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re: Who deserved the 1980 national championship?
Posted on 7/10/18 at 8:55 am to Bankshot
Posted on 7/10/18 at 8:55 am to Bankshot
quote:
Georgia deserved the NC that year. But, I didn't realize how bad of a game Buck Belue had until I looked at the box score. 1 of 12 for a grand total of 7 yards. Herschel had no help on offense.
Yep. he was awful. In his defense Notre dame had an excellent defense.
Belue had some pretty decent games. Lindsey Scott was an excellent WR, but as a whole, it was all Herschel.
There was a couple of other WR thta were pretty good, too. (Amp Arnold, for one) I also used to work with a TE on that team...Guy Stargell.
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Posted on 7/10/18 at 9:50 am to meansonny
quote:
You do realize that the AP recognizes national championships for Alabama and Tennessee in the 90s too, right?
Thread has nothing to do with FSU in the 90s. UGA would've went 0-10 against those Nole squads, you should be happy Bobby went the other direction
Posted on 7/10/18 at 9:54 am to beatbammer
quote:
Their regular season opponent winning percentage that year was 37.8% (their average opponent was a 3 or 4 win team).
That is the lowest regular season opponent winning percentage of any national champion that I can find
Posted on 7/10/18 at 10:18 am to Pdubntrub
Georgia
Posted on 7/10/18 at 10:26 am to Pdubntrub
quote:
you should be happy Bobby went the other direction
Bobby certainly was
quote:
I felt that it was too difficult to win through the SEC to win a national championship," Bowden told Finebaum. "I felt like our best route would be to go through the ACC and that did prove out to be correct. I don’t know if we could have made it through the SEC."
Posted on 7/10/18 at 10:28 am to I-59 Tiger
quote:
Again, Georgia was the only choice for #1. And,on November 15th ,when bowls were announced, Notre Dame was a logical opponent,especially after their win over Alabama. But,IMO Pittsburgh was better than Notre Dame in 1980.
And Mark May is still mad about it 38 years later....
Posted on 7/10/18 at 10:38 am to RD Dawg
quote:Bobby doesnt have to agree with me
So you really believe they woulda had the same run in the SEC?Going almost 4 seasons with out a conference loss and losing 2 conference games 8 years...
Not even Bobby Bowden would agree with you.
I have actual data for you
Here is South Carolinas end of the year ranked opponents
Here is FSUs
There isnt much difference. FSU went outside their conference to make their schedules tough in the 90s. If they join the SEC, they wouldnt have done that as much and the net result is a wash
This post was edited on 7/10/18 at 10:40 am
Posted on 7/10/18 at 10:45 am to Pdubntrub
quote:
No, I read the article and decided to post it here. It's the off season and the 1980 championship debate is better than I realized. I assumed like everyone else it was the year of the dawg
Interesting discussion topic, but there really wasn't any controversy.
Georgia was undefeated, nobody else was.
There are a lot of teams that "might have beaten Georgia if they had played", but they all had two losses other than Pitt.
Pitt played three ranked teams all season - losing handily to FSU and beating Penn State in a close one. They beat South Carolina pretty handily in the Gator Bowl, which was a second or third tier bowl.
I don't think anyone could argue with a straight face that winning a garbage bowl against a team that had checked out (George Rogers had already won the Heisman and was ready for the NFL) warranted vaulting a team that took care of business in their bowl. Its also important to point out that most of the time between the Tech game and the bowl game, Dooley was interviewing and negotiating with Auburn to take their job. We were able to beat Notre Dame in spite of HW's shoulder, a case of the jitters by Belue, and a distracted coach.
Georgia's supposed soft schedule included next year's national champions, Clemson, with basically the same team that won the following year. Also included Florida that came on as the season progressed and gave FSU all they could handle.
58.5 out of 63 first place votes - we've had plenty of nation champions from the poll era that were controversial - this one wasn't.
Posted on 7/10/18 at 11:04 am to Pdubntrub
quote:
Pdubntrub
How many times has the best team really won the NC ? It's impossible to know in any given year. The system was what it was at that time and UGA ended up number 1. It doesn't matter who was the best team. How can that be determined anyway?
Was Alabama the best team last year. Probably, but who really knows. Clemson in 2016 almost lost to Troy at home, should have lost to NC State at home, could maybe should have lost to Louisville at home, did lose to Pitt at home. They won or lost 7 games in OT or by less than a TD, and one more by 7. Were they the best team in the country? Who knows? But no one does nor should question that they are the NCs when they won again by less than a TD with literally 1 second left in the game.
All programs know the rules and agree to play by them. Though they were not as formal and stringent as they are today, this was true in 1980.
UGA is and should be NCs. Who knows or cares if they were the best team.
Posted on 7/10/18 at 11:07 am to Concourse E
quote:
Interesting discussion topic, but there really wasn't any controversy.
On the surface sure but start digging in the numbers and things get interesting. Pitt turned the ball over 7 times including late in the 4th that led to another FSU td. FSU gave up 7.7 ppg for the year, which led the country, so I'm sure their d, with Ron Farooq Simmons, had something to do with that. The Sugar Bowl should've taken FSU or Pitt, after reading this thread and going down a 1980 cfb youtube wormhole, I still can't decide who should've went. Pitt was the best team in the country, took 7 turnovers for them to lose to FSU in Tallahassee. FSU beat Pitt by 2 touchdowns.
Posted on 7/10/18 at 4:19 pm to Pdubntrub
quote:
took 7 turnovers for them to lose to FSU in Tallahassee.
maybe they shouldn't have had all those turnovers.
They lost, they had an easy schedule, they went to a crappy bowl.
Posted on 7/10/18 at 4:51 pm to lsupride87
One big difference, South Carolina lost a lot of those games and inflated there opponents ranks. The gamecocks went 1-10 in 1998 and 0-11 in 1999. You don't points for SoS if you loses all your games.
This post was edited on 7/10/18 at 4:55 pm
Posted on 7/10/18 at 5:21 pm to Pdubntrub
I always thought Pitt deserved that sugar bowl match with Georgia. Would have been great to see Marino vs erk Russell's defense that we saw the following year but Pitt got hosed on that one. Notre lame was still getting major bowls at that time without the ranking they needed.
We had lost 2 games and therefore didn't deserve a shot but Bama was playing as well as anybody. We shitstomped the swc champ Baylor and mike singletary in the cotton.
At the end of the day, Georgia, or really Herschel, did what needed to be done and finished undefeated and deserved it but with a four team playoff that season, hmmm. Boy, that would have been good. That Georgia south Carolina matchup was great. George Rodgers may be the most underrated back college history. He was a damn machine.
My honest opinion on the team though was Pitt. I thought they were the most complete. Marino, jimbo covert, Grimm. Hugh green, who was the most dominating defensive end I ever saw. They had no weak spot.
We had lost 2 games and therefore didn't deserve a shot but Bama was playing as well as anybody. We shitstomped the swc champ Baylor and mike singletary in the cotton.
At the end of the day, Georgia, or really Herschel, did what needed to be done and finished undefeated and deserved it but with a four team playoff that season, hmmm. Boy, that would have been good. That Georgia south Carolina matchup was great. George Rodgers may be the most underrated back college history. He was a damn machine.
My honest opinion on the team though was Pitt. I thought they were the most complete. Marino, jimbo covert, Grimm. Hugh green, who was the most dominating defensive end I ever saw. They had no weak spot.
This post was edited on 7/10/18 at 5:26 pm
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