.
Oops, should have been clearer. I actually do think A&M is a great team, and they proved it with their record. By surprise, I meant I think Bama came into that game thinking they'd have an easy win and weren't prepared for how good A&M was.
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Since we had been talking about Oregon, this is a cool story!
Oregon’s “Rudy” gets into Fiesta Bowl thanks to teammate faking an injury
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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Since we had been talking about Oregon, this is a cool story!
Oregon’s “Rudy” gets into Fiesta Bowl thanks to teammate faking an injury
Darn it now I wanna watch that movie again.
And I'm a LONGHORN ex saying this. A&M is for real. I hate saying that, but it's true. They may have been playing Bama last night had they stayed in the Big 12.
Gig 'em!
Damn, that Kaepernick kid played a great game yesterday. Looks like he set a record for playoff rushing yards by a QB. Not bad for something like his 8th start.
Kinda like saying Cam Newton wasn't bad for a rookie, isn't it? ;)
Dear John Elway,
Tebow won his first playoff game.
Suck it!
Heath
In the mean time - GO HOUSTON!!
Well, they're going home, but I don't think that's what you meant.
Crap! My Broncos and Texans are done. :(
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In the mean time - GO HOUSTON!!Well, they're going home, but I don't think that's what you meant.
Yeah, it bums me out, but only a bit. I didn't really have a dog in that fight, so to speak. I cheered for Houston because that might one day (if things work out well) be my new home city.
Also I cheer against the Pats because I don't really like them and ink their coach dresses like he should be living in a box under an overpass.
GO RAVENS!! GO NINERS!!
I would be surprised if the Ravens pulled off the upset win over the Patriots - pleasantly so, mind, since that means a relatively local team goes to the Stuper Bowl!!
I will be most disappoint if the Niners don't squash the Falcons though.
GO RAVENS!! GO NINERS!!
ayup
Thank you Niners! Now, unless the Pats win, I can go back to hating you.
That presently seems unlikely ... B'more seems to have the Pats well in hand with 2:20 to go.
EDIT: It's Ravens vs. Niners at the STOOOOPERBOWL in New Orleans in two weeks.
Go Urban Chickens!!
As a Pats fan, I want someone to take out Bernard Pollard badly. In 5 career games against New England, he has taken out 4 players, 3 of them with season ending injuries. I could call one or two a fluke, but not four.
I didn't get to watch the game until the very end as I walked in the door from work. Who got taken out?
Well watching the play, it looks like Pollard was going low and Ridley went down and met him head to head. Kind of hard to blame someone for hitting him in the head, when he was the one that bend down to meet it.
youtube of pollard/ridley
it sucks and all, but there's no way in hell you could blame Pollard for that.
I'm looking at it full speed; it looks pretty heinous, but slo mo, it looks more like Pres man said.
I think I'll actually watch the Superbowl this year. Not only do you have two talented teams, but the whole brother vs brother thing is interesting, and a first for the Superbowl.
Missus Turin & I have a long-ish tradition of having a big party for the Superbowl. Booze, food and enjoying the shiny new ad campaigns in full are the highlights of the game for us. If the game is a good one that's an added bonus.
If we're lucky, us and any party guests that attend are still conscious by the end of the post-game show.
The Harbaugh clan has one advantage: no matter who wins, they can stash the Lombardi trophy at mom n dad's place. They can gather 'round at family get togethers and pet the Precious. ;)
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Tomorrow is the 3rd biggest holiday of the year as far as grocery stores are concerned (after Thanksgiving and XMas) in the US.
Much consumption of junk food, not-quite-junk food, booze, and more snack food. First look at full length shiny new ad campaigns that we'll be jaded against by Labor Day.
Perhaps even a good football game, but let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. ;)