Preseason Expectations Are Affecting Conference Perceptions | NCAAF | Georgia Bulldogs

Seriously you are comparing the Big East to the SEC and you actually think they are better WOW. Let me guess you also think that Cincy could beat Bama and Florida. I think you guys are getting better but come on, not one of your teams have shown any consistency one year a team is good and the next they are bad. Once one of them can put together a consistently winning program they will get some respect.

11/3/09

TurkogluForMVP

0	because iowa is a pic... i would have to say the big ten and sec garbage has been dealt and its over... big ten blows in comparison... big east has no chance... not enough money/talent to challenge the sec and we'll find out next year about usf vs fla... bigtone what week is that game next year?

11/3/09

celticfc411

I'd love to see Pitt run the table, and if the team that took USF apart shows up for the next several weeks then I think they certainly can get a BCS game. And I think that the Big East is better this year than in the past, and is around or slightly above the level of the Big Ten. But I have a feeling the SEC is going to prove again this year that it is the conference to beat. Don't get me wrong, I want to see Florida and Alabama lose before the SEC title game, just to really mess things up. I just don't think it will happen

11/3/09

0	TurkogluForMVP wrote: because iowa is a pic... i would have to say the big ten and sec garbage has been dealt and its over... big ten blows in comparison... big east has no chance... not enough money/talent to challenge the sec and we'll find out next year about usf vs fla... bigtone what week is that game next year? It's week two on 9/11

11/3/09

DERYKE

4	Why not have the champs from each conference have a play off then we will see who is the Nation Champion Like Basketball...Even steven you lose you go home......Start the season Sept.1 no off week 10 game season play off at end off season no time off ..Lets see who is the true National Champion Of College FootBall ......

11/3/09

I've said it before and I'll say it again, comparing conferences is null and void. I know it's fun to do, but until they play 4-5 games against each other in a season, we won't really know who is better. Different conferences play different styles of football. Just because a QB in conference A has better numbers than a QB in conference B doesn't make him better. And the same comparison goes for defenses in each conference. When you only face certain styles of football for most of the season, your stats will be tilted in that direction more than other conferences may be.

I don't, nor have I ever, claimed that the SEC is the best football conference (for reasons posted above). For anyone to claim that the conference is overrated, all I can say is "Wait til bowl season". Because unfortunately, that's the only measuring stick that we will have to gauge any of this.

Nice write up, Mike.

11/3/09

patrickabyers

@tpowell, I agree, comparing conferences is impossible with the limited number of games between them. All you can do is measure them up come Bowl Season.

And to BigTone, you decry the Big East as having no consistent good teams, but yet Pitt and WVU are at or near the top every year with 8 or 9 wins. It's been that way the past decade. And with the conference being so new (after Miami, BC and VT left, it is essentially a 'new' conference) trying to measure beyond that is useless.
That's the same sort of deal with any conference. Florida was an 8 win team a few years back, same with Bama, so no consistency there, by your measuring stick, and look at how OK and Texas Tech have fallen this year, Nebraska a long time ago. In the Big Ten Michigan has been struggling, and Penn State had several bad years.
All the conferences are the same. Until they play a head to head playoff system you'll never be able to convince most people otherwise.

11/3/09

patrickabyers wrote:

@tpowell, I agree, comparing conferences is impossible with the limited number of games between them. All you can do is measure them up come Bowl Season.

Hey I with you we need a playoff system. What I mean is no one in the Big east has jumped out and taken control of the conference since the "Big three" left. A team shows signs of life but then the next year they fall apart. No team has been able to put together a two or three year run. Yes Florida and Bama have had a down year, but the difference is the bounce right back. I like the Big east. I am a Bulls fan as well. In my Opinion right now they do not stack up well against the SEC.

11/4/09

Flone87

DERYKE wrote:

Why not have the champs from each conference have a play off then we will see who is the Nation Champion Like Basketball...Even steven you lose you go home......Start the season Sept.1 no off week 10 game season play off at end off season no time off ..Lets see who is the true National Champion Of College FootBall ......

I rambled on about that before, and since that is what I said in the article, I definitely agree. I even went crazy and suggested 8 twelve team divisions based solely on geography. Maybe I really want to renew that Pitt/Penn St rivalry. It makes sense, cuts way down on travel, and at the end. you have a nice tidy playoff with the winners of the 8. The others get their bowl games, 2's play 2's, 3, 3's etc.

The idea here though is that the SEC is WAY overrated. They are not so far head and shoulders over the rest of the NCAA. I am willing to bet Miami could march into Gainesville and beat the Gators. Every year we see this...Alabama's great defense, its non-existent offense, meeting up with a better balanced Florida team. Because the Tide (and SEC) have this perception, this might as well be the BCS game. But it's not.

See, the wonderful thing about the NFL--I can write my opinion that the Broncos are overrated, that Orton is the weak link...but, I will be proven right or wrong on the field. We don't have it in college football.

If there is any controversy at the end of the year, we as fans should boycott it. Do not turn on the TV, give a big screw you to the BCS.

11/4/09

Flone87 wrote:

I agree with you on your playoff stance. But I've got to interject when the exaggerated SEC bashing comes into play.

How does one SEC championship game translate into " Every year we see this...Alabama's great defense, its non-existent offense, meeting up with a better balanced Florida team"? In case you forgot, year before last it was LSU winning the SEC championship (and not against a non-existent Alabama offense).

And I hate to sound smug, because I've done nothing but claimed that the SEC hasn't proven to be the best conference, but if you want people to stop talking about the SEC, shouldn't someone else step up and win a national title?

I know you don't consider the BCS title game a true national championship, but if someone would step up and beat an SEC team in the title game (and 80% of the bowls they are in), just maybe these media talking heads will lay off of the SEC banter. Just maybe.

11/4/09

tpowell25 wrote:

Utah and Texas are just two examples of teams that might have beaten Florida last year. Every other year, I'm sure we could grab a couple other teams that could have put up a fight. With the flawed system we have, you can't just say "well, someone else should win a championship, and then they can talk".

When only one team gets a chance out of 4-5 deserving teams, it's hardly fair to judge the rest of those teams on the performance of the one who happens to get picked for the title game.

11/4/09

Pat wrote:

I said if he wants people to stop talking about the SEC, then maybe someone should step up and beat them. I didn't say anything about who did and did not deserve to be there.

11/4/09

tpowell25 wrote:

I said if he wants people to stop talking about the SEC, then maybe someone should step up and beat them. I didn't say anything about who did and did not deserve to be there.

Right... but the point is that it's easy to say "step up and beat them" ... but each year, only one team gets a chance to try in the game that actually matters. Utah, for all intents and purposes, "stepped up and beat them" last year. People can make all the excuses they want, but the bottom line is that they beat Alabama, and they beat them worse than Florida did. But since they never got the chance to play in the ONE game that actually matters, we'll never know if they could have beaten Florida.

Yes, most people agree that Florida would probably have beaten Utah... but most people thought Alabama would beat them as well.

11/4/09

Pat wrote:

Utah had a much better team than Alabama did last year. I've never denied that. But until someone beats an SEC team in the "title game" and the SEC doesn't win 6 out of 8 bowl games, the media isn't going to get off of their "SEC is holier than thou" attitude.

Whether it's a true national championship or not, the SEC needs to go a couple of years without winning it all for the bias to subdue. I can't help who gets voted into the game.

Geezus Pat. I have no idea if I'm still on topic or not.

11/4/09

tpowell25 wrote:

I'm not saying the SEC isn't good, nor am I saying they don't deserve it. I just take issue with the idea that no matter what happens, the SEC championship game is basically a BCS Championship semi-final. If the season plays out in a way that makes that true, then so be it. But it shouldn't be the default assumption.

That being said, aside from the extremely unlikely possibility that LSU wins the SEC, I think that this year, the SEC champ will be VERY deserving. I just don't think that it's automatically the case EVERY year, as some people seem to think.

11/4/09

Pat wrote:

I agree with that. But this year (if it plays out as most expect) and last year are the only two seasons that I can think of where the SEC title game was considered a BCS Championship semi-final. Before that, it was "if the expected SEC team wins the SEC title game, they are in".

Even though they still won the BCS title game, LSU might be the only SEC team that didn't deserve to be in that scenario (because of the 2 losses).

11/4/09

elevenbravo138again

The fact is that until I see somebody beat Cincinnati I think they are good as any team in the country, is the Big East the SEC? No, but can UC play with anybody, why can't they? The have solid NFL caliber players at all levels of the team, great coaching and they finish games, do you seriously believe they wouldn't beat LSU? They'd have a shot at beating UF, Gilyard's a top 5 WR, Pike's a top 5 QB, Collaros his back up is mini-Tebow, but faster and with much better passing mechanics, they have 2 very good lines and an underrated secondary. Coach Kelly is in the top 5% in the profession.

11/4/09

elevenbravo138again wrote:

And that's the bottom line. As long as a team remains winless, it seems foolhardy to say that a team with a loss is better than them. That's what some SEC people don't want to admit.

Would LSU beat Cincinnati in a heads up game? I honestly think they would. But in my opinion, LSU loses the right to make that case, by virtue of losing a game. Since we have no playoff system, in which they could play each other, we can't just assume a team with a loss is better than a team with a perfect record. We have to go by what they've done on the field.

11/4/09

Alright some one explain this to me. Everyone says that it is unfair we all agree on that and that we need a playoff system, but tell me how it would be fair for lets say Boise who's conference schedule is a joke and might schedule one tough out of conference game which they have a better shot of winning because they have nothing to loss and everything to gain goes undefeated and gets in over lets say a one loss SEC or Big 12 or a one loss team from a much stronger conference, just because they went undefeated in with a week schedule, based on any system other then a playoff.

11/4/09

Pat wrote:

And you think the level of competition they have played should not matter at all.

11/4/09

BigTone2475 wrote:

And you think the level of competition they have played should not matter at all.

I think that if the level of competition in the WAC, MWC, etc is THAT much worse than the 'major' conferences, then they shouldn't be in the same division at all. But since they are, I think they should be respected as such. If not, then remove them and start a new division. There's nothing pointless than having teams that win all of their games, but will never have a chance to win a championship. That is flat out stupid.

11/4/09