College Football 2024
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I'm enjoying these new playoffs, but I have one major criticism of the format, that they made it more desirable to be the 5th or 6th seed than the 1st or 2nd. The difference between the 5th and 6th seed and the 11th and 12th seeds and the 3rd and 4th best conference champions seems much bigger than the difference between 1 and 8.
The playoffs have to get rid of the auto bye seeding. If they had seeded the way they ranked teams initially then a lot of games would have been more balanced. Also whoever came up with the Oregon/OSU/Tenn bracket deserves a kick to the plums. OSU going supersonic doesn’t change that. Texas getting a far easier path than the team that beat them twice is also criminal.
That said I think a lot of change will happen on the seeding front next year. Also, as much as I liked the idea of home games, it’s far too big of an advantage. Getting a neutral site closer to your home would be far better.
Saw this on Reddit from a Georgia fan, and it basically sums up how I feel:
"A whole generation of fans have now been raised in this media environment that promotes conference loyalty and everything being national. They literally have never seen anything else, and so it feels so normal to them.
Maybe I’m just old at 40, but this is not how people my age grew up. Fuck the conference. Fuck every team near you. This is a regional game with regional hatred. Cheering for Ohio State over Florida is an absolute, because we don’t have a rivalry with OSU and hardly ever even come into contact with their fans. Why on earth wouldn’t we be cheering for them?
Now, with the media promoting conference supremacy and the game going so national, people are quite literally cheering on their biggest rivals to win national championships."
"A whole generation of fans have now been raised in this media environment that promotes conference loyalty and everything being national. They literally have never seen anything else, and so it feels so normal to them.
Maybe I’m just old at 40, but this is not how people my age grew up. Fuck the conference. Fuck every team near you. This is a regional game with regional hatred. Cheering for Ohio State over Florida is an absolute, because we don’t have a rivalry with OSU and hardly ever even come into contact with their fans. Why on earth wouldn’t we be cheering for them?
Now, with the media promoting conference supremacy and the game going so national, people are quite literally cheering on their biggest rivals to win national championships."
I liked when UW had rivalries between Washington State and the Oregon teams. Now, with the conference realignment, I have no real reason to cheer for any team.
Prior to the BCS and playoffs, the SEC was an afterthought. The B1G plus USC, Texas and ND were all sportswriters talked about because that’s where they lived and broadcasts were both regional and limited by the NCAA which tightly controlled them. Only Tennessee and Alabama had managed to break through that and that was because of Tennessee Coach Gen. Robert Reese Neyland being considered the GOAT by Knute Rockne who the press considered the GOAT and Bear Bryant’s success at BAMA.
This mattered because sportswriters had total control over who won the National Title and who won awards like the Heisman (Peyton was hardly the first snub). Although the the SEC chant didn’t start until the 90s and was in response to Tennessee winning the SEC at the SEC title game, it quickly became something else. It was a way of highlighting postseason success over conferences and teams that were considered our better.
That is when fans realized the only way we weren’t going to keep getting left out was to keep pointing to post season wins. Of course back then strength of schedule still mattered. IOW, it was good for your rival to win because the perception that we were trash was out there. Tennessee winning the inaugural BCS championship and multiple SEC teams stacking up BCS and CFP championships after changed national perceptions and also grew national resentment.
I don’t know of many fans that truly cheered for rivals though. conference pride has always been more of a fuck you to the opponent than a support for your rival. I thoroughly enjoyed BAMA getting walloped and UGA losing. However there have been cases where it’s been I’d rather BAMA than X (the reason being recruiting).
I think you can throw most of this out in the NIL era which has fuck all to do with NIL value and is just paying players. Schools with the biggest budget are going to win. That’s why Saban left. For all the success BAMA has had and the worth of the program, it’s going to get outbid and his teams were always built on having superior talent. Kirby is going to have the same issue despite Georgia being a talent rich state.
If NIL remains an open market it will go back to those pre BCS dominant teams I mentioned because not only do they have a bigger tv share, they have a helluva lot more money than any of us not named Texas.
Oh gawd.
Mike's entitled to where he wants to go of course, but nothing's ever going to match the Music City Miracle call.
Oh yes there is and Mike was there for many of them.Oh gawd.
Mike's entitled to where he wants to go of course, but nothing's ever going to match the Music City Miracle call.
Watch
ETA fwiw the music city miracle is the only Titans game I actually remember watching.
Sorry, but none of those can measure up to a 15 year old having one of the greatest (the greatest?) sporting moments in his entire life.
And you missed the crushing heartbreak at the end of the ecstasy if you didn't watch the Superbowl that year!
I probably did watch it. It’s just that the MCM remains the only remarkable thing the Titans ever did beyond Eddie George robocalling to remind me to vote. And the tragic but really weird murder of Steve McNair (still don’t buy they got the story right) but that’s remarkable for all the wrong reasons.Sorry, but none of those can measure up to a 15 year old having one of the greatest (the greatest?) sporting moments in his entire life.
And you missed the crushing heartbreak at the end of the ecstasy if you didn't watch the Superbowl that year!
That Super Bowl was awesome!
Settling in for Notre Dame/Penn State. Looking forward to a good game tonight and tomorrow.
The Music City Miracle and making the Super Bowl, knocking the Chiefs out of the playoffs in 2017, and being the team that ended Brady's New England dynasty - with an interception, no less!
But the early 00s Titans - McNair, George, Frank Wycheck, Javon Kearse, etc - were the best. McNair's murder shocked me - him, of all people.
That Super Bowl was awesome!
Settling in for Notre Dame/Penn State. Looking forward to a good game tonight and tomorrow.
It was the greatest of Super Bowls and then the worst of Super Bowls. The ecstasy and then the agony!
C'mon Penn State... but either way it turns out, it's been a hell of a game.
I really like NDs QB but I don’t think they have the roster to keep up with OSU. Texas had a roster but they’d been an ugly team all year long. I’m surprised they kept it as close as they did.I just wanted a good, close game. And we got that.
