The official tie-ins for the Alamo bowl is the Big Ten #4 against the Big XII #4. For as long as I can remember this bowl has managed to pit an underachiever, ranked top 15 preseason, versus a suprise number four from the other conference. This year Missourri was as high as #3 preseason, in 2006 Texas went 13 preseason. 2007's Penn State was 15, in 2005 the Michigan team that visitied the river walk was ranked preseason 4, in 2004 Ohio State came out of the gates at 9. The team to play Missourri tonight was projected to finish the Big Ten in the eighth spot. This year Northwestern has used a combination of a potent offesnse, a rarity in the Big Ten, and horrible years from Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan to slide up to the number four spot.
Overachiever and Unerachiever in one bowl. One team is always much happier to be in the Alamo Bowl than the other one, I think that difference in attitude actually has been the reason the games are closer than the rosters should dictate. Out of the teams I listed above only one of them lost to the underdog, Michigan in 2005 was beaten by Nebraska, but the other games were usually very close.
Northwestern has not won a bowl since 1543. At this point they want to win a bowl so badly that all eighteen student newspapers ran a front page story about the Alamo Bowl. The wildcats would be happy to play Syracuse in a reincarnation of the GalleryFurniture.com Bowl. Missourri might not be so excited to end up in SanAntonio. So tonight the great equalizer of the Alamo City is on showcase once more. I fully expect Missourri to win, and I fully expect the Northwestern wildcats to give them everything they can handle. I will finish this post tomorrow.
The most accurate kicker in the history of college football missed a winning field goal. A less accurate kicker for Northwestern doinked an extra point that would have made all the difference in the world. Overtime, a fourth and goal from the 32, amazing special teams plays. Gold and black margaritas, viva la Doce Grande!
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Getting Into Recruiting
In the past recruiting has not been one of the aspects of college football that I dove into, but some VIP tickets to the U.S. Army All-American bowl has changed that. Based on the small amount of research I have been doing the Army All-American bowl to take place in my hometown of SanAntonio seems to grabbed just as many big names as the Under Armor All-American bowl that espn pushes. According to the roster seven future longhorns will suit up for the West, four of them are listed as top 150 recruits. Two Sooners will also be representing the West, which raises the question when is it too early to start yelling at these kids? I don't expect to get into a kids head that has his own profile on espn.com, has been recruited by college coaches for a couple years and has just signed on to compete for national championships. Yellling at them just makes me happy. I also, sometimes, have excellent advice to bestow on the young men, "Don't use a car company run by boosters as a front for accepting alot of money" "Watch the statue of liberty if you are playing Boise St." "Win a bowl game for the love of God" "You're from Texas Jamarkus McFarland you fucking tratoir," all good stuff.
Besides getting a sneak peak at players who I will undoubtedly talk about during their careers there is the awesome experience of watching some to-die-for recruits put on the hat of the University who left the most sorority girls in the hotel rooms during the recruiting trip. The number two overall recruit, Dre Kirkpatrick, who is apparently a lockdown corner as a true freshmen, will be choosing either Texas, USC, Alabama, Florida or LSU. Maybe he will pick up the UT hat, throw it away and put on the LSU one in a Perillioux tribute move. Then of course he could get suspended eighteen times and kicked of the team before he was made the starter. It's all very exciting. A second huge undecided to be in SanAntonio is DE #1 Devon Kennard, who is looking at the Longhorns and a slew of Pac-10 teams.
The longer I look at the list of players the more intruiging the games is, for one night about 100 of the best recruits in the nation will play a horribly sloppy game due to only one week of practicing together. I have dreams of the winning play being run perfectly after the huddle which reads like this. "Patrick, run a hitch and go". Hut! the center who is headed to Arizona State will snap to the future Texas QB, excellent blocking from Texas A&M and Minnesota keep the defensive ends from making the sack. USC's RB picks up the blitzing Florida ILB perfectly. The Georgia safety is playing the run and leaves the coverage one on one, Michigans corner bites hard on the pump fake and the TD is inevitable. UCLA's new kicker shankes the extra point, but the West has an insurmountable six point lead and brings the title home 6-3. Everything has been decided, the players give say one last goodbye to their one week team mates, then huddle with their future squad. In the background you can still hear one voice screaming obseneties at the Ohio State and Oklahoma recruits. What a night.
Besides getting a sneak peak at players who I will undoubtedly talk about during their careers there is the awesome experience of watching some to-die-for recruits put on the hat of the University who left the most sorority girls in the hotel rooms during the recruiting trip. The number two overall recruit, Dre Kirkpatrick, who is apparently a lockdown corner as a true freshmen, will be choosing either Texas, USC, Alabama, Florida or LSU. Maybe he will pick up the UT hat, throw it away and put on the LSU one in a Perillioux tribute move. Then of course he could get suspended eighteen times and kicked of the team before he was made the starter. It's all very exciting. A second huge undecided to be in SanAntonio is DE #1 Devon Kennard, who is looking at the Longhorns and a slew of Pac-10 teams.
The longer I look at the list of players the more intruiging the games is, for one night about 100 of the best recruits in the nation will play a horribly sloppy game due to only one week of practicing together. I have dreams of the winning play being run perfectly after the huddle which reads like this. "Patrick, run a hitch and go". Hut! the center who is headed to Arizona State will snap to the future Texas QB, excellent blocking from Texas A&M and Minnesota keep the defensive ends from making the sack. USC's RB picks up the blitzing Florida ILB perfectly. The Georgia safety is playing the run and leaves the coverage one on one, Michigans corner bites hard on the pump fake and the TD is inevitable. UCLA's new kicker shankes the extra point, but the West has an insurmountable six point lead and brings the title home 6-3. Everything has been decided, the players give say one last goodbye to their one week team mates, then huddle with their future squad. In the background you can still hear one voice screaming obseneties at the Ohio State and Oklahoma recruits. What a night.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Importance of a Weak Schedule
The BCS is in effect a one game playoff system. Number one and number two make the playoffs. The newest BCS official excuse is that it is in place to ensure of us the most meaningfull regular season in sports. To be fair it does make big games into huge games, the SEC championship is already a spectacle, but when the winner goes to the NC game the atmosphere becomes insane.
But the BCS has opposite effects on other games: when Oregon State played USC the Rose Bowl was on the line, but if there was a playoff system a spot in the tournament would be on the line. The same would be true for the ACC championship game, Ohio State versus Penn State and a slate of other games.
Perhaps the non-conference schedule gets hurt the worst. A few weeks ago when I took the AP top 25 and looked at the schedule of the ranked teams 19 of them had played FCS schools, of the six remaining schools only USC had played all BCS conferense teams in a non-conference schedule which includied Ohio State. I think in this day and age USC, whether you like them or not, has to be commemded for that. They are not, they are blasted for the weak conference schedule, something they could not control.
If we had a playoff system that gave automatic bids to the conference champions then non-conference schedules become more competitve, teams would be rewarded for early season battles in experience and not be penalized for them by the BCS. Thus more early season big games would occur. Also more conference games would have national championship meaning. This was a great regular season of college football, but the bowls are far from the icing on the cake. There are seven BCS one loss teams, two undefeateds from mid major conferences, and we only get one meaningfull game out of all them. This is the perfect season for the playoffs. Let Penn State play USC, then let the winner keep going. Let Texas play Ohio State and see who move on to the next round. Let Alabama play Utah and see if the Utes got enough fight in em to beat the big dawgs, and if they do let em show it again. Playoffs give us all BCS matchups then more.
I don't ever want to hear that playoffs would take too long, someone ask Ohio State how long they waited two years in a row between the end of Big Ten conference play and the Natoinal Championship. A month and a half. Every other level of college football has playoffs.
I also don't want to hear that the bowls will lose meaning. Take ten teams, give the first six byes and let playoffs go. I would never use the bowls as steps for the playoffs, in that case then they do lose meaning because one team could start with the Poinsettia Bowl, and also win the Alamo, Outback and Orange in one year. Instead of a system like that let the playoffs decide the national champion then assign bowls. You have the ten teams that would make the BCS anyways, now the national championship is legitimate, and the BCS match the teams that lost along the way. No non-BCS bowls would be affected by this, the Chikfila bowl would still be the Chikfila bowl with the same damn teams and now the BCS teams are more evenly matched. The only issue I can see with this is that the Rose Bowl is no longer gaurunteed the Big Ten Pac 10 matchup, which doesn't bother me one bit because the game has been boring as hell with that matchup the last few years and that mechanism gives the Big Ten and Pac 10, weaker conferences, an unfair advantage in putting in at-large teams. Someone look me in the eyes and tell me Illinois belonged in the BCS bowl games last year, they stole a spot and then played horribly as thanks. Perhaps we can take twelve teams and add another BCS bowl game, when has college football not been open to adding more games? The way things are going right now with the SEC and Big 12 putting two teams in the BCS every year make the cotton bowl BCS. I don't know, I am just saying there are many ways to do this.
If this trend continues top-tier teams are will soon no longer be apalogetic for scheuling weak games. West Virgina will soon announce they will never again play Marshall, East Carolina or a team from the FBS even. USC will play Washington and Wahsington state as non-conference games. Oklahoma will drop TCU and add SMU. Texas Tech will add a third FCS opponent, Penn State will exclusively play teams will football programs less than ten years old. Michigan State will no longer play Michigan and instead add yet another MAC team. Florida will stop playing Florida State, Georgia and Georgia Tech will be no more, Illinois and Missourri, Colorado will get tired of losing to Colorado the first game of the year, Iowa will drop Iowa State. Ohio State will continue to play a Big Ten schedule because it has worked for them in the past. I cannot wait.
But the BCS has opposite effects on other games: when Oregon State played USC the Rose Bowl was on the line, but if there was a playoff system a spot in the tournament would be on the line. The same would be true for the ACC championship game, Ohio State versus Penn State and a slate of other games.
Perhaps the non-conference schedule gets hurt the worst. A few weeks ago when I took the AP top 25 and looked at the schedule of the ranked teams 19 of them had played FCS schools, of the six remaining schools only USC had played all BCS conferense teams in a non-conference schedule which includied Ohio State. I think in this day and age USC, whether you like them or not, has to be commemded for that. They are not, they are blasted for the weak conference schedule, something they could not control.
If we had a playoff system that gave automatic bids to the conference champions then non-conference schedules become more competitve, teams would be rewarded for early season battles in experience and not be penalized for them by the BCS. Thus more early season big games would occur. Also more conference games would have national championship meaning. This was a great regular season of college football, but the bowls are far from the icing on the cake. There are seven BCS one loss teams, two undefeateds from mid major conferences, and we only get one meaningfull game out of all them. This is the perfect season for the playoffs. Let Penn State play USC, then let the winner keep going. Let Texas play Ohio State and see who move on to the next round. Let Alabama play Utah and see if the Utes got enough fight in em to beat the big dawgs, and if they do let em show it again. Playoffs give us all BCS matchups then more.
I don't ever want to hear that playoffs would take too long, someone ask Ohio State how long they waited two years in a row between the end of Big Ten conference play and the Natoinal Championship. A month and a half. Every other level of college football has playoffs.
I also don't want to hear that the bowls will lose meaning. Take ten teams, give the first six byes and let playoffs go. I would never use the bowls as steps for the playoffs, in that case then they do lose meaning because one team could start with the Poinsettia Bowl, and also win the Alamo, Outback and Orange in one year. Instead of a system like that let the playoffs decide the national champion then assign bowls. You have the ten teams that would make the BCS anyways, now the national championship is legitimate, and the BCS match the teams that lost along the way. No non-BCS bowls would be affected by this, the Chikfila bowl would still be the Chikfila bowl with the same damn teams and now the BCS teams are more evenly matched. The only issue I can see with this is that the Rose Bowl is no longer gaurunteed the Big Ten Pac 10 matchup, which doesn't bother me one bit because the game has been boring as hell with that matchup the last few years and that mechanism gives the Big Ten and Pac 10, weaker conferences, an unfair advantage in putting in at-large teams. Someone look me in the eyes and tell me Illinois belonged in the BCS bowl games last year, they stole a spot and then played horribly as thanks. Perhaps we can take twelve teams and add another BCS bowl game, when has college football not been open to adding more games? The way things are going right now with the SEC and Big 12 putting two teams in the BCS every year make the cotton bowl BCS. I don't know, I am just saying there are many ways to do this.
If this trend continues top-tier teams are will soon no longer be apalogetic for scheuling weak games. West Virgina will soon announce they will never again play Marshall, East Carolina or a team from the FBS even. USC will play Washington and Wahsington state as non-conference games. Oklahoma will drop TCU and add SMU. Texas Tech will add a third FCS opponent, Penn State will exclusively play teams will football programs less than ten years old. Michigan State will no longer play Michigan and instead add yet another MAC team. Florida will stop playing Florida State, Georgia and Georgia Tech will be no more, Illinois and Missourri, Colorado will get tired of losing to Colorado the first game of the year, Iowa will drop Iowa State. Ohio State will continue to play a Big Ten schedule because it has worked for them in the past. I cannot wait.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Notre Lame
On Christmas Eve of 2008 one of the truly great streaks of my lifetime was shattered when Notre Dame won the Hawai'i Bowl against the home team. Nine bowl games and fifteen years, a damn fine run boys! Perhaps more impressive than the beating the Irish leid on the Warriors was the fact that Notre Dame finally got a fair December match up. Now don't get me wrong, I truly hope Notre Dame plays someone who simply outclasses them every bowl season, they are a microcosm of what is wrong with college football and deserve every demoralizing loss to Syracuse they receive. Despite the facts a massive, and oh so fickle, fan base and the Notre Dame name is something every bowl still hopes to rope in, and it will always be this way.
The reason the Notre Dame name did not carry the team to a more prestigious is threefold: the first is the 3-9 record from last year that even a ridiculous contract with NBC until 2010 couldn't polish, after that season Notre Dame lost its pizazz. Second is the 6-6 record this year. Finally there is Lou Holtz. It is important to remember that vast majority of college football teams get a bowl based on this years records; Notre Dame can only be taken down by the perfect storm. But don't expect a fair bout next year:
Charlie Wies put it best when he said: “I don’t think you can be just a mediocre team at Notre Dame. I’m not saying you’re playing for the national championship game every year. But you have to be in the discussion,” Weis said before the team’s football banquet. “If you’re not in the discussion, I don’t think that’s what anyone who went to Notre Dame or roots for Notre Dame would ever be looking for.”
Ole hips is correct The Irish have a sparkling BCS tradition. In fact they were the first team not from a BCS conference to receive a BCS bowl bid, two years before Utah made an appearance to spank Pittsburgh, and since then have received two more bowl bids. Let's Recap:
2001 Fiesta Bowl: Oregon State 41 Notre Dame 9
2006 Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State 34 Notre Dame 20
2007 Sugar Bowl: Louisiana State 41 Notre Dame 14
Ouch.
Don't worry Irishophiles, the recruiting class looks good and already contains 6 of the espn top 150 recruits. In 2009 look for new hips and a new attitude, the Irish will be back to losing BCS bowls, and if we are really lucky, next time they will do it green uniforms.
The reason the Notre Dame name did not carry the team to a more prestigious is threefold: the first is the 3-9 record from last year that even a ridiculous contract with NBC until 2010 couldn't polish, after that season Notre Dame lost its pizazz. Second is the 6-6 record this year. Finally there is Lou Holtz. It is important to remember that vast majority of college football teams get a bowl based on this years records; Notre Dame can only be taken down by the perfect storm. But don't expect a fair bout next year:
Charlie Wies put it best when he said: “I don’t think you can be just a mediocre team at Notre Dame. I’m not saying you’re playing for the national championship game every year. But you have to be in the discussion,” Weis said before the team’s football banquet. “If you’re not in the discussion, I don’t think that’s what anyone who went to Notre Dame or roots for Notre Dame would ever be looking for.”
Ole hips is correct The Irish have a sparkling BCS tradition. In fact they were the first team not from a BCS conference to receive a BCS bowl bid, two years before Utah made an appearance to spank Pittsburgh, and since then have received two more bowl bids. Let's Recap:
2001 Fiesta Bowl: Oregon State 41 Notre Dame 9
2006 Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State 34 Notre Dame 20
2007 Sugar Bowl: Louisiana State 41 Notre Dame 14
Ouch.
Don't worry Irishophiles, the recruiting class looks good and already contains 6 of the espn top 150 recruits. In 2009 look for new hips and a new attitude, the Irish will be back to losing BCS bowls, and if we are really lucky, next time they will do it green uniforms.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Bowl Season
Conference Strength: the theme of the 2008 bowl season.
Not only is regional pride involved, but perceived conference strength more than ever decides who goes to the National Championship game. This year is a perfect example of that trend. With seven one loss BCS teams, only four had a chance to go to the one game playoffs
when the Big XII and SEC championship games were being played. At this point both Penn St. and USC had been relegated to the Rose Bowl because they had weak conferences. Texas Tech took a third row back seat to the more traditional Big XII south powers of Oklahoma and Texas. And Alabama and Florida held the rare position of determining their own fate. In this day and age conference paradigms topple quickly, but generally take a while to build.
That being said all conferences have something big to prove this year:
We will start with the Big Eleven: This conference is battling not only against the opinion that it is weak, it is fighting against the overwhelming statistics to back that claim up. The last four BCS games for the Big Ten have been blowouts, two at the hands of the mighty Trojans in the Rose bowl and of course Ohio St.'s debacles against SEC foes in the last two national championship games. From top to bottom they have not been much better; last season the conference bowl record was 2-7. With the decline of Michigan and Wisconsin, other teams have stepped up to fill the void at the top of the Big Ten, most notably Penn State and Michigan State, but it remains to be seen if the new class can win. To make matters worse this years bowl schedule is daunting, two more brutal BCS match ups for Ohio State and Penn State loom against Texas and USC,
the next top two teams get tough SEC foes Georgia and South Carolina. Minnesota and Northwestern will stand against the Big XII offensive powers of Kansas and Missouri respectively. The conferences first game will pit a struggling Wisconsin against an improving and young Florida St.
Big East: Ever since Virginia Tech and Miami set sail for the ACC this conference has been praying for a team to establish themselves as a national powerhouse. West Virginia has come very close to achieving that mark, but now they Rich-less. This conference will most likely come out of the bowl season with an impressive record and a BCS game win, and will most likely once again be stuck with the "mediocre" tag in 2009.Although this conference is not the SEC or Big XII, they deserve more credit from top to second bottom, Syracuse gets no credit, than they have received in recent years. Unfortunately the Big East will not be viewed as a major conference until they have a titan establish themselves, and looking at the current situations who knows when that will be?
Pac-10: Other than USC the conference has no true threats. A very general and very true statement for the Pac-10 of late. While USC goes to a seventh straight BCS bowl game, the rest of the conference fights for the right for second place and the Holiday bowl against the Big XII three. This conference, except for Washington, seems however to be on the rise. This year only five teams made a bowl, and each team has a legitimate chance to win their bowl game. With a few big wins this conference can establish what the big east has: a competitive second-tier of teams.
ACC. The major question for the ACC is parity or weakness? Ten of the twelve teams from this conference made a bowl, six of those teams had 4-4 conference records and the other four, including the champion Virginia Tech, had 5-3 conference records. A good bowl season means the ACC was strong and evenly matched. A poor bowl season means the ACC was simply bad, and lacked teams that could establish dominance. No conference has more to prove than the ACC this year. The good news for the ACC is that a round of late non-conference games against the SEC went to the ACC, including wins for Clemson and Georgia Tech over South Carolina and Georgia.
Big XII. It's not a bad thing when your conference only has to prove they really are that good. This year the Big XII south was most likely the strongest sub-conference in the history of college football, and they were strong because of amazing quarterback play. The question comes down to this:were the bad defensive stats due to bad defense or really good offense? After watching Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Kansas, Missourri and Oklohoma State dominate the opposing defenses with the spread I have to say that the Big XII is posed to have a great bowl season and back up the claims that they have overtaken the SEC as the strongest conference in the nation with our without defense.
SEC. Go Defense. The SEC will try to prove that they are still top dogs, and that they are because of fast, hard hitting defenses. Luckily for college football fans the BCS National Championship game will give us a Oklahoma and Florida for direct comparison, but if the Longhorns have learned anything from head to head matchups it is that they don't always do enough to change minds. Look for the SEC defenses to make them competitive, and usually favorites in every single bowl game this year.
Some Bowl Numbers:
34: The number of bowl games to conclude the 2008 football season.
57%: The percentage of bowl subdivision teams that are invited to a bowl.
10: Number of bowl games whose title is simply the name of the company sponsoring the bowl.
8: Number of bowl games who are named after the location of the bowl.
0: Number of bowls that do not have the sponsor's name in the official title.
9: Number of bowl teams that do not have winning records.
16: Number of BCS conference schools that do not have winning conference records.
1: Number of BCS conference schools that have the worst possible conference schedule: 2-6, Kentucky.
83.3333333 Repeating, of Course%: Percentage of ACC schools that made a bowl. Duke and Virginia were the only teams out of twelve that did not make a bowl.
1. Number of BCS conference schools that have undefeated regular season conference schedules: Alabama.
11. Number of teams ranked higher than Virginia Tech that did not make a BCS bowl.
0: Number of Big Ten teams that are expected to win their bowl games according to Vegas, host of the Pioneer Las Vegas bowl.
1. Number of conferences who cannot count their own teams: Big Ten.
Not only is regional pride involved, but perceived conference strength more than ever decides who goes to the National Championship game. This year is a perfect example of that trend. With seven one loss BCS teams, only four had a chance to go to the one game playoffs
when the Big XII and SEC championship games were being played. At this point both Penn St. and USC had been relegated to the Rose Bowl because they had weak conferences. Texas Tech took a third row back seat to the more traditional Big XII south powers of Oklahoma and Texas. And Alabama and Florida held the rare position of determining their own fate. In this day and age conference paradigms topple quickly, but generally take a while to build.
That being said all conferences have something big to prove this year:
We will start with the Big Eleven: This conference is battling not only against the opinion that it is weak, it is fighting against the overwhelming statistics to back that claim up. The last four BCS games for the Big Ten have been blowouts, two at the hands of the mighty Trojans in the Rose bowl and of course Ohio St.'s debacles against SEC foes in the last two national championship games. From top to bottom they have not been much better; last season the conference bowl record was 2-7. With the decline of Michigan and Wisconsin, other teams have stepped up to fill the void at the top of the Big Ten, most notably Penn State and Michigan State, but it remains to be seen if the new class can win. To make matters worse this years bowl schedule is daunting, two more brutal BCS match ups for Ohio State and Penn State loom against Texas and USC,
the next top two teams get tough SEC foes Georgia and South Carolina. Minnesota and Northwestern will stand against the Big XII offensive powers of Kansas and Missouri respectively. The conferences first game will pit a struggling Wisconsin against an improving and young Florida St.
Big East: Ever since Virginia Tech and Miami set sail for the ACC this conference has been praying for a team to establish themselves as a national powerhouse. West Virginia has come very close to achieving that mark, but now they Rich-less. This conference will most likely come out of the bowl season with an impressive record and a BCS game win, and will most likely once again be stuck with the "mediocre" tag in 2009.Although this conference is not the SEC or Big XII, they deserve more credit from top to second bottom, Syracuse gets no credit, than they have received in recent years. Unfortunately the Big East will not be viewed as a major conference until they have a titan establish themselves, and looking at the current situations who knows when that will be?
Pac-10: Other than USC the conference has no true threats. A very general and very true statement for the Pac-10 of late. While USC goes to a seventh straight BCS bowl game, the rest of the conference fights for the right for second place and the Holiday bowl against the Big XII three. This conference, except for Washington, seems however to be on the rise. This year only five teams made a bowl, and each team has a legitimate chance to win their bowl game. With a few big wins this conference can establish what the big east has: a competitive second-tier of teams.
ACC. The major question for the ACC is parity or weakness? Ten of the twelve teams from this conference made a bowl, six of those teams had 4-4 conference records and the other four, including the champion Virginia Tech, had 5-3 conference records. A good bowl season means the ACC was strong and evenly matched. A poor bowl season means the ACC was simply bad, and lacked teams that could establish dominance. No conference has more to prove than the ACC this year. The good news for the ACC is that a round of late non-conference games against the SEC went to the ACC, including wins for Clemson and Georgia Tech over South Carolina and Georgia.
Big XII. It's not a bad thing when your conference only has to prove they really are that good. This year the Big XII south was most likely the strongest sub-conference in the history of college football, and they were strong because of amazing quarterback play. The question comes down to this:were the bad defensive stats due to bad defense or really good offense? After watching Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Kansas, Missourri and Oklohoma State dominate the opposing defenses with the spread I have to say that the Big XII is posed to have a great bowl season and back up the claims that they have overtaken the SEC as the strongest conference in the nation with our without defense.
SEC. Go Defense. The SEC will try to prove that they are still top dogs, and that they are because of fast, hard hitting defenses. Luckily for college football fans the BCS National Championship game will give us a Oklahoma and Florida for direct comparison, but if the Longhorns have learned anything from head to head matchups it is that they don't always do enough to change minds. Look for the SEC defenses to make them competitive, and usually favorites in every single bowl game this year.
Some Bowl Numbers:
34: The number of bowl games to conclude the 2008 football season.
57%: The percentage of bowl subdivision teams that are invited to a bowl.
10: Number of bowl games whose title is simply the name of the company sponsoring the bowl.
8: Number of bowl games who are named after the location of the bowl.
0: Number of bowls that do not have the sponsor's name in the official title.
9: Number of bowl teams that do not have winning records.
16: Number of BCS conference schools that do not have winning conference records.
1: Number of BCS conference schools that have the worst possible conference schedule: 2-6, Kentucky.
83.3333333 Repeating, of Course%: Percentage of ACC schools that made a bowl. Duke and Virginia were the only teams out of twelve that did not make a bowl.
1. Number of BCS conference schools that have undefeated regular season conference schedules: Alabama.
11. Number of teams ranked higher than Virginia Tech that did not make a BCS bowl.
0: Number of Big Ten teams that are expected to win their bowl games according to Vegas, host of the Pioneer Las Vegas bowl.
1. Number of conferences who cannot count their own teams: Big Ten.
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