Off season topic: Bring back the tie!

No.

College OT needs some work. Ties are ridiculous. Who goes to the SEC championship if Alabama and LSU are 11-0-1? I know it is the offseason, but find a hobby.

My first sport growing up was soccer (lived in the UK for three years).

I recall around 1990 when some folks were getting upset because in the World Cup that year there were a bunch of shootouts; in fact, that World Cup still has the lowest total goals per game (2.21) all these years later. I heard some Alabama fans (I'm not making this up) who didn't know diddly about soccer complaining about how stupid the shoot out was.

My smart aleck response at twenty was, "Yeah, but at least in soccer, the team actually WINS the championship on the field. You can complain about it, but let's solve it like college football does. We'll let the teams play the round robin and if the games end with teams with the same record, we'll let a bunch of sportswriters who don't even play the game vote..I repeat, VOTE!!!! on who the winner is."

Granted - a lot of that went way with the BCS, but look at what happened in 1990 in college ball right after that. Colorado had a loss, a tie, a should have been loss (the Fifth Down to Missouri) and got the Orange Bowl; Ga Tech was the nation's only unbeaten team (ironically - considering this post - they had a tie, ha ha) and they got the Citrus Bowl.

In a rational world, Colorado and GT would have played for the national championship. All these years later and folks on both sides are STILL upset over 'the real champion,' fans of both teams taking the web to argue why THEIR school should be the 'sole' champion. Even if one uses the SoS argument, the fact is that Colorado had TWO imperfections on their record and Tech had one (and it was NOT a loss).

And yet these folks actually thought THAT made more sense than a shootout.


(Btw - how many of you realize that if Notre Dame had not had a PAT blocked in the 1991 Orange Bowl, Colorado ends that game in a 10-10 tie.......and who THEN is the national champion?)


It gets better......Colorado calls different plays inside Notre Dame territory, but in this situation Colorado has EVERYTHING to lose no matter what happens. A tie, they lose. A loss, they lose and for sure lose the title. So they're now in the situation where their play calling (but not the Irish) HAS to be determined by 'we have to score points.' So do they high risk it at the 40? And then.....let's say Notre Dame picks off a pass inside the five.

Do any of you think they're even going to try to drive for a winning field goal with no timeouts and less than a minute left?

One more thing - Colorado's QB went down in the second quarter.

Again - how is THIS more fair than what we have now?

selmaborntidefan said:

I recall around 1990 when some folks were getting upset because in the World Cup that year there were a bunch of shootouts; in fact, that World Cup still has the lowest total goals per game (2.21) all these years later. I heard some Alabama fans (I'm not making this up) who didn't know diddly about soccer complaining about how stupid the shoot out was.

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FIFA instituted a some rule changes because of the ridiculously cautious play and time wasting from that World Cup Final. The back pass rule was created, which I'm very familiar with having played keeper for two decades, and "three points for a win" was implemented.

I'm a huge soccer fan and love the way the European leagues do it. Would love to have a relegation and promotion pyramid in MLS one day if it grows big enough.

The pure emotions from a hard fought 2, 3 or 4 OT victory or defeat is the most exciting spectacle in all of sports as far as I'm concerned..The game of football is the greatest sport on the planet because of the pure emotions the players puts into the game & OT's multiples that roller coaster ride of emotions for those players & for us college football fans..

Put me in the "NO" category as well..

I vote - Yes.

No. Coach Bryant said after a tie (vs. UT I believe) that playing to a tie was like kissing your sister. I agree with this sentiment.


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tidegrandpa said:

And Parsgeghian played for it.

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As did Duffy Daugherty. You can't blame one and yet let the other off scot-free (a little Celtic pun there)...

I always wondered (back in the 60's and 70's) how grown men could make such a stupid rule. We will play for an hour and go home tied. Hmmm. NOT very smart. We will spend hundreds of dollars going to the game ..... and go home tied. NOT very smart. In fact I spent my money and time to go watch a game end in a tie and I went home mad at the idiots who made such a rule.

The way I look at it, if you don't want to go for the tie, don't. If you don't want your opponent to tie the game, stop them. Teams always had that option. If I was going to be mad about a tie, I'd be more mad at the teams who either went for it, or let it happen.

But then, I always enjoyed the (sometime) chaos of the old football polls, and the discussion/arguments they engendered. Ties just made it all the more interesting.

Relayer said:

The way I look at it, if you don't want to go for the tie, don't. If you don't want your opponent to tie the game, stop them. Teams always had that option. If I was going to be mad about a tie, I'd be more mad at the teams who either went for it, or let it happen.

But then, I always enjoyed the (sometime) chaos of the old football polls, and the discussion/arguments they engendered. Ties just made it all the more interesting.

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Well a lot of the time they went for the win and the pass was incomplete. All ties were not because someone, like Ara and Duffy, ran the clock out for the tie, they were unavoidable.

rolltide_21 said:

No. Coach Bryant said after a tie (vs. UT I believe) that playing to a tie was like kissing your sister. I agree with this sentiment.


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And the Clemson HC (Howard) said after tying a huge favorite "this sure is a beautiful sister!"

We wouldn't have played for the SEC title and national title last year if ties were possible. Ole Miss would have went ahead of us due to L in Tuscaloosa.

Absolutely not, I agree with some other posters though about needed changes. Maybe something similar to the way the NFL does it.

Redwood Forrest said:

And the Clemson HC (Howard) said after tying a huge favorite "this sure is a beautiful sister!"

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And that's the difference between Howard and Coach Bryant. One is a legend who won multiple NCs and the other most CFB fans have never heard of the other outside of some rock Clemson players touch before the game. Championship level coaches aren't satisfied with ties much less happy about them. The same goes for Coach Saban. I could never see him playing for a tie.

And yes, I am aware that Frank Howard played @ Bama. Not that it's relevant to this discussion.

Redwood Forrest said:

Well a lot of the time they went for the win and the pass was incomplete. All ties were not because someone, like Ara and Duffy, ran the clock out for the tie, they were unavoidable.

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Make the play!

But, in your example, if you're passing for the win and the pass is incomplete, you lose, right? There won't be a tie.

J4Bama said:

We wouldn't have played for the SEC title and national title last year if ties were possible. Ole Miss would have went ahead of us due to L in Tuscaloosa.

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I'm not quite sure of the argument here. If Ole Miss had A TIE and A LOSS while we only had A LOSS......how do they go in ahead of us? Don't we therefore win by a half game?

In a certain way overtime fixed a problem that did not exist. I remember seeing the stats after the first ten years of overtime...there were like 4 times as many overtime games as there had been ties in the preceding ten years. Teams are much more likely to play for overtime...when in the past they would go for the win.
Still...I like having a winner. I just think the NFL has a much better system.

Here's a few wild suggestions that could never work...(hey, it's off-season )

Each college coach states his preference before the season starts...end games with a Dye, excuse me, tie, or use the overtime. Then, before each game, the coaches' preferences are checked. If they are in agreement, they are good to go. If one picks one way and the other the opposite, flip a coin.

Another odd twist would be for the networks to realize how popular the overtime period is, and figure out a way to charge a premium to watch it. A cable company could carry 4 quarters at the regular price, but add a fee to watch the extra overtime. :eek2:

I'd rather see another quarter of regular football, then if it's still tied, well, so be it. I don't care for the current high school style tiebreaker. I could live with a tie in the regular season, like in the NFL, after one extra period of regular football.

I think the 1966 Notre Dame-Mich. St. tie leaving us at #3 reflects the bias against Alabama at the time. If that scenario played out today, I would think they would both fall, but it wouldn't matter, because we'd meet them in the playoff anyway.