Monday Morning News Update
December 9, 2003
So, all sorts of news this morning. First off, I am happy to say I have moved into the top 200 users for the ClimatePrediction.net. You can check out the Top 200 users at http://cpdn.comlab.ox.ac.uk/user/userrank.php then do a search for mizidymizark.
Next up, congrats to Iowa on making it to the Outback Bowl. Apparantly Florida has bought up a lot of the tickets for the game, so it should be a spirited crowd at the game for both sides. There are a number of subplots already for this game, ranging from the ticket situation, to Iowa’s performance in a January bowl, to Chris Leak choosing Florida over Iowa. My prediction, 99-2, on 33 Nate Keading field goals and the one safety coming on a snap going through Nathan Chandler’s giant legs and Robert Gallery falling and popping the ball in the end zone.
Finally, I feel the need to rant about the BCS situation. Now I am one of those people who thinks that the BCS is wrong and has made a mess of the bowl situation. The Rose Bowl should have never joined up and we should have never had OU in a Rose Bowl ever. Also, I am still rather bitter about the Orangle Bowl last year, so that may also be swaying some of my opinion about the BCS now. In any case, I unfortunately have to admit, that the BCS is doing exactly what it was made to do.
Originally the BCS was not going to involve computers at all and be based on the polls and the strength of schedule. However, the media decided that they wanted to report the news, not make it (which makes me wonder why the media has a poll in the first place, but that is besides the point). In any case, the computers were then added to include a unbiased opinion and 7 were included to make sure that they would balance out. Now, we have every sports reporter in the world it seems crying about how USC isn’t in the championship game when they are #1 in each poll. Well how bout this, maybe the pollsters are idiots, these are the same people who had TCU in the Top 10 most of the year and moved Iowa from 9 to 22 back to 12 in a span of 4 weeks.
We can look at the losses for each of the teams as a good indication of how the rankings went:
OU lost to KSU, currently the 10th ranked team in the BCS poll. LSU lost to Florida, currently the 15th ranked team in the BCS poll. USC lost to Cal, not ranked in the BCS poll, collegefootballnews.com has them at 39.
Yes, USC might be playing the best of any team right now, but the BCS takes the whole season into account, which is the way it should be, until there is a playoff system. In any case, we have a Big 10/Pac 10 Rose Bowl, so that makes me happy, the BCS got the championship game right, much to my chagrin, but we will likely have co-champions, something the BCS was made to avoid, so all around, it should be interesting. Now I just need to get some ear plugs for Trev Alberts and his screaming.