Congratulations Slave and Catrin!!!

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Adder

But my point is to separate the two underlying motivations for a playoff. You are focusing on certainty. I don't place much value on that, but fine. But you could easily get the same result with the plus one (or a four team playoff).

There's one underlying motivation for a playoff: It's how we decide champions in the United States. And it's the only way to decide champions when it's not possible to have every team play every other team (as some european soccer leagues do).

There's one underlying motivation against a playoff: Money--the bowls want to keep it, the BCS wants to keep it, and the NCAA, including all the other teams, want to spread it more evenly.

Anything else is intellectual masturbation and self-interested justification.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Adder

I didn't forget them. I named the four that most frequently in the discussion.

. . . in the last few years.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

intellectual masturbation

This is by far the worst kind of masturbation.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

This is by far the worst kind of masturbation.

Yeah, and poor Atticus has gone intellectually blind by now.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

There's one underlying motivation for a playoff: It's how we decide champions in the United States. And it's the only way to decide champions when it's not possible to have every team play every other team (as some european soccer leagues do).

There's one underlying motivation against a playoff: Money--the bowls want to keep it, the BCS wants to keep it, and the NCAA, including all the other teams, want to spread it more evenly.

Anything else is intellectual masturbation and self-interested justification.

We need January madness. All the teams meet in places like New Orleans, Memphis, and Syracuse to play three games of football a week. Top 64 teams, just so we can be sure there's not a sleeper out there.

Think what a boon it will be for the healthcare system! I hope the football players aren't capitated.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

But the analogy is better than you think. The bubble teams in hoops end up as #10 or #11 seeds. Seeds 12-16 go to all the single-team conferences or some team that happened to win their conference tournament despite otherwise sucking.

if the "bubble" team is say the regular season winner of no-name conferecne that lost its playoff it is a 14-16. But you mean the "bubble" team that finish 6th in the ACC, and would be a 10 seed? Fuck them. They finished 6th. Maybe they could go on a run and win, but the fact remains they got beat already by a bunch of teams in their conference who are in the Playoffs.

The problem is different in football because of the Boise State's who haven't played ANY of the top teams, and the requirement that picking some team for #1 and #2 means you have to do mental gymnastics to explain why one team's one loss is less bad than the other team's one loss. With today's dragging out of the bowls, timewise we are already at a point where we could be doing an 8 team playoff. If we can go another week longer to 16 no one has a legitimate bitch.

They'd have to use some of the non-BCS bowls, but two good teams would bring in money and there would be interest as they progress. The one question would be whether any team's alums could afford, in dollars or time, to travel to bowl games four weeks in a row.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Flinty_McFlint

Yeah, and poor Atticus has gone intellectually blind by now.

If only he wasn't cursed by his short refractory period.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I hope the football players aren't capitated.

Is that like being fenestrated?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Is that like being fenestrated?

Maybe on the PB.

For the appropriate FB joke, cf. TM's Tips.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

if the "bubble" team is say the regular season winner of no-name conferecne that lost its playoff it is a 14-16. But you mean the "bubble" team that finish 6th in the ACC, and would be a 10 seed? Fuck them. They finished 6th.

The latter is what I was thinking of. I don't remember as much "bubble" talk about teams from no-name conferences except in very rare situations because usually even the champ wouldn't be in except for the automatic bid.

I'm not worried about alums--they'll travel. If they don't, these games would sell out anyway. Worst case, have first round games on campus sites.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

Wishful thinking.

Good non-response. How is it wishful thinking? If you're going to talk about sports reporters and pundits, then I'm not sure we need to be having this conversation because they need to cause controversy to get people to read their stories and watch their shows.

Originally Posted by Adder

How is this any different than saying "if you aren't good enough to be in the top two even you have no claim?"

Is this a serious question? If you are ranked 9th, how could you possibly claim that you deserve to be in the championship game? If you are undefeated and are ranked third, you have a legitimate argument. If you are ranked 9th and you don't make the playoffs, I and almost everyone else in the world, don't really give a shit. You seem to think we'll have the same kind of controversy as we do now. And either you're crazy or you're just being hard-headed.

Originally Posted by Adder

But my point is to separate the two underlying motivations for a playoff. You are focusing on certainty. I don't place much value on that, but fine. But you could easily get the same result with the plus one (or a four team playoff).

I didn't think we were arguing about the type of playoff (although, now that you brought it up, if you're going to have a plus one system, why not just have an actual playoff system?). I simply said there should be a playoff system.

Originally Posted by Adder

The other motivation is inclusiveness, with the non-BCS conferences, and the folks in the media that champion their cause, complaining that the Boise States of the world go undefeated but still never get the chance to play for the championship. There beef isn't totally unfounded, but you can't solve this "problem" unless you have at least 8, but more likely 16 teams in a playoff. There are ways to make either happen, but they involve throwing basically the entire college football tradition, for the 1 in 100 shot that Boise State pulls off a string up unlikely upsets.

I have no problem with an 8 or even a 16 team playoff. And I don't care about college football tradition either. It's only tradition until it's changed in favor of something better (like the fight everyone had over the wildcard).

I also don't care about the Boise States of the world under the current system, the old system or any future system.

TM

[LessinSF]

In case you haven't been following the saga of the Michigan 2L hooker/psycho and the Michigan Law professor who purchased her services, and allegedly beat her, have fun - http://abovethelaw.com/2008/12/michi...ds_to.php#more . The link is his version. Hers can be found in another link at the bottom of the page.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

The Bowl system wouldn't help Boise State because it wouldn't be playing the #1 team under the old bowl system AND under the old Bowl system Ohio State would have likely been #1 after a glorious Rose bowl win the past years.

BYU won a MNC under the old system. Not that I find the old system preferable, just sayin'. I'd be for a playoff, but one of the problems will be an insistence that conference champions be given an automatic berth. The Sunbelt plays some pretty entertaining football, but there's no way Troy would be either Florida or Oklahoma this year. A 16-team playoff based on Week 16 rankings would be entertaining, seeing Texas face the winner of the MAC, not so much.

Dan Wetzel published the first of a two-part series today on just how screwed up the bowl system is. For me, any pretense of Tradition went out the window when they started selling their naming rights. Stewart Mandel's book, Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls is also a good read on the subject.

[Icky Thump]

I just got a text message from an unknown number that said "Passport and wire sent."

No answer from the unidentified phone call, no response to my WTF text.

Weird? Somoene looking for Jason Bourne? Am I Jason Bourne?

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

In case you haven't been following the saga of the Michigan 2L hooker/psycho and the Michigan Law professor who purchased her services, and allegedly beat her, have fun - http://abovethelaw.com/2008/12/michi...ds_to.php#more . The link is his version. Hers can be found in another link at the bottom of the page.

RT called those Tutorials, right?

second place joke: Stupid me, I instead chose to get fucked by the loan companies for years.