Buncha Crap System (BCS) Part 2

Excuse me as I rant, but let’s get this weekend straight BCS ranking wise. It started out with #2 Auburn barely beating #11 Alabama (9 team difference in ranking), and to be honest had McElroy not been concussed, I think Alabama would have pulled off the win.

Then there was an upset in #19 Nevada beating #4 Boise State (15 team difference in ranking). Boise State was a 14 point favorite and yes there was a field goal missed that could have won he game but lets give credit to the Nevada defense who not only shut down a high-powered offense in the 2nd half but also stopped them in overtime.

Number 5 LSU lost to #12 Arkansas (7 team difference in ranking).

Oklahoma State at #9 got beat by #13 Oklahoma (4 team difference in ranking), in what was an amazing 4th quarter by Oklahoma.

#20 Utah barely beats BYU in a game that shouldn’t have even been close.

And then we get the rankings…

#2 jumps Oregon who has done nothing wrong to get the #1 spot.
#11 barely falls, moving back only 5 spots to #16.
#5 drops 5 spots to #10.
#12 jumps 5 spots in comparison.
#9 drops back to the #14 spot, once again a 5 spot drop.
#13 who pulled off the upset moves up 4 spots to the #9 position.
#20 who should have lost stays put at #20, they shouldn’t have any complaints about this.

So, so far everything looks up to par and the only thing to question is did #2 Auburn really deserve to overtake the BCS #1 ranking? Let’s talk about Nevada now who pulled off an amazing come from behind win when all the lights were on them.

#4 Boise State gets booted from the top ten to #11, a 7 rank drop.
#19 Nevada, little sister of the poor Nevada, who put on a show that people will talk about for at least a year jumps 2 measly spots in the BCS.

There is no respect given to a little school, the only thing sports programs are talking about is how Brotzman missed the kick. NOT about how this Nevada team, against all odds, being down 17, went in at halftime and made the adjustments that shut down a potent offense and in the end won the game.

The fact of the matter is this, everyone who has a say in the votes believes this, “Boise State handed the game to Nevada, Nevada did nothing to earn that W”.

Now let us talk about Colin Kaepernick, have we heard anything about him? Forget the records he now owns, he only put up better numbers than Cam Newton but he doesn’t even get mentioned 99% of the time that a commentator talks about that game.

Cam Newton had 216 yards through the air as opposed to Colin Kaepernick and his 259.

On the ground Kaepernick had 45 yards rushing with an average of 4.5 per carry, Newton 1.8 per carry for 39. Should we also mention that Cam ran 12 more times in this game?

Kaepernick threw a pick that was amazingly intercepted and not his fault; it was a ball that should have been caught.

Cam Newton did however bring a team from behind to win a game against a team that was the favorite.

Kaepernick did the same damn thing only showing composure many athletes would rival. With 13 seconds left in the game, Colin was able to tie the game up with an amazing pass into tight coverage.

Just give the guy some credit, that's all I'm asking. Here's were the 2 guys now stand, and keep in mind that by the end of the season, Colin Kaepernick will have put up 4,000 yards of total offense:
The AP poll seems to be more accurate with Nevada at #14, that's closer to what they really are than #17.

Boise St. vs. Nevada Recap

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!!!! (as said by Maximus)

What a fun game to watch and an amazing performance but let’s be honest, it takes a little luck, and I love Kyle Brotzman! The game of football is all about how you capitalize when you get a chance and that’s what Nevada did, I’m just glad it wasn’t Ricky Drake kicking our game winner.

The hearts of Nevada fans dropped as somehow Kellen Moore made a hell of a throw downfield and still left 0:02 on the clock to win the game with a field goal. Why we did not have at least 4 men in a deep zone, I still don’t know. But that’s beside the point, the point is that had that kick gone, Boise State would still be getting the praise they deserve. They would hop over TCU and close the gap against Auburn, after what I consider a poor performance on their part. They had a shot at a national title game, although they would have never gotten it, they had a shot.

Boise State is a great team, but so is Nevada, and I’ve been saying that for a while. Do I think Nevada could match up against Auburn or Alabama? Yes, do I think we could win? No, but for so many people to write us out of the Boise State game before it even started, hurt. I never thought I would have to defend myself from my friends who didn’t believe Nevada had a chance. After the first half the odds-makers looked like they overestimated Nevada and that Boise would cover the 14 point spread, thousands of people thought they had just won a nice bet because “Nevada is a horrible team and Boise State is gonna run all over them”. But I said it would be a close game and would be decided on the final possession by 3 points or less…now I may have gotten the score wrong a little but I was pretty spot on.

The first half we played ugly on offense. Their defense had no problem containing us, their offense may not have moved the ball as fast as they usually do but they moved it. The second half though could not have been a different story. After letting them run all over us in the first half we held them to 8…yes I said 8...yards on the ground for the rest of the game. The defense held them to 1-6 on 3^rd downs. This defense who has struggled and people said was horrible was BY FAR the best defense I have seen in college football this year, in the second half that is.

I can only hope that that game showed this Nevada team is better than South Carolina, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas. Unfortunately we will have to wait till tomorrow to find out but it doesn’t seem like it. Hardly any of the commentators are talking about it today and when they do they just state how Boise lost, not that Nevada played an amazing game to knock them off their throne.

The game is over. Nevada has pretty much assured itself a share of the WAC title and a great bowl game. But what has not been discussed are the records that were set last night.

Congratulations to Colin Kaepernick, you are now the only quarterback in NCAA history to throw for 2000 yards and rush for 1000 in the same season, for 3 seasons in a row. I believe this record will stand for a long time if not forever.

Congratulations to Colin Kaepernick and Vai Taua, you are now the most prolific rushing duo in the history of college football passing Eric Dickerson and Craig James. You still have 2 more games to set that number higher.

For now the biggest game in school history is over, Ault can rest, there won’t be the naysayers like there was after the Hawaii game. You proved you are an amazing coach; the adjustments you made at halftime were perfect. You led your team into battle and beat one of the best teams in D1 football.

To everyone who says Boise State didn’t deserve a shot at a national title, if you watched the game last night you saw nothing but praise for them from the commentators, then they showed quotes from all the coaches whose teams have lost to them this year…all of them said that this is a legitimate team and possibly the best in the nation. You killed a Virginia Tech team that lost to a D2 school, but they play in a BCS conference and will win it and get their BCS game. At the end of the season they will be ranked ahead of you just as you will remain ranked ahead of Nevada. This is the cruel world we live in that makes no sense.

If you truly understand football and you watched the game last night, then you know how good of a team Boise State really is and now you know why I said this will be the greatest Nevada team in its school history.

Oh and how cool is this? I took this screen cap at 3:00am PST (click to see a bigger picture of it)...

A Little Dose of HIstory

16-84-5

No that’s not a locker combination that will lead you to millions of dollars. They’re key numbers for amazing records.

16 – The number of yards Colin Kaepernick needs rushing to become the FIRST player in NCAA history to throw for 2000 yards and rush for 1000 yards in 3 consecutive seasons.

84 – The number of rushing yards Colin Kaepernick and Vai Taua need COMBINED to become the most prolific rushing duo in NCAA history. Who holds that record? Just a guy by the name of Craig James and E.D., E.D. by the ways might be one of the greatest running backs to play in the NFL and the 2^nd overall pick of the 1983 NFL draft, none other than Eric Dickerson.

5 – The number of rushing TD’s Colin Kaepernick needs to hold the record for the most rushing TD’s by a quarterback in NCAA history. He currently has 55. With 3 more he passes that guy Tim Tebow who I’ve never been a fan of, and with 5 more he passes Eric Crouch. Now both may have had great college careers but Crouch never made it in the NFL, and well Tebow…let’s just say I hope he doesn’t make it. Either way its great company to be in and leading that category is just another notch on a belt for a quarterback who’s already achieved more than anyone thought possible.

I give you this information because you should know and I can easily see the commentators neglecting all of this information as we see at least 1 record broken tonight. 10:15pm EST, 7:15pm PST, tune your dials to ESPN, it’s going to be a good one.

Week 13 Ranking Implications

Are you excited for this game yet? It’s just a shame it’s this week because this would be a great week to move up in the rankings. Here’s what I have for this week:

#2 Auburn losing to #11 Alabama

#12 Arkansas losing to #5 LSU

#13 Oklahoma losing to #9 Oklahoma State

#17 Texas A&M losing to Texas

#21 Arizona losing to #1 Oregon

What does this mean? Well if Nevada loses we could potentially still be ranked, probably at #25. If Nevada pulls off the upset we might get the recognition we deserve but we will likely hear “I think this is proof that this Boise State team just wasn’t as good as we thought they were and truly did not deserve a chance at the national title”. Regardless I see us moving up 4 spots, and an additional 2-3 for taking down Boise. With a win we might be talking about the #13 or #12 Nevada Wolf Pack.

Regardless it’s going to be a great Friday of college football with the #’s 1, 2, and 4 teams in action, all against ranked opponents.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families! Be safe and enjoy college football!

Buncha Crap System (BCS)

It’s the holiday season and you have nothing better to do than to read this breakdown of the BCS, so it’s a little longer than a normal blog post, but I think you’ll learn something and hopefully enjoy it:

Could there be a better time to discuss this thing called the BCS than right now? No, especially after President Gee, Ohio State University’s President, came out and basically called every school that’s not a part of a BCS automatic qualifying conference a “little sister of the poor”. It’s clear that you sir understand nothing about college football.

The BCS was created to make a means for determining a “true” college football national champion. Let’s cut the bull. The BCS was formed as a way to increase revenue. Is there any surprise that the biggest schools, enrollment wise, and stadium wise, are members of this thing we call the BCS? No those conferences were allowed to be a part of the BCS because of how good their college football teams are (there's just a hint of sarcasm here), so lets look at em;

Big Ten – Ok, this might be the toughest conferences out there but aside from Ohio State, no one else has more than 2 wins in a BCS game

SEC – Florida and LSU, need I say more? They deserve to be there. They also have the highest winning percentage of any BCS conference in those big games (.737).

Big 12 – Oklahoma, Texas, and Nebraska those are the only real contenders year after year.

Pac-10 – They perform well in the big BCS games (.615) but until this year it had been the USC conference.

The last two conferences can easily be kicked out of the BCS and no one would question it:

Big East – This is a basketball conference! This year Pittsburgh will probably win the conference and get a BCS game with a dismal current record of 6-4. West Virginia who might be the best team in that conference is 7-3! In BCS games they don’t perform up to par, they are .500 in BCS games but 3 of those wins came when Miami was still in the conference.

ACC – why are these guys still in the BCS? They have been in 12 BCS games and have won an amazing 2. They hoist a .167 record with Florida State wining 1 and losing 5, and Virginia Tech wining one and losing 2. Everyone else that made a BCS game lost. But lets keep them in there because of the money those schools bring in.

If you combine the Big East and the ACC, they have a combined BCS winning percentage of .333, or they win 1/3 of the games they play in. Sure that’s not a bad percentage and it is college football but lets look at the WAC and Mountain West combined.

The Mountain west and WAC are both .667 in BCS games, but one of those games placed Boise State (WAC) against TCU (MWC) in a copout game where the BCS was afraid to see 2 BCS automatic qualifiers lose to two non BCS conference schools. When Utah got its BCS games, they won. When TCU got its game, it lost to Boise State. When Boise State got its games it won. When Hawaii got its game, it got destroyed. But 5 out of the 6 games were great entertaining games, is that not more important than money? Apparently not.

Don’t put down teams from non automatic qualifying conferences based on where they play. It’s not really up to them, Boise State can’t just make a call to the ACC and say “hey we want in”, well they can but it won’t put them in the ACC. Speaking of the ACC and Boise State…Virginia Tech is going to win the ACC Costal, this is a team that lost to Boise State to begin the season, we won’t even talk about the D2 school they lost to. Is it not logical then that if a team from a non AQ (automatic qualifying) conference beats the champion of an AQ conference from the same year that they are the better team? Put Boise State, TCU, and Nevada in the Big East or ACC and watch all three teams finish in the top 4 if not win the conference.

The BCS is a load of crap. TCU, Boise State, and Nevada (the 3 highest ranked non AQ teams) are all garbage and couldn’t hold their own weight in a real (BCS) conference. That’s what I’ve been hearing from commentators. I’ve also heard that Boise State is THE BEST all around team in college football this year, BUT they don’t deserve to play in a national title game.

Let’s have a playoff system that has been talked about for a while now but will never happen. Why? Because the money isn't there. Here’s how my system goes:

There are 12 conferences including independents. At the end of the season the #1 and #2 team in that conference play to determine the representative. We now have 12 teams which will be ranked by the same coaches and sportswriters that already rank the teams. Then we reward the #1 and 2 teams by giving them byes. I have attached a table (click on it to make it bigger and more clear) with Rankings as numbers and Games as Letters. It will only take 4 weeks, the length of bowl season already, and you can still have your other bowls on the side.

Let’s not penalize teams like Boise State and TCU for not having the luxury of being in a BCS conference, and by all means lets not put them down and call them our “little sister of the poor” especially not when Boise State or TCU would beat your Ohio State this year.

Boise St. vs. Nevada

So Nevada plays possibly the most complete game of the season and drops a spot in the BCS. Welcome to the BCS era ladies and gentlemen. Does this mean anything? Yes, it means if we lose to Boise St. we will be out of the ranking picture.

If there’s one thing different with this Nevada team this year than from years past its that they can step up to the big game. Look at Cal, BYU, and Fresno State. Sure BYU wasn’t as good as they were thought to be, but that’s a team that we easily would have lost to in the past. We also wouldn’t have beaten Cal in the past, and Fresno State would have been up for grabs. Nevada is not exactly a team that can win when they fall behind, so this year that was a positive, and we almost pulled it out against Hawaii as well. Boise State on the other hand is a completely different story, they might be the best team in the nation, definitely the most complete team if you ask me.

But Boise State has always brought out the best in us, we put up great numbers against them and they don’t seem to look so dominant. In years past we didn’t have the team that could beat them yet it was always close and a nailbiter. This year Nevada HAS the team capable of walking out of Mackay a winner and making talking about Boise State a thing of the past. The sad thing is if we win, we won’t get the recognition we deserve, and well Boise State will be talked about how they just were never a really good team. If we lose, I still don’t see Boise State moving up, even if Oregon and Auburn both lose, I can easily see a 1-loss team moving ahead of Boise State and TCU to play in the national championship game. (I’m working on a nice little piece on the BCS which I’ll post this week)

Judging by the spread for this game, the “experts” think it should be a pretty easy win for the Broncos. I beg to differ. I honestly believe that this game will be decided on the final possession of the game and the difference in score at the end will be 3 points or less.

The key to the game is to get the lead early and play mistake free. If Nevada’s defense can hold the Boise State offense on their first 2 possessions and score on their first 2 possessions, we could be looking at an upset. On the other hand if Boise state does the opposite and holds us on our first 2 possessions, we could be looking at a disappointing night. As far as mistakes, this will be a high intensity game and we could see some fights. Those could be a good thing, what’s a bad thing is Ricky Drake kicking another kickoff out of bounds, what is that? 4 times this year so far?

I don’t expect our defense to hold this team scoreless, but I do know that they are capable of forcing them to punt on 4-6 possessions. On the other hand, our offense, if it gets in rhythm can prove extremely difficult for the Broncos defense to contain. I’m expecting the Nevada secondary to back off a little and allow short passes but try everything to prevent the long ones. Maybe even some 3 deep coverage on 2^nd down?

If Nevada is behind by more than 10 at half it’s going to be a tough game to win. Anything closer than that and its anyone’s game. This might prove to be one of the best games of the year

Final Score Prediction

Someone 45 – Someone 48

Week 12 Ranking Implications

So unfortunately this week is not the best week to move up in the BCS rankings. Why does this matter? Because next week is Boise State and it would help to be ranked as high as possible so we don’t get 86’d from the Rankings completely. Here’s what I have for this week:

#6 Stanford losing to Cal

#19 Texas A&M losing to #8 Nebraska

#20 Iowa losing to #9 Ohio State

#21 Mississippi State losing to #13 Arkansas

#16 Virginia Tech losing to #24 Miami

After last weeks poor performance by Stanford and the strong performance by Cal, I do think that Cal can beat Stanford this week. That being said I see us moving up 2 spots. I still hold my ground that this Nevada team is better than South Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Missouri. Hopefully the voters see that this week and we