Yeah, I lacked your fulfillment in opening day, between my team getting decimated (while winning by 43 points, ironically enough) and seeing most results I was rooting for go south...but after passing out in a beer-and-depression-fueled haze for a couple of hours, I was right back to loving watching (even a game like Colorado-Hawaii that I have little investment in). College football is awesome.

I assure you vegas power rankings and sagarin predictor do not factor in human polls, which are generally crap like you said. The bcs combines bad computer rankings that can't use margin of victory with flawed human polls. Can address the rest later when I'm not on my phone but in general I think the public underestimates an underdogs chance of winning across all conferences, especially a home dog.

well, good thing dkgo didn't take me up on my bet!

i was ****faced last night so that sorta took away the sting of the georgia loss.

I just think that there's a pretty significant difference in upset opportunities by BCS conference teams vs. teams from lower conferences. It was shocking yesterday that Utah St. really should have beaten Auburn (although I'm not sure how good Auburn is...God knows that the Tigers were really only ranked based on the fact that voters felt weird about not ranking the defending champions, and most expected a significant decline). The thing is, when you see the upset start to fall apart for a low-rung team like that, you generally see the whole thing implode rather quickly. Teams in their position are mentally defeated and just don't know how to finish the job. They don't go in expecting to win, and then when the tough part of the game kicks in then panic really clearly and visibly sets in as well. Teams from BCS conferences mostly don't have that kind of culture. You occasionally find perpetual doormats, but mostly you find programs that have been in a position of high success before and don't just see their school as one that isn't ever supposed to beat the big boys.

Unlike the NFL, where no single upset can be all that shocking (the "any given Sunday" thing is entirely true), there are matchups in college ball that truly should go only one way at least 99% of the time. There's just such a staggered distribution of talent that you can't expect certain teams to keep up with others basically almost ever.

uh oh

I didn't put up a ridiculous number. I didn't go 99.9999% to run the entire table or whatever. Giving a team with a huge talent shortage no better than a 1 in 100 chance to pull an upset in a given game isn't crazy.

afaik, the natl championship game is supposed to feature the two best teams based on what we saw during the season.

boise can be the greatest team in the history of the universe and i still wouldn't want them in the natl championship because its impossible for them to convince me that they are one of the best two teams when they don't beat anyone worthwhile. you HAVE to give people a reason to think that you're the best team. boise simply doesn't give people a reason to NOT think they are the best team.

the problem is that the voters don't understand their jobs. instead of ranking the teams properly (#1 would beat #2 more often than #2 would beat #1, #2 would beat #3 more often than #3 would beat #2, etc) they robotically shuffle teams based on what happened the day before, regardless of what's happened throughout the entire season. this basically turns it into "survivor" which helps boise a ton but doesn't do a whole lot to ensure that the two best teams are playing for the title.

The voter bias toward a team that lost early rather than late in the season is so ****ing sickening.

I guess this goes hand-in-hand with the thing where a team who comes out sucking in the first quarter and does enough to come back and win in the 4th "just put on a valiant and brave comeback, blah blah blah," whereas a team that starts fast and then barely holds on in the 4th after turning the ball over a couple of times "just got lucky to escape with a win." Heavy human bias toward the last thing a person saw makes me want to beat the **** out of something.

The only thing more tilting than lkjs opinions on sports is the d in the thread title. Mods fix it!

I'm sorry, Karak. I'll adopt some sports-based superstitions so that I can properly dumb down my posts for you and your kind.

You know I don't actually believe in superstitions right?

Yes, but the very concept of you finding them to be fun puts you a cut below.

I lol'd.

I don't get why people have such a hard-on for a team that doesn't play real teams and has to use a gimmicky field just to have an advantage over opponents. Stuff like this makes the NFL >> college football. You can take the level of play and argue how the NFL is way better, but add all the stupid gimmicky ****, the BCS, and other non-sense, the choice is clear.

Meh. I'm not real clear on which side I take in this NFL vs. college business; I will say that I really really don't understand people who are fanatical about one and don't even watch the other, and there are a lot of these people. I would understand if it was just about time constraints in their life schedule, but usually it's a genuine apathy toward the one they don't prefer. Both are so great that I just can't see not enjoying both if you're a football fan.

I will say that I don't think the choice is so clear-cut in favor of the NFL though. There's an atmosphere effect that is so clearly better to me in college...between the rivalries being a lot more real between the teams, the passion a person has for their own school being a lot more personal than for their pro team, that kind of thing. It's hard to measure that, but to me it goes a long way in adding to the considerable charm of the college game.

But I could make arguments for the NFL too. Basically my excitement level for Saturday or Sunday depends on which of my teams is better in a given year. When neither are good (way too often the case), then lately I default to Saturdays being my preferred watching day, but in the past I've defaulted to Sundays. I dunno.

Woah, I agree that nfl is better than college

I do love the NFL. Just got my tickets in the mail to Seahawks at Cleveland yesterday. Road tripping to Cleveland isn't the most exciting destination, but whatever, any road trip is still a good time and maybe for once I can watch my Seahawks win a road game. I'm 0-3 as a road fan where the Hawks are concerned, and in two of the three games they were favored.

Karak,
Fans who taunt opposing fans after winning against them are completely ****ed up and unfulfilled, not just as sports fans but as human beings at their very core.

Just a point of guidance for you to live the rest of your life by.

Bump.


Oh, and Packers > your team

Yeah but they're not as important as LazyTops's fantasy team.

technically the packers are my team since Im a shareholder

Right you are.

This weekend I will care more about weather my 2 ff teams do well then if the broncos beat the raiders. u mad?

There are so many ways to make money that don't involve sullying the greatest professional sport in the world.

When do you guys think Peyton will be back? So glad in the league I have him I also got Big Ben Roethlisberger, so its not a huge loss.

not this season