Greetings from Glasgow (the original one in Scotland).
I’ll start with a short introduction and then roll on to a series of questions that will no doubt illustrate my limited outsider’s knowledge of College football. My apologies in advance for such a long first post.
I started watching college football for the first time this year via the British version of ESPN which comes free with my cable package. I must admit I’ve gotten quite into it and I regularly watch the games in the small hours (our time) of Thu/Fri/Sat and Sun mornings. I also took the time to watch a couple of the ESPN 30/30 specials, the second of which was “Roll Tide War Eagle”. Having seen that and viewing the standings I was eagerly awaiting the Iron Bowl when it came around on the schedule. I have to be honest here, my first love is football (soccer to you), and I come from the Blue half of Glasgow, therefore having seen the Roll Tide War Eagle film I expected to be rooting for Auburn given that Blue and Orange are two colours strongly associated with my own team and if I’m honest my dislike of Harvey Updyke in the 30/30 film. However come game time it didn’t take me too long to realise that I was actually wanting Bama to win and I have been surprised just how disappointed I was at the result and even more so that the disappointment has stayed with me for as long as it has.
So I now find myself a Bama fan, eagerly awaiting next year and with the prospect of a consolation prize bowl win not really being sufficient to distract me from the let-down of not getting to see Bama in the NCS live (I watched the full Notre Dame game from last year on you-tube).
So that was my short (lol) introduction, now to my questions….
The whole national ranking situation, can someone please explain to me what that is all about? It seems crazy to me looking in from outside that opinion plays such a prominent role is deciding which two teams will play off for the title of National Champions. Especially so given the American desire to have a winner and loser in every game. Opinion to me is similar to judge’s interpretation and as such detracts from activities being seen as genuine sports. College football is a true sport, its simple, score more points than your opponents and you win, score less and you lose, simple? Surely!
Strength of schedule, again I cannot understand why this is a factor, all you can do is beat what is put in front of you, how can you be downgraded based on how good or bad your opposition is when you have won all of your games? To illustrate this, I assume we all agree that Bama are a better team player for player than the Buckeyes. Now if all the personnel remained exactly the same in both teams but the teams were swapped in conference and both went the entire season perfect, should the Buckeyes get to the NCG ahead of Bama because they played better opposition?
I think there’s something like 126 senior college teams? I think the limit for games a season has to be around 14? Now why can’t there be a 9 game regular season and a 32 team straight knock out playoff system. Alternatively it could be a 10 game regular season with a 16 team straight knock out system. All teams would play out all there games and then there would be a final 1-16 or 1-32 national standings based on actual results and not opinion and no one would suffer based on the perception of their opposition.
Finally, thank god I can hear you say from here, with the money involved in college football, why can the players not benefit from it in some way? I don’t know what percentage of this Bama team will go on to the NFL, however for those that don’t should they not have made something personally from the entertainment they have provided. Even if it was a set national rate for every player, I find it difficult to accept they get nothing (at least they are supposed to get nothing) when the game generates so much money.
Roll Tide / Aye Ready.
I’ll start with a short introduction and then roll on to a series of questions that will no doubt illustrate my limited outsider’s knowledge of College football. My apologies in advance for such a long first post.
I started watching college football for the first time this year via the British version of ESPN which comes free with my cable package. I must admit I’ve gotten quite into it and I regularly watch the games in the small hours (our time) of Thu/Fri/Sat and Sun mornings. I also took the time to watch a couple of the ESPN 30/30 specials, the second of which was “Roll Tide War Eagle”. Having seen that and viewing the standings I was eagerly awaiting the Iron Bowl when it came around on the schedule. I have to be honest here, my first love is football (soccer to you), and I come from the Blue half of Glasgow, therefore having seen the Roll Tide War Eagle film I expected to be rooting for Auburn given that Blue and Orange are two colours strongly associated with my own team and if I’m honest my dislike of Harvey Updyke in the 30/30 film. However come game time it didn’t take me too long to realise that I was actually wanting Bama to win and I have been surprised just how disappointed I was at the result and even more so that the disappointment has stayed with me for as long as it has.
So I now find myself a Bama fan, eagerly awaiting next year and with the prospect of a consolation prize bowl win not really being sufficient to distract me from the let-down of not getting to see Bama in the NCS live (I watched the full Notre Dame game from last year on you-tube).
So that was my short (lol) introduction, now to my questions….
The whole national ranking situation, can someone please explain to me what that is all about? It seems crazy to me looking in from outside that opinion plays such a prominent role is deciding which two teams will play off for the title of National Champions. Especially so given the American desire to have a winner and loser in every game. Opinion to me is similar to judge’s interpretation and as such detracts from activities being seen as genuine sports. College football is a true sport, its simple, score more points than your opponents and you win, score less and you lose, simple? Surely!
Strength of schedule, again I cannot understand why this is a factor, all you can do is beat what is put in front of you, how can you be downgraded based on how good or bad your opposition is when you have won all of your games? To illustrate this, I assume we all agree that Bama are a better team player for player than the Buckeyes. Now if all the personnel remained exactly the same in both teams but the teams were swapped in conference and both went the entire season perfect, should the Buckeyes get to the NCG ahead of Bama because they played better opposition?
I think there’s something like 126 senior college teams? I think the limit for games a season has to be around 14? Now why can’t there be a 9 game regular season and a 32 team straight knock out playoff system. Alternatively it could be a 10 game regular season with a 16 team straight knock out system. All teams would play out all there games and then there would be a final 1-16 or 1-32 national standings based on actual results and not opinion and no one would suffer based on the perception of their opposition.
Finally, thank god I can hear you say from here, with the money involved in college football, why can the players not benefit from it in some way? I don’t know what percentage of this Bama team will go on to the NFL, however for those that don’t should they not have made something personally from the entertainment they have provided. Even if it was a set national rate for every player, I find it difficult to accept they get nothing (at least they are supposed to get nothing) when the game generates so much money.
Roll Tide / Aye Ready.
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