2013-14 Bowl Game Thread

[Woof!]

Final BCS standings.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-foot...-polls-week-16

[TechDawgMc]

First post updated... Arizona vs. Boston College in Shreveport.

I don't know that it'll get them many people in the seats, but that's actually a pretty decent matchup for them.

[TechDawgMc]

Naah....while I will certainly concede that Baylor's bowl opponent (UCF) qualifies for "ugliest girl in school", it doesn't change the fact that OSU's loss yesterday still resulted in Baylor claiming its first unshared Conference football championship since 1958. That's huge. Congrats to Baylor.

The 1980 Baylor team was undefeated in the SWC. That had to be an unshared title. And the '74 team had only a loss to A&M--who lost twice, as did Texas. Pretty sure that's also an unshared one. Still, a great win--and feels good to be undisputed champ of the Big 12.

The other thing about Okie State winning would be that it wouldn't have been a sure thing that Baylor would have been invited to the Sugar or Orange over Ohio St or OU. They should have been, but the bowls value name recognition over football quality.

[HogDawg]

Final AP Poll (not that it means anything).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/polls/

Boy, the media (AP) loves them some Stanford, don't they? Not only does Stanford have 2 losses this year, one of those 2 losses is to unranked Utah. Yet, Stanford still manages to jump over Baylor in the last AP poll simply because they "re-beat" Arizona St for the 2nd time this season.

[Woof!]

Oregon really crashed and burned. Just a few weeks ago almost everyone (but not me) thought they would be playing in the BCS Title Game and now they won't even be playing in a BCS bowl. To add insult to injury, they will be playing Texas, a team that was never really in the discussion as being a good team and a team that will probably fire their coach at the end of the season. If they beat Texas, is that really something to boast about?

[PawDawg]

The 1980 Baylor team was undefeated in the SWC. That had to be an unshared title. And the '74 team had only a loss to A&M--who lost twice, as did Texas. Pretty sure that's also an unshared one. Still, a great win--and feels good to be undisputed champ of the Big 12.

You are correct. Baylor won the unshared SWC '74 and '80. HD should remember the 1980 team. HD may have mis-heard one of the talking heads who said that RICE won its first conference championship since 1957. Baylor didn't win in '57 or '58.

[Dawg06]

Benson made "significant financial offers" that "clearly exceeded anything the Sun Belt has done in previous years" to the AdvoCare V100 Bowl and Little Caesars Pizza Bowl to take a Sun Belt team. Both bowl obviously turned them down. Nobody wants Sun Belt teams in bowl games. Five bowl eligible Sun Belt teams (WKU, TSU, ULM, USA, Troy) did not receive bowl bids.

See: The Sun Belt offered to pay the Little Caesars Bowl and Independence Bowl to take its teams

[Dawg06]

Oregon really crashed and burned. Just a few weeks ago almost everyone (but not me) thought they would be playing in the BCS Title Game and now they won't even be playing in a BCS bowl. To add insult to injury, they will be playing Texas, a team that was never really in the discussion as being a good team and a team that will probably fire their coach at the end of the season. If they beat Texas, is that really something to boast about?

To be fair, politics is what kept Oregon out of the BCS. Almost everybody wanted Oregon in the Sugar Bowl instead of Oklahoma.

[Woof!]

Boy, the media (AP) loves them some Stanford, don't they? Not only does Stanford have 2 losses this year, one of those 2 losses is to unranked Utah. Yet, Stanford still manages to jump over Baylor in the last AP poll simply because they "re-beat" Arizona St for the 2nd time this season.

The media was formerly in love with Oregon and Marcus Mariota and any team that beat Oregon has to be unstoppable.

[HogDawg]

You are correct. Baylor won the unshared SWC '74 and '80. HD should remember the 1980 team. HD may have mis-heard one of the talking heads who said that RICE won its first conference championship since 1957. Baylor didn't win in '57 or '58.

Good piont, MD. I did indeed confuse Rice with Baylor on that issue. You and TechDawgMC are correct abut Baylor winning the unshared SWC football title in 1974 & 1980. The funny part is, I knew this was the case, and I still misspoke about it.

I may have watched a little too much football yesterday. We've been "iced in" for the last 3 days over here in Texas, and I literally watched football until my eyes hurt yesterday (Saturday). Unfortunately, there was NO WHERE TO GO!!! As MD stated, I listened to too many talking heads yesterday.

[HogDawg]

To be fair, politics is what kept Oregon out of the BCS. Almost everybody wanted Oregon in the Sugar Bowl instead of Oklahoma.

Say what?

[Dawg06]

Say what?

The Sugar Bowl just inked a deal with the Big 12 that starts next year so a Big 12 team was going to get that spot to keep their partner happy. The Sugar Bowl had Baylor lined up to play in the Superdome had Oklahoma State not choked against Oklahoma. And of course the Sugar Bowl was gonna take Bama with their first pick.

Same thing with the Orange Bowl and the ACC. The Orange Bowl's strong relationship with the ACC is what got Clemson their bid. The Orange Bowl didn't want to upset the ACC. The Orange Bowl also has weaker relationships with the Big Ten and SEC. That's where Ohio State comes in.

The Fiesta Bowl was getting the last pick, which everybody knew would be UCF who nobody wanted. The Big 12 champ (Baylor) got the auto bid. The Fiesta Bowl had no choice.

Michigan State got the auto bid to the Rose Bowl.

The Pac-12 (Oregon and Arizona State) had no chance to land an at-large bid.

[Woof!]

To be fair, politics is what kept Oregon out of the BCS. Almost everybody wanted Oregon in the Sugar Bowl instead of Oklahoma.

Probably more economics than politics. The ducks don't travel well at all and I would expect that to be even more true playing in a distant bowl that is not the bowl they wanted to play in - the BCS title game. The Alamo Bowl is only marginally closer so I wonder how many ducks will be there. Maybe they didn't want to really play Bama after all. :icon_wink: Bama vs Oregon would have been a good game to see.

[HogDawg]

The Sugar Bowl just inked a deal with the Big 12 that starts next year so a Big 12 team was going to get that spot to keep their partner happy. The Sugar Bowl had Baylor lined up to play in the Superdome had Oklahoma State not choked against Oklahoma. And of course the Sugar Bowl was gonna take Bama with their first pick.

Same thing with the Orange Bowl and the ACC. The Orange Bowl's strong relationship with the ACC is what got Clemson their bid. The Orange Bowl didn't want to upset the ACC. The ACC also has weaker relationships with the Big Ten and SEC. That's where Ohio State comes in.

The Fiesta Bowl was getting the last pick, which everybody knew would be UCF who nobody wanted.

Michigan State got the auto bid to the Rose Bowl.

The Pac-12 (Oregon and Arizona State) had no chance to land an at-large bid.

This is an absolute shit show. I can't wait until we have a college football playoff.

[HogDawg]

Probably more economics than politics. The ducks don't travel well at all and I would expect that to be even more true playing in a distant bowl that is not the bowl they wanted to play in - the BCS title game. The Alamo Bowl is only marginally closer so I wonder how many ducks will be there. Maybe they didn't want to really play Bama after all. :icon_wink: Bama vs Oregon would have been a good game to see.

On the contrary, I've always heard that the Oregon Ducks travel in HUGE numbers.