Posted on 10/14/2017 5:06:30 AM PDT by C19fan
Now in the first two weekends of October, the No. 2, 3, 7 and 8 teams have fallen to middle-of-the-pack conference opponents: Last week Oklahoma fell to Iowa State before Michigan lost to Michigan State; on Friday night Clemson suffered a 27–24 loss to Syracuse that sent shockwaves through the college football world, and before anyone could fully process the impact of that result, Washington State laid an egg on the road at Cal, dropping from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 37–3 loss.
Let’s take a look at the ripple effect of Friday night’s upsets from three different levels: the losing teams, the conferences they had sat atop and the national title picture at large.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Four teams is too few. The poll rankings would necessarily still play a big role, and differences in quality of schedule would loom too large. Sixteen teams is too many; we would have second and even third place teams from tough conferences and two or three losses playing for the championship. Eight is the right number. There will always be room for a quibble, but all the power conference championships would qualify, and two or three at-large spots would be enough to accommodate the occasional truly outstanding small conference teams.
While we're at it, all conferences should be required to play a complete round robin schedule. No exceptions. And shorten the regular season. Back to the future. College football was much healthier in its earlier iteration, before the evolution of the megaconferences, which are nothing more than television marketing consortiums. Return the conferences to natural, geographically based rivalries of mostly similar institutions. And tell tv to take a hike. Games could be televised, but no tv timeouts to interrupt play. If fans want to watch a commercialfest, watch the NFL.
And restore academic standards, even if it shuts down half the NCAA.
I watched both games. Clemson wasn’t ready for the level of competition Syracuse gave them. They struggled to keep up with Syracuse in the second half and it didn’t work out.
I don’t know what happened to Washington State - maybe they ate the ‘rat poison’ that Saban was talking about at his press conference last week. The second half was painful to watch as they committed turnover after turnover. They don’t issue injury reports during games so toward the end when the cameras were showing a glove on their QB’s non-throwing hand, I began to wonder whether he was playing with an injury.
In other news, I stayed up too late, but seeing SU's upset made it worthwhile :-)
Must have been near 10K fans/students on the field afterward !
What needs most to change is the academic requirements for athletes into higher education. They should meet the entry standards required of all students along with getting rid of the institutional racism that allows unqualified minorities entry. About 20 years ago, my daughter in 7th grade scored a 21 on the ACT exam (she later scored a 31 during her junior year in the HS of her small rural community). The same year she was in junior high, the average ACT score for black athletes at the land grant university was 17. This was the average, meaning that some gained entry with lesser scores. The average freshman class score that year exceeded 25 on the ACT. This is called black privilege at its worst.
Then, everybody can relax and just enjoy the games, without all the angst over whether or not Bama will beat the hell out of them.
'Cause you know they will.
Roll, Tide.
Half? Ha!
Do that, and you can have a two-team playoff.
"Ya' shouldn't...ought'ta...ha' done it...baby."
Just damn. I thought WaSU was going to win the Pac-12. Beat USC then lose badly to Cal?! This year certainly seems topsy turvy.
The NCAA already has a Div 1 Championship. Too bad none of these schools will be recognized by the NCAA as Champion.
Um.... that didn’t happen last year.
The Clemson game was a good watch. They got out hustled.
SU hasn’t had a good football team in ages...but I’m glad they upset Clemson. Now, I’d want to see what undefeated schools are left. I know USF (University of South Florida) is undefeated, but I think playing the rescheduled game at UConn in November will knock them out of being undefeated.
Clemson got out coached, out played, and out hustled. I was at the game and Syracuse deserved the win all the way. The hurry up offense killed Clemson. The defense was literally standing up looking at the sideline for the set up when Syracuse snapped the ball throughout the whole game. How many third and longs did they convert on? Simply amazing. They made a journeyman quarterback look like Cam Newton. The secondary was awful and the whole team looked like they forgot how to tackle. Sure the first string QB went down in the first half but he really wasn’t lighting it up anyway. It also didn’t help that the Syracuse student who kicked the half time promotion field goal to win $1000 was far better than the the Clemson kicker, who missed two chip shots. They should have signed him at halftime on the spot and got him to switch schools. Angry Tiger dad venting here.
Washington State players started listening to their “fat, little girlfriends.”
Dang, Couged it again!
Bow Down!
Well ROLL TIDE
Your good. I’d be a touch miffed if I was a Tiger fan.
That’s the kind of win that will get Syracuse’s program turned around.
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