College Football 2010: So it begins

[Al B. Sure!]

What do you do if you're in a position like Stanford against Wake Forest? Stanford winning 55-17 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Obviously the first string, and maybe some 2nd stringers, are whipping Wake Forest. Just run up the score? Do you play Sophomores and Freshmen? Wouldn't that look kind of crappy?

Definitely should get as many guys as possible to get playing time. That's a rare opportunity. Too often I see major programs keep starters in during blow out after blow out and then they're like oh crap when their star gets hurt and they need to play a guy who has only set foot on the practice field... that's how you get situations like Garrett Gilbert last season when McCoy went down... I'm sure you loved seeing that

[SlowwHand]

By that point I hope most, if not all, of your starters are done for the day. Why wouldn't you play as many people as you can? They're going to need to get game experience sometime. Might as well be when their inevitable mistakes can't lose the game for you. Why would it look crappy, or better yet, what do you mean by look crappy?

I mean insulting.

[Al B. Sure!]

I mean insulting.

Wait... Wake Forest has a football team?

[SlowwHand]

Which brings up another point. When Duke plays Alabama in basketball, shouldn't they be motivated, by school unity, to pound sand up Alabama's ass?
I'm not a Duke fan, I'm just asking.

[Al B. Sure!]

Which brings up another point. When Duke plays Alabama in basketball, shouldn't they be motivated, by school unity, to pound sand up Alabama's ass?
I'm not a Duke fan, I'm just asking.

Weeks pass and the heat kind of dies down. I know when Temple football lost to Nova the first game of the season last year, they didn't play the Wildcats in basketball until mid-December so so much time passed it wasn't relevant anymore, at least no more than the in-city rivalry. Temple basketball did upset Villanova though so the basketball team did come through with the revenge.

[Boris Godunov]

Holy ****, UCLA beat Houston? What, did they not let Prince play?

[SlowwHand]

Mich. St. coach suffers heart attack

CFT: Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio reportedly suffers a heart attack after his team's thrilling overtime win over Notre Dame on Saturday.

Must have been severely startled.

[Solomwi]

I mean insulting.

Even if it is insulting, who cares? If you don't want to be insulted, stop me from going up 55-17. I'm not there to protect the other team's feelings; I'm there to win the game and put my team in the best position possible coming out of the game. Besides, mass substitution in that situation is both smart and common. I don't think anybody gets insulted by it.

If Duke did take their revenge on the basketball court, I can guarantee you not a single Alabama fan would consider that a bad tradeoff.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Looks like the Big East sucks worse than I thought!

However:

So far, Imran laughed at the prospect of Temple trashing UConn and he was wrong... Who's next to be wrong?

How exactly can it be called a thrashing when you beat a team when the other side has more total yards, more 1st downs, and greater time of possession (albeit all of them slightly) than you did?

[Al B. Sure!]

Looks like the Big East sucks worse than I thought!

However:



How exactly can it be called a thrashing when you beat a team when the other side has more total yards, more 1st downs, and greater time of possession (albeit all of them slightly) than you did?

Two possession lead... and did you see the time of possession on the 4th quarter Temple scores?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Doesn't answer the question in the slightest, but I figured I wouldn't get one anyway.

Though it was highly amusing to read "time of possession on the 4th Quarter Temple scores",

[SlowwHand]

Even if it is insulting, who cares? If you don't want to be insulted, stop me from going up 55-17. I'm not there to protect the other team's feelings; I'm there to win the game and put my team in the best position possible coming out of the game. Besides, mass substitution in that situation is both smart and common. I don't think anybody gets insulted by it.

If Duke did take their revenge on the basketball court, I can guarantee you not a single Alabama fan would consider that a bad tradeoff.

This is my POV. If you leave the starters in, running up the score and has been noted in the discussion, a starter goes down, you've just become an idiot. In trying to embarrass the other team, whether you want to admit it or not, you just blew it by losing a first stringer. Hopefully just one.
The other side of the coin, once you make substitutions, it's kind of locked in. Unless you want to get the starters fully dressed and warmed up.
It's more of a ticklish question than you're treating it.

[Solomwi]

Except it's really not. In 30 years of watching football, you're the first person I've ever heard make the argument you seem to be trying to make (I have no idea what "it's kind of locked in" is supposed to mean). I've seen numerous coaches blasted for keeping the starters in and running up the score. Even if you get away without an injury, you're an ******* for doing it. On the other hand, I can't recall a single instance of a coach catching flak or being called "classless" for substituting liberally in a blowout. I suspect most any coach who's ever been asked "what did you think about State Tech sending in the fourth teamers when you were down by 40" has responded with something like "if we don't want to see those guys on the field, we've got to keep from getting down by 40 points." Playing scrubs in a blowout is pretty much universally considered the thing to do.

[Guynemer]

A few pretty good games coming up this week:

Alabama at Arkansas
Oregon State at Boise State
South Carolina at Auburn
West Virginia at LSU


Some other potentially interesting games:

Stanford at Notre Dame
Miami at Pitt
Oklahoma at Cincinnati
Cal at Arizona
Oregon at Arizona State
Virginia Tech at Boston College
UCLA at Texas
Temple at Penn State
Nevada at BYU
Georgia at Mississippi State


I'll take Bama, South Carolina, Stanford, Oregon, and the Hokies on the road, with the home teams winning the rest.

[SlowwHand]

Except it's really not. In 30 years of watching football, you're the first person I've ever heard make the argument you seem to be trying to make (I have no idea what "it's kind of locked in" is supposed to mean). I've seen numerous coaches blasted for keeping the starters in and running up the score. Even if you get away without an injury, you're an ******* for doing it. On the other hand, I can't recall a single instance of a coach catching flak or being called "classless" for substituting liberally in a blowout. I suspect most any coach who's ever been asked "what did you think about State Tech sending in the fourth teamers when you were down by 40" has responded with something like "if we don't want to see those guys on the field, we've got to keep from getting down by 40 points." Playing scrubs in a blowout is pretty much universally considered the thing to do.

I agree with you, but there are obviously many college coaches who don't agree with us.