General Chat / BOWL GAMES!

Jeez it was more interesting than I thought! I had Utah though...I can't remember who I picked for last night's game. I wish I kept a copy of my picks...

Did you read about our officials in the Illinois game...wow. In other news, WVA coach went to Michigan. Great news for us since he always blows the big games

And playing Ohio is the game right?

Personally I'm disappointed that Mallet's leaving, but we're still getting Sam McGuffie and considering how much Michigan traditionally relies on the run that's always good.

Next year is a rebuilder anyway, I don't see it going any better than this year; but maybe that's just me.

Ride6

Well, Texas made the Big XII look pretty decent tonight. Quite the showing from them. I hate the team with a passion, but I am glad to see the conference get out to a good start. Hopefully we get a few more to go our way.

I'll say! and I was starting to buy into the rumor that the Pac 10 was good this year

Next year is a rebuilder anyway, I don't see it going any better than this year; but maybe that's just me.

Ride6

Already making excuses, are we? This was Ohio State's rebuilding year and we didn't do too bad

Well, Texas made the Big XII look pretty decent tonight. Quite the showing from them. I hate the team with a passion, but I am glad to see the conference get out to a good start. Hopefully we get a few more to go our way.

Yeah, well, turns out ASU is our version of Kansas.


The more I think about it, the more I have to agree that the Pac-10 won't even end up the #2 conference either. More like #3 or #4.

The more I think about it, the more I have to agree that the Pac-10 won't even end up the #2 conference either. More like #3 or #4.

Might have been different if Dixon hadn't gone down. Oregon was scary good with him, and is scary bad without him.

Yay Penn St! Yay Big 10 second bowl win (2-1 overall, with 4 more to go...)!

I went 0-3 in my bowl picks yesterday.

florida blew it.

Nah.

Michigan finally played to their potential. This is how we should've looked all season, but we never gelled quite like that and the seniors were plagued with injury. It's a shame that the core of this team is no longer eligible for college football because they finally came together the way they needed to in order to beat big opponents (like Florida or hell Ohio...)

With the way the Wolverines played today (with the exception of the fumbles and interceptions) no team in the nation would've had an easy victory against them, if they could get one at all. The fact that Florida is basically a two or three man offense doesn't help much either... Anyway next year will be interesting... Running the spread, apparently with Ryan Mallet, will be strange as hell, but with the new recruits coming our way, I think we'll do fine.

Ride6

Yeah, Michigan really played well, but I wonder if they would have displayed the same heart if it was NOT Lloyd Carr's last game.

Well, given injuries, this was Michigan's season that could have been.



Meanwhile, Mizzou proved they should have been in the BCS. Cuz Hawaii got destroyed, as did Illinois. GO TROJANS!!!! That was an awesome and hilarious game.

If I was a Missouri fan I would be quite upset right now.

I'm leaving tomorrow to go the Orange Bowl though...hopefully Virginia Tech will stomp Kansas!

Erm... right now, my thought that OU would destroy WVU isn't looking so good.

Dude... what happened to your defense, OU? Ironic that Pyro called Georgia the BCS overrated's... looks like OU's taken over that title now with four consecutive BCS Bowl losses.

USC, Georgia, and WVU advance in the BCS playoff that doesn't exist.

I like this article...nice summation of the craziness:

NEW ORLEANS -- As the red and black confetti floated to the Superdome turf early Wednesday morning, Georgia senior defensive end Marcus Howard said what the rest of the SEC has been spouting for years.

"The SEC is the best conference in the nation," Howard said. "You see all these teams winning bowl games. If you want to play the best football, come to the SEC."

Of course, there was one qualifier.

Howard's not convinced the right SEC team will be playing in the Allstate BCS National Championship Game on Monday night. He still believes Georgia was more deserving than LSU and points to the Bulldogs' 41-10 dismantling of Hawaii in the Allstate Sugar Bowl and their seven-game winning streak to end the season as proof.

"We're the hottest team, and I feel we're the best team in the country," said Howard, who earned Sugar Bowl Most Outstanding Player honors after sacking Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan three times.

But the reality is that the Bulldogs' total body of work this season didn't set them apart, which raises another question: Does anything we've seen thus far by the SEC or the Big Ten provide any clues as to what might happen Monday night in New Orleans?

It's always a dangerous thing to compare scores, and doing it this season is pure lunacy.

This much we know: The SEC is 6-2 to this point in bowl games, and the Big Ten is 3-4. There have been two head-to-head matchups. Tennessee beat Wisconsin 21-17 in the Outback Bowl, while Michigan pulled off the biggest upset of the bowl season with a 41-35 win over Florida and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow in the Capital One Bowl.

And that's where the fun starts.

The Wolverines were one of the biggest disappointments in college football this season. Their stunning 34-32 loss to eventual Division I-AA national champion Appalachian State to open the season ranks as one of the biggest upsets in history.

Who knew 40-point underdog Stanford would shock Southern Cal a few weeks later?

Michigan was also blown out at home by Oregon a week after the Appalachian State fiasco, but seemed to regroup. The Wolverines managed to win at Illinois, only to be spanked by Wisconsin.

But with more than a month to get healthy -- and wanting desperately to send retiring coach Lloyd Carr out the right way -- Michigan saved its best performance for the bowl game and shredded the Gators' defense.

That performance could be a little unnerving for LSU, which was vulnerable defensively in the second half of the season. Remember, the Tigers gave up 50 points to unranked Arkansas in a triple-overtime loss at home on Nov. 23, seemingly killing their national championship hopes.

But miraculously, the computer chips in the final BCS standings all fell LSU's way. West Virginia lost to Pittsburgh. Missouri lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game, and LSU survived a scare against Tennessee in the SEC championship game.

So much for the theory that you can't lose late and still play for the national title in the current system.

Not only did the Tigers lose late, but they lost in the next-to-last weekend of the season (to an unranked team at home, no less) and still were able to claim one of the top two spots in the final standings. But then, Ohio State lost to Illinois only two weeks earlier -- again at home.

It's the same Illinois team that was pounded by Southern Cal 49-17 in the Rose Bowl presented by Citi. And afterward, Illinois coach Ron Zook didn't mince words about what such a weak performance meant for the Big Ten.

"There's no doubt in my mind the Big Ten Conference can compete with anybody. I can say that, but we have to do it," said Zook, who's spent the bulk of his coaching career in the SEC as an assistant at Tennessee and Florida, and as a head coach at Florida in 2002-04.

Naturally, the SEC apologists will point to Ohio State's 0-8 record against SEC teams in bowl games as a sure sign the Buckeyes are in trouble.

Their list of victims is not exactly a who's who, either, especially the Ohio "gauntlet" of Youngstown State, Akron and Kent State.

Along those lines, though, how do you explain LSU's losing to both Arkansas and Kentucky? The Razorbacks turned around and were hammered by Missouri 38-7 in the AT&T Cotton Bowl.

And if Georgia thinks it has a gripe with the BCS, the Bulldogs might want to check with the folks from Mizzou. The Tigers went from being No. 1 in the BCS standings the final weekend of the season to being left out of the BCS bowls.

The constant in all this may be Ohio State's defense. The Buckeyes are ranked No. 1 nationally in both scoring and total defense and held the Wolverines to 91 total yards and three points in Ann Arbor in the final regular-season game.

That same Michigan team put up 41 points against Florida on Tuesday and lost two fumbles at the goal line, or it could easily have had 50-plus points.

And back to Georgia for a minute. The Bulldogs trailed Tennessee 35-0 before getting drilled 35-14 and didn't even win their division in the SEC. And, yes, that's the same Tennessee team that was humiliated by 39 points by Florida and 24 points by Alabama and then beat Wisconsin in the bowl game, the same Wisconsin team that lost to Illinois and beat Michigan.

What's all this mean?

Maybe Appalachian State deserves a shot.

Chris Low is a college football writer for ESPN.com. Send your questions and comments to Chris at espnclow@aol.com.

lol, yeah craziness.

Or basically, parity among eight teams at the top tier, where any team can beat any other team, depending on the matchup. USC could probably defeat OSU convincingly, but might get wiped out by WVU's spread offense and speed, but WVU could get ground out by Georgia's defense, which in turn might not hold up as well to OU's overall offensive attack (or it could have, since OU lost tonight). Or maybe VaTech could grind out a win against Georgia, but then lose to a team like Mizzou. Who knows?

Where to begin? I think its only fitting that the bowl season has been crazy since the season was...but has it really been crazy? OR has ESPN convinced us all that its been crazy? I say the latter....

Next year is a rebuilder anyway, I don't see it going any better than this year; but maybe that's just me.

with the new recruits coming our way, I think we'll do fine.
Ride6

Well you knew I had to quote those...but I know, I know, you got a big win in between those comments. You'd be proud of me Ride 6, I rooted strong for Michigan...it was weird, but I was elated when you won, and not just for Big 10 vindication but also for Michigan...after all, you beat Florida...and yet, 6 out of the last 7 years, you couldn't beat OSU...

florida blew it.

Nah....Florida never had anything to begin with...a lot of ESPN talk, but not enough for the Big 10. Oh...but what about that SEC speed? where the heck was that???

Might have been different if Dixon hadn't gone down. Oregon was scary good with him, and is scary bad without him.

Except when they play the most overrated team of the year!!! How bout that Mark May???

Dude... what happened to your defense, OU? Ironic that Pyro called Georgia the BCS overrated's... looks like OU's taken over that title now with four consecutive BCS Bowl losses.

The Big 12 was too slow for that Big East speed...oh wait...erm...yeah... I mean...
and that is exactly why I was glad we didn't have to play WVU.

USC could probably defeat OSU convincingly

Well, I guess we will see in September...
I'm calling VA Tech for tonight and of course, the Buckeyes for the big game.

Pete Carroll is already staging his big crying game.... Got one word......Stanford....

Edited by Buckeye Becky, 03 January 2008 - 06:38 PM.

See, I never understood the people who say Carroll cries about stuff. He doesn't. He advocates a playoff, but publically, if things don't go his way, he doesn't whine. It's only whine if you read it as that, but speaking objectively, Carroll is nowhere near as much of a whiner as most other coaches.

Anyway, Va Tech lost. I dunno how. Well, I do: I was totally wrong about Kansas. They're not that overrated after all. Va Tech simply has a craptacular offense. And KU's D is much better than I thought. And that's what won the game for them.

As for OSU vs LSU... that might end up being the only actual good BCS game from a competitive standpoint. VaTech vs KU wasn't bad, but you'd hardly call it exciting.

pahaaaa, not even two minutes in.

I figured that going into this game, OSU actually had the karma, since they've had to live through a year of embarrassment, while LSU was the brash, hyped up team. And for five minutes, it looked like OSU would find redemption, as LSU seemed to be beating themselves with sloppy play.

Then reality righted itself, and LSU is dominating OSU again. If this becomes something like 41-10, I'll laugh, because it'll pretty much confirm that the Big 10 sucks (although it kind of seems like the ACC is right there with them). For the record, I picked LSU 38 OSU 24 in my ESPN Bowl Mania pick 'em fantasy game. That doesn't really matter, since my bowl predictions have sucked (about 50% right). Still, with LSU playing at their height, the current 31-10 score is to be expected. OSU needs LSU to just really collapse or play overconfidently to have any chance. Or their so-called great defense needs to actually prove it.

But assuming things go the way they have, if this game doesn't show the SEC is the best conference in the league, I don't know what does.


EDIT:
JUST as I click "REPLY" OSU intercepts the ball and returns it to the LSU 11, so this game isn't over yet. LMAO.

I suppose that makes the Big Ten look bad, doesn't it?

Ride6

Yes. Yes it does. But last year made it look a lot worse than this year. Thank Michigan though, because the Wolverines were the only ones who made any showing worth anything. And I guess Penn State.

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Well, at least the end made up for the fact that I got 40% of my Bowl predictions wrong. LOL