BCS National Championship

I’m going with FSU. I think for once the Heisman Hangover is avoided. Auburn has a tough ground game though. Should be a good game.

The SEC streak can’t last forever, but the Miami fan in me can’t vote for the 'Noles. I’ll admit FSU ran roughshod over the ACC (including the Canes) but the rigors of the SEC prepare it’s team well for this game. Can FSU take an early punch when they’ve been unchallenged all year? Auburn is certainly used to adversity.

@General:

The SEC streak can’t last forever, but the Miami fan in me can’t vote for the 'Noles. I’ll admit FSU ran roughshod over the ACC (including the Canes) but the rigors of the SEC prepare it’s team well for this game. Can FSU take an early punch when they’ve been unchallenged all year? Auburn is certainly used to adversity.

Winning by miracle plays at the end of the game is luck not seeing through against adversity.

That’s fair, but they still stood up to Alabama before that FG attempt, which should be worth something. FSU did wipe out it’s best opponent in Clemson, but after taking another look the ACC was really, really lousy this year. That they played Duke in the conference title game says it all.

I will concede the Tigers are 8.5 point underdogs thanks mostly to a lousy defense against a great offense.

Auburn by 6 points

Auburn is proven, albeit with a bit of luck on their side.  FSU is not proven in my eyes.  Their strength of schedule wasn’t even close to Auburn’s.  I think they can contend, but believe Auburn will win out as they have against multiple highly ranked teams.

Not drinking the whole SEC is so much better than everyone else koolaid.

Source: http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/tvc/sec/index.shtml

SEC records against other conferences

TEAM                          G    W    L    T    WIN%    PFPG    PAPG
ACC                          433  285  138    10    67.0    23.2    16.4
American Athletic          4    2    2    0    50.0    26.8    23.3
Big 10                        133    78    53    2    59.4    23.9    21.4
Big 12                        147    77    64    6    54.4    21.9    21.1
Big East                      54    25    29    0    46.3    26.4    26.6
Conference USA          135  112    23    0    83.0    30.5    16.3
Independents              932  624  287    21    68.1    24.1    15.5
MAC                          91    78    13    0    85.7    34.1    13.4
Mountain West            18    11    7    0    61.1    30.9    22.5
PAC 12                      113    68    40    5    62.4    23.8    19.3
Southwest                355  197  141    17    57.9    17.1    13.5
Sun Belt                    115  108    7    0    93.9    41.2    13.7
WAC                          82    71    11    0    86.6    35.8    15.5

NOTE: PAC 12 includes these former conferences: PAC 10 / PAC 8 / AAWU / Pacific Coast

Last updated: December 8, 2013

The Big East certainly has the better win %, but not by a significant margin.  Pac12 was incorrectly identified as having more wins against the SEC, however maybe that’s just since 2011 (when it became Pac12) and not a significant sample size.  The Big East has a worse record against the other conferences (http://mcubed.net/ncaaf/tvc/bigeast/index.shtml), so I don’t think there’s much of an argument there.

Just throwing that out there.

I have a whole soda can riding on the game….Going for Auburn straight up…Not an SEC fan, but don’t like the “All girl’s school” either.

Pre-season AP rankings.

There are five teams from the SEC there. Auburn isn’t in the top 25. Florida is tenth and finished with 8 losses including one to an FCS team. Georgia has 4 losses. The SEC is good sure but they’re benefiting from a “pass” that other conferences just don’t get.

For frell’s sake. Bama got a shot at the NCG two years ago without even winning their conference. Without even making the conf. championship game to play a team that had already beaten them in an ugly bad football game. Just look back to the talk before the Big Ten conf. championship game this season. They were talking about a one loss Auburn jumping Ohio State. Granted Ohio State lost to the number 1 defense in the country but no one suggested that one loss MSU get to play FSU. Because the Big Ten is “bad” and the SEC is “good.”

And where was the biggest fount of that – ESPN or rather ESECPN.

The SEC benefits from a bias in perception and they’ve got their share of bad teams like any conference and A&M and Missouri are new arrivals to the SEC but seems to be holding their own quite well.

To be the best, so goes to the old sports adage, you’ve got to beat the best. But since only SEC teams are consistently declared the best, only SEC teams get the chance to prove themselves against “the best.”
It’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Does the SEC get favorable rankings because it’s so good? Or is the SEC so good because it gets favorable rankings? I argue for the latter.

@frimmel:

Pre-season AP rankings.

There are five teams from the SEC there. Auburn isn’t in the top 25. Florida is tenth and finished with 8 losses including one to an FCS team. Georgia has 4 losses. The SEC is good sure but they’re benefiting from a “pass” that other conferences just don’t get.

These are projections for a new season, which are more or less just a carryover from the previous season.  They aren’t going to be correct by the end, for the most part.  I wouldn’t use that in an argument.  However, I see 4 Big 12 teams, and 5 Big 10 teams.  Not sure I can pick out anymore off the top of my head, but there’s no bias there.  The defending champ is #1 (as they should be, especially after it was a repeat), SC is about where they should be, TAMU was ranked highly after a Heisman winner, Florida ended up having a rare off year, and LSU isn’t far off from where they ended.  And looking now, there are 7 SEC teams at the end of the season, so the estimate was conservative.

For frell’s sake. Bama got a shot at the NCG two years ago without even winning their conference. Without even making the conf. championship game to play a team that had already beaten them in an ugly bad football game. Just look back to the talk before the Big Ten conf. championship game this season. They were talking about a one loss Auburn jumping Ohio State. Granted Ohio State lost to the number 1 defense in the country but no one suggested that one loss MSU get to play FSU. Because the Big Ten is “bad” and the SEC is “good.”

Yes, but in 2011 they were unanimously ranked #1, and faced the SEC champs.  Who did you want in there instead?  Ok. State?  And they didn’t play in the SEC championship, because LSU beat them in head to head.  They can’t represent the other half of the conference in the championship game, that’s not how the SEC operates.  No one thinks the Big 10 is bad, but Auburn has beat higher quality opponents and has a better strength of schedule.  Sure, that may seem tautological, but after a season of play, the rankings are far more clear than the preseason projections.

And where was the biggest fount of that – ESPN or rather ESECPN.

The SEC benefits from a bias in perception and they’ve got their share of bad teams like any conference and A&M and Missouri are new arrivals to the SEC but seems to be holding their own quite well.

ESPN obviously goes where the money is, there’s no doubt about that.  But it’s not like they don’t talk about the other conferences.
SEC certainly has bad football programs (UK is a basketball school, Florida had a down year, etc.) but they are through and through a football conference.  Guess which conference had the best out of conference record this year?  That’s right - the SEC.

To be the best, so goes to the old sports adage, you’ve got to beat the best. But since only SEC teams are consistently declared the best, only SEC teams get the chance to prove themselves against “the best.”
It’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Does the SEC get favorable rankings because it’s so good? Or is the SEC so good because it gets favorable rankings? I argue for the latter.

I think there is more reason to see the rankings as they are based on teams and interconference gameplay, rather than bias or conspiracy.  I haven’t seen an argument for Alabama to be playing Auburn for the BCS, which would give weight to your argument.

Well, it wasn’t the National Title game, but Oklahoma is relevant again!  Suck it Saban!

War Eagle y’all

Wife’s family all went to AU so I don’t get to chose. Closest I’ve ever been to Alabama was actually closer to Tallahasee, the airport in Atlanta :-P

I’ve got bigger football issues right now like how are my Philadelphia Eagles going to control Drew Brees?

@hkytown1:

War Eagle y’allÂ

Wife’s family all went to AU so I don’t get to chose. Closest I’ve ever been to Alabama was actually closer to Tallahasee, the airport in Atlanta :-P

I’ve got bigger football issues right now like how are my Philadelphia Eagles going to control Drew Brees?

Pretend they are the Raiders…

I’m surprised the point spread has grown since my last post, Auburn getting ten points is pretty good value, for those who have the means to bet an IPC or two.

I don’t think Alabama’s loss against Oklahoma did anything to help Auburn.  I love Stoops because he’s from around where I grew up, but Oklahoma really hadn’t been relevant since the Statue of Liberty play…and that was the down fall…maybe AP on the sideline helped out a little.  While I would love to see the SEC suck it this year, I have to think that Auburn is the team of destiny.  Alabama may have been overrated this year much like my Buckeyes, but I at least knew that…most people were believing in the SEC machine to do work.

I have to side on the fact that the ACC is an inferior football conference.  Their 1st half performance against Duke should warrant a lot of caution for FSU fans. Ok, you can point to Duke’s bowl performance as a good thing, but that’s a bad team getting a great jump…give Auburn to get the same jump Duke had on both games, and they will not give that lead up.  If this game lives up to it, this may have been the best set of BCS bowls ever.  Curious to see how the playoff changes things up.

There’s the quick start as mentioned. 14-3….and the only way FSU has been able to move the ball is on a roughing the kicker penalty?!?!? Time to go back to an all girl’s school! (it’s already a girly school as it is).

Shi%£y football weekend all around.

At least I’m not a Chiefs fan.