College Football '10 - Conference switching chaos!!

[Boris Godunov]

Boise State beat the Pac-10 champion like a ****ing drum.

....

Really, Boise State played a FAR more competitive non-conference schedule than Florida, based on Oregon alone.

However... the voters in the polls take into account circumstances, and I think it's fair to say that the Oregon team that got beat by Boise was simply not the same team that emerged a few weeks later and went on to win the Pac-10. There's absolutely no question that the Boise game was the worst Oregon played all season--it was a total mess. Great teams have awful days sometimes. Oregon happened to have theirs against a good team (unlike Boise, which had it's awful game against a ****ty team like LA Tech so it ended up winning by a comfortable margin anyway).

[rah]

Great teams have awful days sometimes.

That excuse could be used for anyone, and using it as a valid excuse sends us sliding quickly down the slippery slope.

[Ben Kenobi]

Oregon team that got beat by Boise was simply not the same team that emerged a few weeks later

Yeah, Oregon got weaker as the season went on. You are right Boris, they aren't a top ten team and the PAC-10 is just mediocre this year.

[Boris Godunov]

Yeah, Oregon got weaker as the season went on. You are right Boris, they aren't a top ten team and the PAC-10 is just mediocre this year.

If you don't think Oregon is a top-10 team, then you have no justification placing Boise as #1, since Oregon was the only team of any consequence that they've played this season.

That there are no undefeated teams in the Pac-10 this year is a sign of its strength, not its weakness. It's a lot easier to go undefeated when almost all of your opponents are middling.

[Boris Godunov]

Great teams have awful days sometimes.

That excuse could be used for anyone, and using it as a valid excuse sends us sliding quickly down the slippery slope.

I'm pretty sure most of the voters in the polls take such a factor into account. That, and what happens at the beginning of a season is not necessarily indicative of the overall strength of the program.

I'm not saying Boise doesn't deserve to be ranked over Oregon by any means, but I do think that since Oregon is the only team of real consequence Boise has played, and it was obviously Oregon's worst performance of the season, it's reasonable to me why Boise isn't in the National Championship.

[Ben Kenobi]

If you don't think Oregon is a top-10 team, then you have no justification placing Boise as #1, since Oregon was the only team of any consequence that they've played this season.

Sure I do. As you've said the team that played Boise isn't the same team that played the PAC-10. It's a good thing they dropped or they would have been a one-loss team and stormed through the PAC-10. I mean Stanford, of all teams beat them.

That there are no undefeated teams in the Pac-10 this year is a sign of its strength, not its weakness. It's lot a easier to go undefeated when almost all of your opponents are middling

And sadly, the mediocre Oregon team of late season was still unable to run the table on such luminaries like Stanford, Arizona and USC. Heck, Nevada was a four loss team too.

Heck they almost lost to Oregon St. I totally agree with you Boris, the team that lost to Boise was the high point of the Duck's season.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Boris, stop talking to Ben. As he has Boise at #1 (and doesn't really follow college football) he obviously has no clue and is attempting to be an annoyance at this time of year - which is why Guy doesn't include his rankings in his meta-rankings).

[Ben Kenobi]

This is from the same guy who said that Boise beat Oklahoma this year.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It is nice to know that your only argument is to harp on a typo... though at least that is stronger than what you normally attempt.

[Boris Godunov]

Yes, you're of course right, Imran. If BK had half a brain he'd be playing up the Pac-10 as the strongest conference and Oregon as the second-best team in the country. That's the only way one could justify making Boise #1, since unlike Oregon or any of the other top-ranked teams. Boise has played precisely 1 ranked team the whole season. The rest? Middling.

Oregon's only other loss was against a team that finished ranked with a RB who's a Heismann finalist and QB who is also very highly-ranked. And yet, Oregon still scored 42 points in that game. Oregon State (8-4) was ranked 16 when they played. Meanwhile, Boise had close scares from two crap teams, LA Tech (4-8) and Tulsa (5-7). Yeah, I don't think a "Boise is #1" supporter *really* wants to discuss season trijectory.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's quite obvious that someone who puts Alabama at #5 is attempting to troll. And that's not even counting putting BYU at 7!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Seems like Louisville's new coach will be Charlie Strong, the defensive coordinator for Florida this year. Good hire by Louisville, IMO:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4725530

[DanS]

This one's all sorts of funny...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/sports/ncaafootball/09tennessee.html?_r=2&ref=sports

December 9, 2009
N.C.A.A. Puts Tennessee’s Recruiting Under Scrutiny
By PETE THAMEL and THAYER EVANS

The N.C.A.A. is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the University of Tennessee’s football recruiting practices, according to interviews with several prospects, their family members and high school administrators. A significant part of the investigation is focused on the use of recruiting hostesses who have become folk heroes on Tennessee Internet message boards for their ability to help lure top recruits.

Interviews with multiple recruits and their family members revealed that the N.C.A.A. has strong interest in Tennessee’s use of recruiting hostesses, students who are part of a formal group at the university that hosts all manner of prospective students at campus visits, including athletes. It is not clear whether the university sent the hostesses to visit the football players.

In one case, hostesses traveled nearly 200 miles to attend a high school game in South Carolina in which at least three Tennessee recruits were playing.

Marcus Lattimore, a running back who made an unofficial visit to Tennessee but said he would not enroll there, said multiple Tennessee hostesses attended a game at James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, S.C., in September. He said they brought signs, including one that read, “Come to Tennessee.”

“I haven’t seen no other schools do that,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

Two of Lattimore’s teammates, Brandon Willis and Corey Miller, have orally committed to Tennessee. Lattimore described the hostesses as “real pretty, real nice and just real cool.” He said he thought they had “a lot” of influence in Miller’s and Willis’s commitments to Tennessee.

Because of their influence on recruits, the recruiting hostesses have become popular with Tennessee fans. Bryce Brown, the country’s top running back recruit last year, who is a freshman at Tennessee, was pictured on a social networking site last year with a hostess. Other Tennessee hostesses have publicly conversed with prospects through Facebook and MySpace.

“You don’t want to go to a college where they ain’t pretty,” Lattimore said.

“It’s not about the coaches,” she said. “It’s about some of the attendees of the university. It has to do with the hostesses on these visits. That’s as much as I know.”

[Solomwi]

Imran, Florida was ineligible for a bowl in 1984, since Charley Pell had gotten them a bit of probation before that season. Something like 100 major violations, IIRC.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah, I did not know that... thanks!