2012 NCAA Football Thread

[downtown]

Notre Dame played 9 teams that made a bowl, including Stanford, who won a BCS bowl and is a legitimately good team. Despite Oklahoma's bowl performance, they were statistically a very good team all season as well. Miami would have been the 10th bowl team had they not taken a self-imposed ban.

Alabama, for what it's worth, played 7 bowl teams, and a 1AA team.

I think Alabama is probably going to win, but I'd be legitimately very surprised if it's a boatrace or a blowout. Notre Dame's front 7 is probably better than Alabamas (although not by a whole lot), and neither team is especially well equipped to take advantage of the other's secondaries.

I think Alabama's offensive line and passing attack is a lot better than Notre Dame's though, and that ought to be enough to grind out a 10 point win or so.

This game reminds me a LOT of the Miami/Ohio State title game back in 2002, where everybody said the Hurricanes were going to kill an Ohio State team with an average QB, lots of close wins over so-so teams, and a very, very good defense....

The idea that Louisville played a harder schedule than Notre Dame is completely stupid.

 

[ummmm........]

Assuming we show up focused and ready to execute, I'd say you're underestimating Alabama's offensive advantage over ND's defense. McCarron's no world beater, but he's grossly underestimated nationally since he doesn't play in a pass-happy, score-first offense. Cooper's brilliant, and there's a strong chance Bell will be back from injury. If needed, Chris Black has been ready to play since the SEC title game. So there's no question in my mind that the downfield passing game will be there. Their front is more intimidating, but when you can rotate backs and keep fresh legs like we can, you can wear anybody down by the 4th quarter.

Alabama's D is a shadow of last year's, but it shouldn't be too much of a struggle to keep ND's offense in check, assuming we show up focused and ready to execute.

I'd agree that the score won't reflect a blowout, but that will likely have more to do with our penchant for shortening games than ND's ability to keep up. Or to use the cliche, the game won't be as close as the score will indicate.

Again, that's assuming we show up ready to play. A loss wouldn't shock me. It has to happen eventually . . .

 

[ummmm........]

Meh. I'll take it . . .

 

[MobBoss]

Man what a blowout.

 

[DroopyTofu]

Maybe they should have let Alabama rematch Texas or Georgia instead of the Fighting Irish. Would have made a much better game for sure.

 

[madviking]

right click n save

 

[Archbob]

And thats why everyone wants a playoff.

And that former Miss Alabama is hot but I think I prefer Nick Saban's daughter myself in terms of looks.

 

[ummmm........]

And thats why everyone wants a playoff.

We have one. It's called the SEC regular season

 

[emzie]

And that former Miss Alabama is hot but I think I prefer Nick Saban's daughter myself in terms of looks.

Is that srs his daughter?

 

[Dachs]

We have one. It's called the SEC regular season

So, last year's champion was LSU? Bit of a silly formula if you ask me.

 

[ummmm........]

So, last year's champion was LSU? Bit of a silly formula if you ask me.

It's a double elimination tournament. Sort of highlights the absurdity of FAiL's pedantry, which was my point of course. But you've done well by reminding those in non-SEC land that last year's best CFB team was in fact LSU.

FUN FACT: Alabama scored two first quarter touchdowns in only five of fourteen games this season: Auburn, Missouri, Western Carolina, Michigan and Notre Dame. Think there might be something to this SEC thing?

FUN FACT II: Alabama led the nation this season in yards from scrimmage by true freshmen with 2,573. This is my happy face -->

Final AP Poll: Alabama, Oregon, OSU, ND, UGA & A&M (tied). Sucks for you OSU , but UGA and A&M just got robbed

FINAL FACT: The SEC has now won 9 of 16 BCS titles, including all seven since the BCS title game was adopted after the '05 season. Next closest is the Big XII with 2 of 15. It will be nice to see more SEC v SEC title games once the playoffs commence in 2014!!!

 

[dgfred]

Y'all know I am ALL FOR fine ladies... but that was ridiculous.
Why keep showing her? What do the other girlfriends/wives think about all that?
I mean- 1st down Alabama--- pan to attractive lady who goes with QB. WTH?
I got bored with the game... but if I switched back to the game... there she was again.

What about the left tackle's babe ? But she sure looked good .


There was a teeny-tiny window for a decent game... the ref's blew it.

How in the world did they call a penalty on the Irish for punt interference when the dude didn't even touch the punt-catcher????

Not Irish ball on about the Tide 30... but Irish defense facing a OL-RB avalanche.

Say the Irish score, kick off and the Tide fumble/interception... we might have had something for a while anyway.

It probably should have been A&M or Oregon for the best game vs Alabama. IMO the Irish were only a top-10 team... not top 4, but they were undefeated so they earned the right to play in it.

Congrats to an excellent team.

dgfred goes back to the net searching ms alabama pics .

 

[downtown]

Remember, Musberger started all the FSU Cowgirl stuff a few years ago. He's basically a columnist for Maxim at this point.

I was totally shocked ND's front 7 was blown off the ball and missed so many tackles. There were 3 or 4 guys there that could have started for Alabama in that personnel group, so it wasn't just a talent deficiency. They picked a terrible time to have a bad game, and given ND's inability to pass downfield, this game was pretty much over 8 minutes into it.

Woof.

Just remember Alabama fans, this title wouldn't have been possible had OSU not been hit with sanctions.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Notre Dame played 9 teams that made a bowl, including Stanford, who won a BCS bowl and is a legitimately good team. Despite Oklahoma's bowl performance, they were statistically a very good team all season as well. Miami would have been the 10th bowl team had they not taken a self-imposed ban.

Alabama, for what it's worth, played 7 bowl teams, and a 1AA team.

Yet they obviously aren't in the same class at all. It just goes to show you can rationalize anything when it comes to over-hyping certain conferences and teams while denigrating others with no actual basis.

I think Alabama is probably going to win, but I'd be legitimately very surprised if it's a boatrace or a blowout. Notre Dame's front 7 is probably better than Alabamas (although not by a whole lot), and neither team is especially well equipped to take advantage of the other's secondaries.

Good call.

It's a good thing 'Bama let up a bit during the second half, or it would have likely been even more of a "blowout".

It also shows that the the BCS ranking system needs a lot more work.

Just remember Alabama fans, this title wouldn't have been possible had OSU not been hit with sanctions.

Even more utter nonsense. They should try playing some of the better SEC teams during the regular season if they want anybody to think they are really any good.

 

[downtown]

Yet they obviously aren't in the same class at all. It just goes to show you can rationalize anything when it comes to over-hyping certain conferences and teams while denigrating others with no actual basis.

No actual basis? Pick your metric. Wins/Losses. BCS ranking. AP ranking. Football Outsiders FEI rankings. Every single one showed that Notre Dame's body of work during the season was in the same neighborhood as Alabama's.

I'm not being biased here...I hate both of these college football teams equally. I don't really understand your boner for the SEC, given how much you like to harrumph about academics and how BIG SPORTS are going to ruin colleges and how jocks don't go to class LOL.

It also shows that the the BCS ranking system needs a lot more work.

Was Oregon probably a better football team than Notre Dame? Yeah. But ND beat 10 bowl teams, 3 top 25 teams (the same number as Alabama, btw), and didn't lose a single game. How could you possibly justify keeping them out of the game?

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm not being biased here...I hate both of these college football teams equally. I don't really understand your boner for the SEC, given how much you like to harrumph about academics and how BIG SPORTS are going to ruin colleges and how jocks don't go to class LOL.

You call that having no "bias"?

College football obviously has nothing at all to do with academics. It hasn't for many decades now. And you apparently don't want to change it so that the athletes actually are qualified to even attend with athletics taking a back seat to education.

It is time we finally do away with colleges being the minor leagues for football and basketball. It is patently absurd that it is now a multi-million dollar business for any college with a major program, and head coaches are making 7 figures as though it is actually really important at all.

Was Oregon probably a better football team than Notre Dame? Yeah. But ND beat 10 bowl teams, 3 top 25 teams (the same number as Alabama, btw), and didn't lose a single game. How could you possibly justify keeping them out of the game?

Because they clearly were not qualified to even be there? Far too much importance is placed on losing games against extremely tough opponents, while having perfect seasons is all too frequently done by fairly mediocre teams. This just causes colleges to arrange even more powder puff matches while largely steering clear of playing supposedly similar teams in other conferences.

It would probably help a lot to have the top 8 teams play for the championship in single round elimination. It would just add two more games to the schedules of those teams. That way, ND would have had their shot. But so would 6 other teams which are quite likely far better.

 

[downtown]

Because they clearly were not qualified to even be there? Far too much importance is placed on not losing games against extremely tough opponents.

And prior to the game, what metric would you have used to make that determination?

 

[Formaldehyde]

It is a complex question because there really isn't nearly enough data to make an accurate determination, since they all end up playing radically different teams with a huge range of experience levels. Pro football does a fairly decent job of picking the best team from only 32 contenders by having them play each other in conferences.

Perhaps that is the solution. Divide the US into two college conferences, and have them play each other the way the NFL does. The only real problem is how you would eliminate the slackers so other college teams could make the "big show".

But if you are going to go to all that trouble just to pick the top college football team, I think it really makes far more sense to just have a football minor league that does the same thing. That way college sports could return to the days when real students played each other in a setting that was far more like intramural athletics are today.

 

[emzie]

It is a complex question because there really isn't nearly enough data to make an accurate determination

That's all you needed to say. There was no a priori reason to say ND would choke that badly. Notre Dame deserved to be there. End of story.

 

[downtown]

It is a complex question because there really isn't nearly enough data to make an accurate determination, since they all end up playing radically different teams with a huge range of experience levels. Pro football does a fairly decent job of picking the best team from only 32 contenders by having them play each other in conferences.

I don't think this is true. NFL teams still play wildly divergent quality of schedules, due to the small sample size of a football season...and only play a few more games a season than a college team. The vast majority of a college season is within conference play anyway.

If you're smart about football statistics, you can adjust for quality of schedule to get a reasonable expectation for how good a team is, or how lucky. I use http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei for work, but there are other advanced metrics as well, that map out the results of every single play, adjusting for schedule strength

You'll notice that now, the Football Outsiders program lists ND 10th. Before the blowout loss against Alabama, they were either 3rd of 4th (I don't remember exactly). This was hardly a statistical mismatch.

If you watched either team very much this season, you'd know that ND's performance on Monday was more than an aberration. There are three NFL first round draft picks on Notre Dame's front 7, and probably at least 5 NFL-caliber players on ND's defense. They made their living all season on being exceptionally disciplined in their coverage packages, and for making a very high percentage of their tackles.

ND probably missed more tackles in the first quarter than they did over their previous 7 games. Credit Alabama for having an exceptional offensive line and game plan, but part of that was also ND just having a bad game. Given that ND's weakness is downfield passing, a 14-0 deficit might as well have been 35-0.

You probably know that football is moving towards a playoff system in 2014, so that should eliminate part of the problem, but no system is perfect. You cite the NFL, but nobody who watched last year's regular season would believe that the NY Giants were the league's actual best team. They just got hot at the right time.

There is no possible way you could pick two teams to play in a CFB title game and use any kind of data-driven metric and pick Alabama and NOT Notre Dame, outside of just blind partisanship.