Your Semi-Regular Reminders

Things sports fans need to be reminded of...

5 win teams prove NCAA is wrong about bowls - again!

I posted before about the NCAA crying about how there were too many bowls, it wasn't fair that 5 win teams got to go, blah blah blah.  Well guess what?  Did anyone notice that all three of those 5 win teams WON their games?  That's right, so who's laughing now?  One has to ask how deserving were the 6, 7, and 8-win teams they played (and beat).

On Why Bowl Results Don't Matter (Again)

This is your annual reminder that, with the possible exception of the games in the "playoff", bowl games absolutely do not matter. You cannot tell a damn thing about how good a team is, how good a conference is , what a team's prospects are for next year, or really anything at all. This is because:

115 stadiums and counting - the year in review

About a week and a half ago I drove from North Carolina to Mobile, AL to see App State take on the South Alabama Jaguars.  This was my 115th FBS stadium, not counting bowl games or other special events.  The game started at 6:30 local time, so I had plenty of time to drive the whole way on Saturday, and then come home Sunday.

Some people say I'm crazy (very few have incontrovertible proof though).  But, as I tell my friends, obsession is what lazy people call commitment, and when you are committed to seeing all 130 FBS stadiums, you just don't balk at a 20-hour road trip!

2 semester sport? What are you talking about? Aka why the NCAA is crazy for not allowing a bigger play-off

So here we are again, friends, talking about bowl games.  I meant to write about something else today, but the powers that be keep making stupid comments, so here I go again (on my own).

Earlier this week I read an article on ESPN.com, saying there is no way the play-off will get any bigger, because the university presidents don't want to add more games, and push the season further into January.  That would make football a 2 semester sport, and that would mess up the academics too much.  Because the academics are the most important thing, right?

Would anyone really care if more teams went to bowl games? Aka 6 reasons to have even more bowl games

So in my last post, which I know you all read, right?  RIGHT?  I criticized the NCAA for whining about there not being enough 6 win teams to fill all the bowl slots, which is ironic because it is the NCAA's fault in the first place for permitting too many of them.

Then I got to thinking, so what if more 5 win teams went to bowl games, or even 4 win teams?  Would anybody really care?

NCAA reps please read - 2 brilliant ideas on how to solve the bowl game problem

In my last post I called the NCAA a bunch of boneheads b/c they were whining about teams with less than 6 wins going to bowl games (3 of which are, thanks in part to South Alabama failing to qualify on Saturday in a game they could have won).  Totally the NCAA's fault, because they let it happen.  So here's how you fix it:

I was right about the bowl games - but why does that surprise you?

A few weeks ago I posted about there probably being too many bowl games - I totally scooped ESPN on this with my mad analysis.  I figured out that (at that time) there were not enough teams within enough wins to fill the bowls (based on current # of wins and projecting forward over time using kick-ass modeling skills).  No I won't give you my secret sauce.


Now the pundits have finally figured this all out, and the boys in charge are making a big stink about it, saying they will let some bowl games "go dark" to slow down growth in games.  Well, what the hell did you expect to happen?

Would you rather your team go to a crappy bowl and win, or a good bowl and lose?

This isn't so much a post as a question.  Which would you prefer?  I am curious what people will say.  Better bowl equals more money, but losing sucks.

Too many bowl games?

So I recently noticed that there are 41 bowl games this season, up from 37 or so last season - a couple new ones have been added in obscure cities, some of them being played at baseball parks.  I actually went to one of those last year (BYU lost the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl which is played in Marlins Park).

On some level I don't mind "new" venues, b/c I am all about visiting stadiums, so any chance I get to visit a stadium I have never been to and watch a college football game I will take.  But now I think they are overdoing it.

Football Grumpiness

In about six months, they'll be pointing to Florida State's participation in the college football playoff and the fact that the ACC got 11 teams to go bowling as evidence that once again, the ACC had an awesome football year.

Take a closer look, of course, and you see that 4 of those teams finished the year 6-6, and wouldn't have been bowl-eligible if not for cupcake non-conference schedules. (Virginia Tech, you're excused from this criticism). Another two went 7-5. Near as I can tell, everyone played - and beat - Tulane.

Bowling For Chicken In The Bahamas

If you want to know exactly how stupid college football has gotten, look at this year's bowl schedule.

No, I'm not talking about how TCU and Baylor got shut out of the "playoff". They got cute with this whole "co-champions" nonsense, de-valued their seasons, and paid for it. (and for the record, you can stop argle-bargling about that win over Minnesota any day now. Any. Day. Now.)