Started By
Message
re: I miss poll era football.
Posted on 7/26/19 at 1:38 am to Commander Data
Posted on 7/26/19 at 1:38 am to Commander Data
Personally I'm all about deciding the championship on the field, so obviously the CFP system we have today is a huge improvement, & much fairer than what existed before. But one notable thing about the poll era prior to the BCS format was that the national championship was always purely notional, unofficial - "mythical" was the word often appended to it. Thus, any team that finished a season with the best record in the country (against a reasonably big-time schedule) could plausibly claim a national title, & many years multiple teams did. If I remember correctly, there was never any official, recognized-by-the-NCAA football champion until the BCS was initiated.
0
Posted on 7/26/19 at 7:54 am to Commander Data
I miss the no ESPN era.
Posted on 7/26/19 at 9:01 am to Commander Data
I miss chicken pox.
Posted on 7/26/19 at 10:35 am to Commander Data
I don't understand how the playoffs have anything to do with the other bowls not mattering. The reason nobody cares about the non-playoff bowls is because the good players don't play in them anymore.
This post was edited on 7/26/19 at 10:36 am
Posted on 7/26/19 at 11:28 am to Commander Data
Disagree. I’m glad the Big Crock of shite era is over. 2007 Mizzou were railroaded.
Posted on 7/26/19 at 12:47 pm to Commander Data
Yeah, it gave us BYU as a national champion. Great stuff.
Posted on 7/26/19 at 4:38 pm to Commander Data
quote:How did bowls matter then and not now?
You also could call it "bowl era football" because the bowls mattered.
quote:That’s TERRIBLE
Lots of times, up to three bowl games had national championship implications
quote:How old are you?
I enjoyed college football as a whole a lot more during the 80's and 90's than I do now.
This post was edited on 7/26/19 at 4:42 pm
Posted on 7/26/19 at 7:04 pm to Commander Data
NYD was a blast under the pre-BCS system. That said, I prefer the current model. Four teams is perfect and it makes the CFP more prestigious.
Those wanting an 8-team playoff are misguided. Why would I want to see an 8 seed Washington play at Alabama or Clemson?
Those wanting an 8-team playoff are misguided. Why would I want to see an 8 seed Washington play at Alabama or Clemson?
Posted on 7/27/19 at 8:20 am to Commander Data
Is the current way we do the CFB postseason perfect? No. Is it better than the poll system? Absolutely.
Any system that ends with none of the championship-level teams actually playing each other and a bunch of newspaper writers “voting” on who is the champion is just plain stupid. Add to that the fact that there were multiple polls and the whole thing was so inherently compromised that you have teams that didn’t finish #1 in any poll claiming national titles because frankly it was as legitimate as anything else going on back then. It was a farce.
The main issues with the current system are teams not caring about bowls and conference championship games (really just the SEC) being occasionally counter-productive to a team trying to make the playoffs. Those are much smaller issues IMO than not actually knowing who won the championship of the sport.
Any system that ends with none of the championship-level teams actually playing each other and a bunch of newspaper writers “voting” on who is the champion is just plain stupid. Add to that the fact that there were multiple polls and the whole thing was so inherently compromised that you have teams that didn’t finish #1 in any poll claiming national titles because frankly it was as legitimate as anything else going on back then. It was a farce.
The main issues with the current system are teams not caring about bowls and conference championship games (really just the SEC) being occasionally counter-productive to a team trying to make the playoffs. Those are much smaller issues IMO than not actually knowing who won the championship of the sport.
Posted on 7/27/19 at 10:57 am to Commander Data
I think the BCS made sufficient adjustments to get it "right enough" for selecting the top 4 after the 2004 debacle. There is no perfect solution, but I think the CFPs would be just as good or better had they kept the BCS polling model and gone to a 4 team playoff.
The Harris Poll replaced the AP poll in 2005 and was very similar to the design to the current committee.
If they brought back the computer polls, threw out the garbage Coaches Poll, and replaced the Harris with the current committee, I think they would have it just about right.
The bowl season for me became garbage slowly overtime with the continual expansion of the bowl games. Too many crap and overlapping matchups with odd airing times. Most are playing in virtually empty stadiums.
But, this is hardly a new complaint, and it is only going to get worse. From an interesting SB nation article on it... People have been complaining about too many bowls for at least 88 years:
"Minnesota coach Bernie Bierman...said in 1937, “This matter of bowl games is getting beyond control, however. If it keeps up, there will be so many of them it will be a joke.”
Cartoon pic of bowl exhaustion after expanding to 5 New Years Day bowls in '38
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11531169/Screen_Shot_2018_06_13_at_11.36.19_AM.png)
1938 sports editorial opinions:
"-They are okay if we don’t get any more.
-Personally, I dislike the hypocrisy connected with the games, but they do help liven up the sport pages during the dull holiday season.
-Two or three are all right, but too many of them cheapen the sport."
Like the article says, TV has been the driver behind the expansion from the 70s forward, and it isn't going to slow down. The postseason has jumped from an avg of 16-19 bowls in the 80s and 90s to 25 in 2000 and ballooned to 40 by 2018, with an expectation of more growth in 2020 featuring who knows how many teams with losing records.
All that said, the article supports that people will complain, but we will still watch.
In the 2016 bowl season:
The Harris Poll replaced the AP poll in 2005 and was very similar to the design to the current committee.
If they brought back the computer polls, threw out the garbage Coaches Poll, and replaced the Harris with the current committee, I think they would have it just about right.
The bowl season for me became garbage slowly overtime with the continual expansion of the bowl games. Too many crap and overlapping matchups with odd airing times. Most are playing in virtually empty stadiums.
But, this is hardly a new complaint, and it is only going to get worse. From an interesting SB nation article on it... People have been complaining about too many bowls for at least 88 years:
"Minnesota coach Bernie Bierman...said in 1937, “This matter of bowl games is getting beyond control, however. If it keeps up, there will be so many of them it will be a joke.”
Cartoon pic of bowl exhaustion after expanding to 5 New Years Day bowls in '38
1938 sports editorial opinions:
"-They are okay if we don’t get any more.
-Personally, I dislike the hypocrisy connected with the games, but they do help liven up the sport pages during the dull holiday season.
-Two or three are all right, but too many of them cheapen the sport."
Like the article says, TV has been the driver behind the expansion from the 70s forward, and it isn't going to slow down. The postseason has jumped from an avg of 16-19 bowls in the 80s and 90s to 25 in 2000 and ballooned to 40 by 2018, with an expectation of more growth in 2020 featuring who knows how many teams with losing records.
All that said, the article supports that people will complain, but we will still watch.
In the 2016 bowl season:
quote:
Every bowl game was in the top five in sports for the day save for one and all of them made the top 15 on cable overall. 2.5 million viewers for a football game between Troy and Ohio! That’s just a ridiculously good number for those two teams in that bowl game.
The only other sports programs to make cable’s top 10 during the same period? Two were NFL games and NFL related programming for Monday Night Football on ESPN and Thursday Night Football on NFL Network. Another was the Kentucky-Louisville college basketball rivalry game.
Posted on 7/27/19 at 11:02 am to Commander Data
quote:
Lots of times, up to three bowl games had national championship implications.
Now three bowls have National Championship implications every single year.
The current system is objectively better. Nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia is counterproductive.
ETA:
The teams that benefited from the old system were USC, Notre Dame, Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State. Anyone who roots for an SEC team should love that champions are decided on the field.
This post was edited on 7/27/19 at 11:08 am
Posted on 7/27/19 at 2:55 pm to Commander Data
quote:
miss poll era football.
quote:
Bama fan
Checks out. Much easier to be awarded a natty by a poll than actually having to win it on the field huh?
Page 2 of 2
Back to top
Follow SECRant for SEC Football News