Somebody outta run this clown off the board or perhaps he should stick to guarding TOS canon, Roll, Tide
In the final AP poll, UCF got four #1 votes, and Alabama got 57. Meet the 4 voters who ranked UCF No. 1 in the final AP poll Edit: Also, here's the final Imperialism map. Looks like Ohio State ended up with the largest number of territories. Code: Rank Team Territories Population Area Counties 1 Ohio State 31 96,339,183 1,616,013 911 2 Alabama 24 48,571,317 505,978 650 3 Pittsburgh 22 44,003,805 278,054 433 4 UCF 13 34,100,581 138,784 187 5 USF 10 20,350,361 196,041 240 6 App State 5 13,109,365 156,174 138 7 Louisiana Tech 5 13,303,556 66,228 120 8 Northwestern 5 7,860,108 107,564 117 9 Penn State 4 6,714,499 169,002 181 10 Boise State 3 11,161,966 106,585 17 11 ND State 3 3,880,765 30,997 56 12 FAU 2 3,700,840 22,915 32 13 MTSU 1 4,568,651 79,789 8 14 Florida State 1 4,483,416 55,555 44 15 Duke 1 4,282,173 5,459 9
Couple of things with UT... I was a CBJ holdout (took a skeptical/wait and see approach) BUT 1. last season 2016 was pathetic. That's when he truly lost all respect. 2. The majority of my life has been spent two coaches who won National Championships: Majors and Fulmer and CBJ wasn't fit to hold their jock-straps. 3. Media turned on him after that 2016 season (I pulled the plug after the UGA game this season - worst home loss ever and shut out at NEYLAND!). As someone a bit older than you who remembers what the 1998 Championship team looked like and whose first memory was of the 1985 Vol Team (AKA the SugarVols) that despite losing Tony Robinson (who entered the year as Heisman candidate - SI had come to our game the year prior do a cover story on Bo Jackson and wound up doing one on UT) due to what many believed was an intentional injury. Tony was a Heisman candidate too and might've won it were it not for that injury. Even so, that team would go on to beat one of the most loaded Miami Teams ever. All Miami had to was win the Sugar Bowl and they'd have been National Champs. They had Vinny Testaverde at QB. We had Daryl Dickey son of Doug Dickey (our then Athletic Director). Fun fact: Tony Robinson was the QB that Keanu Reeves played in The Replacements which was a movie about the famed replacement Redskins who managed to beat the Cowboys. T-Rob was serving time for cocaine (he got busted at UT by KPD even tho Coach Majors had warned him KPD had it out for him). That injury was his downfall. The judge allowed him to play those games on condition he return immediately. Finally, there was far more at play than another bad coaching hire. The revolt got rid of a bad AD and cut the Haslams down to size. We've sucked because the owner of the Browns has basically been running the show. Now Coach Phillip Fulmer (PBUH) is our AD. ================================================== As for an 8 team playoff (and this is for all of you advocating it).... Aww Hell Naw. The only good semi was this year: OU vs UGA. College football is special precisely because the season matters. Every single game means something and if you screw it up, you're out. Also, in any given year there's usually only two that show to be head and shoulders above the semi teams.
Eff you. I mean that both sincerely and facetiously. However, I gotta admit that due to Jeremy Pruitt helping you win it before he headed to work here full time 1. I cheered for the Tide. 2. I think we should do what Bama is known for and claim iffy championships. In your case, they're old BUT in this case I like to think of things this way: VOL Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt helps lead Bama to another title.
Sorry, but I've come around to thinking Fulmer's a snake. I wasn't around for the Majors ouster, but from what I've read of it... plus how this whole thing played out, I've cooled on him considerably. A man lost his job because the fanbase decided that they deserve to decide if a hire, or potential hire, is "good enough." If the season actually mattered, UCF would have been in and Alabama wouldn't have made it. As it is, the Iron Bowl essentially was a pointless exercise since the team that lost it was gifted with a playoff spot for having the week off. Unless you win your conference - or are impressive enough outside of that to merit an at-large pick - you don't deserve to play for it all. That's what the regular season mattering would actually look like.
I don’t feel like anyone got screwed. Auburn ended up with three losses. Bama beat the SEC Champion and knocked out the ACC champion on the way. I don’t feel like we crowned a paper champion in Bama. They are the best team in football and I’m sick of seeing them win it all he time. The conference argument doesn’t mean anything to me as they aren’t apples and oranges. UCF isn’t running the table in the SEC.
My problem with saying you need to win your conference to make it into the playoffs is that A) The tiebreakers for the conf championship games suck and B) It would make non-conference schedule so completely irrelevant you might as well not play them. Yeah, Bama this year and Ohio State last year didn't play in their conference championship games, but if the best teams in the conference got into the conference championship games they would have. We have a system where conferences are arbitrarily broken up into halves geographically and rarely evenly distributing competition and play only a small number of games against each other, then only one from each group gets to make it in, which in the case where you have two closely matched teams is basically "Who happened to have home field when the teams played". If there were enough games in the season for teams to have a home and home series against each other team, requiring conference championship would be more reasonable. I like the 8 team playoff. That way you could solve all fairness questions. The 8 teams could be the 5 major conference victors, the best non-major conference victor, and the two other best teams.
You've been misinformed. The truth of the matter is the Majors was a serious alcoholic at the time and a complete asshole due to it. Despite the myth, Fulmer was never behind Johnny's ouster. What really did him in was he'd created a situation where his players hated him so much that they threatened to boycott "The Third Saturday in October" if Majors was the coach. Majors could never accept that he was the asshole during this time frame and easily bought into the notion of a conspiracy. Paul Finebaum spread that myth and it's certainly beloved by Alabama fans because they hate Fulmer for beating them so often. While Majors holds a grudge to this day and blames former AD Doug Dickey, former president Joe Johnson and Phillip Fulmer for his ouster, Phillip Fulmer never said a bad word. He also didn't allow players to badmouth Majors. He'd come down on them like the wrath of God if they did that. And FWIW, Tennessee hasn't been worth a shit since Dickey and Johnson retired and Fulmer was fired. Those three built a modern empire that fell without them. Majors is family and always will be but he has a mean streak a mile long. I wish he'd let go of it but doing so would mean accepting the fact that he screwed things up. He's better now (he still has outburst s tho ) but during that time frame he was the biggest asshole on campus and no one wanted to be around him UCF didn't play anyone worth a shit. The committee punishes you for that. There's no rule that says you have to win your conference. It helps but schedule and performance matters more. The playoffs are about the best teams and the best teams are judged by performance as well as opponents. Even the shitty ass team Butch fielded this season could've gotten 10 wins and possibly more with that schedule. UCF's Power 5 win was a 2-7 Maryland team. Their game against Georgia Tech was cancelled but GT turned out to be a 5-6 team that managed to lose to the worst team in Tennessee history. Seriously, it took over 120 seasons and more than that in years because we didn't field teams during WWII for us to go 4-8. UCF feasted on cupcakes while Auburn played a REAL schedule and the result was that a beat up Auburn team that had lost it's best player in the Iron Bowl lost a re-match to a healthy UGA as well as to them. It's easy to stay healthy and have a great record when you're not running a gauntlet. That said, Scott Frost is a fantastic coach. He was my top choice to replace Jones. And while I believe he fielded a very good team, it's frankly unfair to P5 teams to ignore the fact that they are beating up the little sisters of the poor and staying healthy while P5 teams are beating the snot out of each other. They were this season's media darling because they were the little underdog that could. No one rallied to tOSU after Iowa beat them senseless but UCF beating Memphis is apparently enough to make them the hero of every talking head and sport's writer. It's Boise State all over again. However, if you want to play in the big dog championship game you need to play a big dog schedule.
Well, maybe. Even so, I'm at the lowest ebb ever of my interest in UT football since i first started caring, and the way Fulmer came back is a major part of it. Well, college football in general really. This whole "best team" metric is so silly. The best team is the one that wins, not the one that looks prettiest or has the most potential or gets the most players drafted. The NCAA Basketball tournament usually comes down to the same blue bloods, but hell at least other people have a shot and sometimes Duke goes down. Absent any legitimate metric to measure "bests," conference championships are pretty much all you've got, until wild cards come into play where non-conference schedule can give you style points. If the "wrong" team wins their conference? Too bad so sad, anybody can win any given Saturday. The "best team" lost one of the most wild Super Bowls because of a helmet catch, but that's sports. Then let's drop the farce and actually say outright that the "power 5" is a separate division and they can only play each other.
I lived in Hawaii during the Colt Brennan/June Jones air raid era. Local talk radio was convinced they belonged in the National Title game. Then they played Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and that unstoppable offense looked pedestrian. Congrats to UCF but the AAC is just not the SEC. If anything Alabama just validated the “best team” metric.
I think if the playoffs continue as a four team format, you should have to win your conference championship in order to get in.
Picking names out of a hat is about as accurate as the way they do it now. Alabama got hot at the right time, we see this all the time in the NFL. There should be a standard to get into the playoff if you keep it at four teams.
Picking names out of a hat? Really? Who didn’t deserve to be there? They finished 13 and 1 losing on the road in a rival game. They were as hot as anybody in college football. It is also Alabama.
UCF tried to schedule some tougher opponents, including Alabama. They refused. Power-5 schools are reluctant to play anyone from a "non-power 5" conference that could beat them, because if they win - the win doesn't have much value and if they lose, well that kills any chance of being in the Playoff. For now, the Playoff is an exclusive club, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Jacob Copeland picked Florida and his mom walked off. The announcer or reporter asked him who that was and why she walked off. She was wearing an Alabama sweatshirt braniac, why do you think she walked off?
Alabama sweatshirt and UT hat, pretty sure that's illegal in both states. Good for him doing what he wants.
Pretty sure you're right. Vols and Gumps have agreed on this. As for Mom, she clearly cares about her son. Her message is quite clearly: anywhere but Florida. Good Mom.