The Bowl Talk Thread

3rd and long said:
Sub-Husker said:
There are four at-large bids...
At present they will go to the SEC, Big XII, Pac 12 and Houston.

Boise would be ahead of a Big Ten team, and a B1G team would be ahead of any ACC team.
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Fiesta bowl loves the way Nebraska travels though. Especially over Stanford or Boise, and especially with a OU matchup. It might sound a little far-fetched, but remember, the bowls are about making money, and Nebraska coming to Phoenix makes more money than most of those other options.
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Te become eligible to receive an at-large bid, we need to be in the top 12 of the BCS. We should get there if we beat both Michigan and Iowa.

A second SEC team (Alabama) is a virtual automatic bid.

Houston will probably earn an automatic bid.

For us to play Oklahoma, they would need a bid (assuming they lose to Okie State).

That leaves us competing with Stanford, Boise, other B1G teams (MSU or Wisky), and Virginia Tech for that last bid.

There's still alot of football to be played, I'm assuming that all the favorites win out (unlikely).

If bids are just about fan travel, then we do get that bid.

And I will be reminded of the 80s and early 90s when we were routinely paired against much better teams, and our bowl record was horrible.

 
HANC said:
Sub-Husker said:
HANC said:
If you can't be happy with a 9-3, 10-2 season, then you may want to think about switching teams, or you are going to have a miserable college football life..... Hell, while a lot of the board members were in diapers, TO teams had a lot of 9 and 10 win seasons with NO National Championships.... and that was before all of the scholarship limits and when we had the TOP facilities in the country.
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10-2 / 9-3... satisfaction depends on the schedule... who did we beat, and who did we lose to.

Face it, our schedule was not that tough.
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Funny you brought this up !!! Seriously, I was going to ask this "debatable" question, but didn't want to bring any negativity....

My question is....... We ( as a Husker Nation ) have spent many years "bashing" the Big 10 during years like this. Normally we would be saying that the league is full of very mediocre teams who just beat up on each other, with NO real good team. We would be yelling "foul" at the idea of having this many teams in the top 25 and having 5 with an 8-2 record.... That is how MOST of this board has "viewed" the Big 10 in the past.

Now that we are a part of the Big 10, do people still think the same way.....or is it viewed as a very tough conference in which it is really hard to grind your way through an undefeated or one loss season?

This is probably worth a "thread" of it's own, but I felt it fit with your post.
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I am a firm believer that every Husker board needs a thread on Penn State (1994) and Michigan (1997) during each off-season.

In 1994 PSU played a very weak schedule, then ducked playing a good team in a bowl game.

In 1997 Michigan also played a very weak schedule. True they had beaten seven bowl teams, but all seven of those teams were blown out in their bowl game. Purdue was the only other Big Ten team to win a bowl game, but they did not play Michigan that season. Their six point win over WaSU came down to the last play of the game... which was not Texased into allowing to happen.

 
Top 14, not 12. They expanded by 2 when the separate BCS championship game was added. See http://www.bcsfootball.org/news/story?id=4819597

The loser of the Big 10 championship will almost certainly be out of the top 14.

The loser of the ACC championship might stay eligible, but the Fiesta probably isn't going to want to bring in a team from the east coming off a loss.

Keep on eye on what the Fiesta is saying about Stanford.

Would we have had the successes of the mid 90s had we played in lesser bowls rather than learning where are weaknesses were against the best? Osborne learned that we needed more speed and needed to switch to a 3-4 to compete with the Florida teams, and it worked.

 
junior4949 said:
The better question is this: could any of the Big 10 teams compete with the top teams from the Big 12, SEC, ACC, and Pac 12? At one time, I thought Wisconsin could have competed with at least the ACC teams and the Pac 12 teams. Now, I'm not so sure. If there was a playoff, there isn't a Big 10 team that would be invited unless they went to a 16 team qualifier which is highly improbable considering the amount of extra games that would add.
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Wisconsin lost their two games on last play long TD throws (MSU and tOSU). They do not have a very good pass defense, and would get lit up by Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Stanford and Clemson. However they would also score quite a few points on those teams, so I would call them roughly even.

LSU and Alabama are the two best teams in all of CFB, however their strengths (overall defense, running game) do not take advantage of Wisconsin's most glaring defect. That said, they would both beat the Badgers by 14.

 
And no, Penn State and Michigan did not play "very weak" schedules in those years. Not going to derail this thread rehashing history, but we were all in the same ballpark on SOS.

 
VA Husker Fan said:
And no, Penn State and Michigan did not play "very weak" schedules in those years. Not going to derail this thread rehashing history, but we were all in the same ballpark on SOS.
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How many top ten teams did they beat in those regular seasons?

Hint... the number looks like a doughnut.

 
Sub-Husker said:
VA Husker Fan said:
And no, Penn State and Michigan did not play "very weak" schedules in those years. Not going to derail this thread rehashing history, but we were all in the same ballpark on SOS.
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How many top ten teams did they beat in those regular seasons?

Hint... the number looks like a doughnut.
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Sagarin's 1997 SOS has Nebraska at #42 and Michigan at #36. So their schedule was, according to Sag, slightly tougher.

However, his final ranking put us #1 and Michigan #4, behind Florida St. and Florida. The ratings for the top five were:

1. Nebraska - 104.99 (13-0)

2. Florida State - 101.96 (11-1)

3. Florida - 99.76 (10-2)

4. Michigan - 98.2 (12-0)

5. Tennessee - 97.37 (11-2)

 
knapplc said:
Sagarin's 1997 SOS has Nebraska at #42 and Michigan at #36. So their schedule was, according to Sag, slightly tougher.
However, his final ranking put us #1 and Michigan #4, behind Florida St. and Florida. The ratings for the top five were:

1. Nebraska - 104.99 (13-0)

2. Florida State - 101.96 (11-1)

3. Florida - 99.76 (10-2)

4. Michigan - 98.2 (12-0)

5. Tennessee - 97.37 (11-2)
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That leads to a good debate on shedule toughness.

What is tougher, a schedule with couple top ten team and a few more ranked teams followed by a few creampuffs... or a schedule void of top ten opponents, a couple ranked opponents but with fewer creampuffs?

For a team to be the national champion, they need to have played top teams to get to the game, and beat another top challenger for the title.

Penn State and Michigan failed on both counts.

And to make this relevant to the topic at hand, Boise fails to play a tough enough schedule to be considered for the championship game.

Undefeated Okie State should be first in line to play LSU, followed by potential rematches against Alabama and Oregon.

If LSU wins out... when was the last time a team beat #2, #3 and #4 in the same season?

 
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VA Husker Fan said:
Sub-Husker said:
If LSU wins out... when was the last time a team beat #2, #3 and #4 in the same season?
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Some team did that in 1971...
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The setup... followed by the spike for a score!

LSU also has beaten West Virginia, and has upcoming games against Arkansas and Georgia too... all highly regarded teams.

They could wind up having the toughest schedule ever for a national champion.

 
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Sub-Husker said:
They could wind up having the toughest schedule ever for a national champion.
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1995 Nebraska begs to differ.

To expand on that, 1995 Nebraska beat:

Final AP ranks:

#2 Florida

#5 Colorado

#7 Kansas State

#9 Kansas

Average Margin of Victory: 31 points.

Combined record of these four opponents: 42-7 (42-4 minus losses to Nebraska)

 
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knapplc said:
Sub-Husker said:
They could wind up having the toughest schedule ever for a national champion.
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1995 Nebraska begs to differ.

To expand on that, 1995 Nebraska beat:

Final AP ranks:

#2 Florida

#5 Colorado

#7 Kansas State

#9 Kansas

Average Margin of Victory: 31 points.

Combined record of these four opponents: 42-7 (42-4 minus losses to Nebraska)
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You left out the three other teams ranked in the top 25 that we anhillated.

What I was getting at was that there is a chance that LSU will have beaten four top ten teams (including 2, 3 & 4), plus some other ranked teams.

Our 1971 team only had one close game... at Oklahoma 35-31, which is comparrible to LSU's overtime win at Alabama.

 
The BCS is a strange animal. If we back into a BCS Bowl, I hope we can do what KU did in 2007. KU should have never been invited to that bowl over Mizzou, but at least they won. I wish we could play the Big East Champion if we somehow back into a BCS Bowl.

 
Sub-Husker said:
You left out the three other teams ranked in the top 25 that we anhillated.

What I was getting at was that there is a chance that LSU will have beaten four top ten teams (including 2, 3 & 4), plus some other ranked teams.

Our 1971 team only had one close game... at Oklahoma 35-31, which is comparrible to LSU's overtime win at Alabama.
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Mostly I was just having fun reposting the bona fides of 1995 Nebraska. That never gets old. :thumbs

 
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