Arena 2023-24 NCAA Football Discussion

Alabama needs to accept that they wont be a national contender each and every year. As far as I'm concerned the best they can do nowadays is 10-2 with Auburn, LSU and Arkansas emerging as top dogs in the west.
You forgot to mention that the Michigan State job is also open

 

Being from Alabama, I have mixed feelings about Mike Shula being fired. He seemed like a good guy to me, and I think he tried really hard. But his main problem was...

^exactly that. He did well last year, but when the time came for their two biggest games (LSU and Auburn) they lost. Auburn has won 5 years in a row now, and here in Bama that is unacceptable.

But anyway, I hope he can find another job. Maybe he'd do better at a school with a little less pressure.

 

There's been talk locally about Cowher at State for about 2 years now. Greg Raymer bought a house in Raleigh a couple of years ago too, but I don't imagine the WSOP will be there anytime soon.

Amato put a lot in the program, but truthfully he lived off the legacy of Phillip Rivers and never had anything to follow up with.


So Butch Davis gets introduced at his press conference today and it is the first time he has been on the UNC campus. Crazy. He hasn't seen the facilities, checked out the campus, anything, until today. I love it.

 

But here in Auburn, it's pure heaven!

But seriously, I'm actually on speaking terms with several Alabama fans (if you can believe that!) and I don't know one who is happy about Shula getting the boot. Unfortunately for Alabama, is the same thing that's been going on for roughly 25 years. The Bear is gone and no one else can fill his shoes. The school has to move past that and just go ahead and settle on a coach if they ever want to be consistently successful.

What I'm wondering here is that with the money that Bama will be paying to buy out Shula's contract, did they pull and Auburn from 2003 and run out and secretly find someone to take the job? To get rid of Shula and now start scratching their heads trying to figure out who the next coach will be is pretty crazy.

 

Maybe he's just missed pwning Butch Davis that much since the Browns fired him that he wants to pwn him on the recruiting trail in North Carolina?

 

Which is a ridiculous reason to hate a team.





~Liar, lawyer, Mirror for ya, What's the difference? Kangaroo be stoned, He's guilty as the government~

 

Its not a ridiculous reason to hate a team. As I pointed out that is why everyone hates the Yankees for baseball, the Redwings for the longest time in hockey, not sure it ever happened with the Bulls but I was in the Chicago area so everyone I was around loved them. People hate the Patriots lately for that reason too. It happens and it is a slightly jealous hatred.

 

And, for your enjoyment, a scathing piece from College Football News.com on the Mike Shula firing. I saw no errors in their logic, whatsoever, great editorial. Alabama will come out of this looking bad, I think, in the end.

I agree, excellent article and I definitely agree with what theyre saying.

And Alabama deserves to come out looking bad, IMO.

 

That's the way it is. It's not just USC though, I'd argue that Notre Dame has caught far more flak than USC ever has as a football program. The College Football world did not dawn with Pete Carrol's hiring, they were pretty poor for a while before he got there. All the while ND has run a clean program with USC doing some questionable things. I hate to bring it up, but I know it to be true:


People hate the University of Notre Dame simply because they are the most successful collegiate football program in history and they're a Catholic university.


I know it from many first hand accounts but it's certainly a combination of the two (There's only one other Division 1-A Catholic football program, and no one comes down hard on Boston College for anything.)


As for Tressel and OSU, he probably could have retired after 2002 and been revered the rest of his life. It had been a long time coming for the Buckeyes (1968). Pete Carrol is a couple wins away from possibly cementing himself as the greatest CFB coach of our time, it'll be hard for people to think of Tressel as being a better coach. I sure wouldn't put him ahead of Pete, even though I like Tressel and dislike Pete.

 

I don't know about the Catholic part but is Notre Dame really the most successful? Michigan is the winningest team all time. If I did the math right as of today:

Notre Dame
All time record: 821-268-42
Winning percentage: .744

Michigan
All time record: 860-281-36
Winning percentage: .746

 

Convenient that you left out the national title picture...



ND and UM are so close in winning percentage that this year's game actually would have won it back for the Irish. Notre Dame has also produced more pro players, more All Americans, and the most Heisman trophy winners of any school (tied with USC with 7).



A lot of the Michigan wins came before anyone started playing football. To show the mentality of the early Michigan football program, look at the first time Notre Dame beat them. 1906 and Michigan refused to play them for another 33 years because of it. So who exactly were they beating the pants off of before the turn of the last century?

 

I'm surprised to read that you think people hate Notre Dame because they are a Catholic school. I always thought the reason was that they hadn't joined a conference, so if they are good and they get invited to bowl games they are the only one who benefits, whereas the way the conference works, A&M being in the same conference as Texas benefited (money-wise) from the fact that Texas went to the Rosebowl and won. They also aren't bound by the same rules as everyone else is who is in a conference. Is BC in a conference?

 

BC is in the ACC. I'm not making that assumption for reasoning as to why people hate them just off the top of my head, rather it's very quick out of people's mouths from what I've heard. I'm from Ohio and we have a rather large Catholic population, and it's still prevalent around here. I can't speak for other regions of the country, but I know that places like the Southeast do not have a large Catholic population.


If it were simply the conference then why aren't people coming down on Army, Navy, and Temple as well? That having been said, it makes no sense whatsoever for ND to be in a conference financially, not only would they have to split their bowl money they'd also have to carve up their exclusive and extremely lucrative TV contract with NBC. Those things pay for a lot at Notre Dame, a lot of it outside the football program including other sports and academics.


Notre Dame actually did try and join the Big 10 in the 1920s, but Michigan led the way in demanding they be excluded for fear of domination (notice my last post, after the 1906 win Michigan refused to play them for 33 years). The Big 10 actually invited Notre Dame to join in the 1960s, but at that point ND had no use for a conference.

I'll be honest, I'd love to see them join if for the only reason being that it would greatly strengthen the lackluster Big 10 (I mean Big 2, Little 8). You could have two divisions and a title game. With usual powerhouses like ND, OSU, UM, and PSU in the conference things would be balanced and the other teams would still be able to compete most years. Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan State, and Iowa have shown to put capable teams on the field in recent years so things would be much more interesting.


Notre Dame will never join however unless there were new financial rules, and OSU/UM would probably be somewhat against it because "The Game" wouldn't be the last game of the year for both schools unless they were poor that year.


I don't think people hate them because they didn't join a conference however. Truth be told, OSU and Michigan probably wouldn't mind getting out of the Big 10 if finances were all that factored into it.

 

Guys and gals, just wanted to gauge some interest in possibly creating a JC league for bowl pick'ems when everything is finalized this Sunday.

I'll join.


And notice that its only for football that ND is independent - basketball and other sports are in the Big East. But I can hardly blame them for wanting to stay independent, given the financial implications and the TV deal that has them on national TV every single week. Not a bad deal.

As for people not liking ND because they're a Catholic school... that depends on who and where they are. Here in SC, I see some, although not a ton of ND-dislike, and only one of my friends strongly dislikes ND... but then he doesn't count because he grew up in SoCal and is a SoCal fan, and thats why he doesnt like ND But also, I'm Catholic and a lot of my friends are as well, so we tend to be the people that usually pull for ND because of that reason

 

No way - no divisions, much less a title game. You win it, or lose it, in the regular season, just as it should be. This prevents mediocre teams from getting into the BCS bowls ? like FSU last year.

And the ?lackluster? Big Ten ought to have three teams in the BCS Bowls this year (11-1 Wisconsin), if it weren?t for the rule of only allowing two per conference. This means that an undeserving team, like ND, will probably get that ?at-large?. The only two BCS-bound teams ND has played this year, blew the Irish out both times.

 

Wiscosin has been completely ignored their only loss was at Michigan, in a game they were in for the most part

 

Why should an 11-1 Big Ten team make a BCS game when they struggled to get by some pretty pathetic football teams?


Finished the year out strong by beating Buffalo though!



I'm really not even advocating ND getting into a BCS bowl this year. It'd be good for the program, but our schedule wasn't nearly close to the difficulty to what it usually is. If there's a 10-2 Irish team that actually doesn't deserve to go, it's this one. That having been said, I'd rather see an SEC team get the nod over a Wisconsin if it came right down to it.

 

Besides only beating San Diego State 14-0, having to come back to beat Illinois and losing to Michigan, which is respectable, they blew everybody else out.

So, that ?struggling against pathetic teams? argument falls short.

As for ?why? - I guess I base my argument on the fact that Wisconsin is 7th in the AP, 6th in the Coaches and 7th in the BCS rankings.

And this is exactly why I despise the BCS. The theory of it is to place the best at-large teams in with the BCS conference winners and ensure the best two teams play for the national title.

In theory.

So, if the 10 supposedly best teams are playing in BCS bowls this year, and team #7 is being left out...

(I?m an Ohio State guy and I can?t believe I?m arguing for Wisconsin like this )

 

Is that really true? I know that the "theory" behind the BCS is to match up the 2 best teams for the championship, but I don't know that it was ever intended to go beyond that. That's why Notre Dame and teams from non-BCS conferences get special rules where they are guaranteed a spot in a BCS game just for being ranked so high, while it leaves the possibility that there could be another team ranked higher in the BCS that gets left out.

If the intent was to put the "best" teams in as determined by the BCS ranking, then the games should be setup to have #3 play #4, 5 plays 6, and so on, regardless of who those teams actually are. But the BCS games are allowed to pick their teams (within reason) based on expected TV ratings and ticket sales. This is why someone like Notre Dame can find themselves in a BCS game when there are other more deserving teams. They know that ND will draw a crowd and tv ratings.

Here's an article I just found that gives some ideas about improving the BCS.

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/6220792

 

Further the BCS is designed to preserve some of the traditions of pre-BCS college football, such as, for example, the Rose Bowl, when possible should have the Pac-10 champion play the Big-10 champion. This is why USC had clinched "at least" a Rose Bowl berth even before they beat Notre Dame: they were the undisputed Pac-10 champ after they beat Cal. However, protecting these traditions is just one factor in determining who plays in the non-national championship BCS bowls. Now that it looks like the Trojans will play the Buckeyes in Arizona, the Rose Bowl will invite a non-Pac-10 school to participate (perhaps Notre Dame?), but they will in all likelyhood face Michigan, a traditional Rose Bowl team (though again, this time not Big-10 champs). So it is all very confusing, but I am glad that, at least regarding the Rose Bowl, there is some effort to preserve the tradition. I'd hate to see the Rose Bowl host a game between say an SEC team and an ACC team.