Baylor defended the TUCFC in their final regular season game beating Oklahoma State 41-34. Now Baylor will go to the Holiday bowl where they will play UCLA. This could mean a move of the TUCFC into the Pac 12 and will be a bowl to watch. The big story of course in college football is Northern Illinois. Their inclusion in a BCS bowl has created ripples throughout the bowls. The biggest loser may be Louisiana Tech who is not in a bowl. At one point they were ranked in the top 25 and finished the season with a 9-3 record. But they were holding out to see which bowls would be available to them and got left with no bowl invitation after the Northern Illinois selection created a ripple effect that pushed Louisiana Tech out of two of the bowls they were targeting and the one where they had a standing offer closed as the bowl made their decision while Louisiana Tech was asking for more time. It is crazy to think that they got left out of the bowls.
As expected Notre Dame will face Alabama in the BCS championship game. To me the biggest loser here at the end of the season is Stanford. They played Notre Dame very close during the season and then had a bad loss to Washington. After that they started a new quarterback and have been a much better offensive team since. They went to Oregon and beat them, then capped it off by winning the Pac 12. Still in the BCS rankings they are only ranked 6th, mostly because of bad rankings from the human voters. I don't understand why as a human voter you would rank Oregon ahead of Stanford when they beat them at Oregon.
Normally at this time of year I begin my 32 team NCAA football tournament, but I'm not going to this year. I'm beginning to believe that we will eventually work our way into a 16 team tournament. Though a 32 team tournament would come closer to matching the number of bowl games, it would require teams to only play a 10 game regular season and I don't think that will happen. A 16 team tournament would fit with an 11 game regular season and I do believe that is possible. That would mean the most games any team would play would be 15 a number we will be at next year when they begin the four team tournament.
So what would a 16 team tournament look like. Well it would look something like this based on the BCS final standings.
Group A
1. Notre Dame vs. 4. Nebraska
2. LSU vs. 3. Oklahoma
Group B
1. Oregon vs. 4. Clemson
2. Kansas State vs. 3. South Carolina
Group C
1. Alabama vs. 4. Northern Illinois
2. Georgia vs. 3. Florida State
Group D
1. Florida vs. 4. Oregon State
2. Stanford vs. 3. Texas A&M
TUCFC Power Ratings
Since it's the end of the regular season I give you the top 20. Stanford made the biggest move up with their win over UCLA to take the Pac 12 title. Truth is I actually think that Stanford is the best team in the country and as I said earlier, feel they got a bad wrap here at the end of the season.
| Rank | Team | Record | WP | WDiffP | LP | LDiffP | Power |
| 1 | Notre Dame | 12-0 | 1,652.219 | 1,187.163 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 2,839.381 |
| 2 | Stanford | 11-2 | 1,787.250 | 1,202.325 | 94.250 | 251.313 | 2,644.012 |
| 3 | Oregon | 11-1 | 1,328.594 | 1,125.588 | 18.406 | 53.313 | 2,382.463 |
| 4 | Florida | 11-1 | 1,340.906 | 1,072.425 | 9.188 | 39.125 | 2,365.019 |
| 5 | Alabama | 12-1 | 1,198.813 | 1,124.800 | 9.969 | 21.188 | 2,292.456 |
| 6 | Kansas State | 11-1 | 1,340.844 | 1,119.513 | 91.469 | 286.563 | 2,082.325 |
| 7 | Ohio State | 12-0 | 1,179.438 | 852.150 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 2,031.588 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | 10-2 | 1,107.813 | 931.838 | 29.906 | 99.563 | 1,910.181 |
| 9 | Louisiana State | 10-2 | 986.750 | 808.875 | 12.969 | 34.313 | 1,748.344 |
| 10 | Georgia | 11-2 | 907.438 | 872.850 | 15.719 | 70.438 | 1,694.131 |
| 11 | Texas A&M | 10-2 | 856.844 | 858.625 | 14.906 | 35.313 | 1,665.250 |
| 12 | South Carolina | 10-2 | 874.438 | 785.400 | 13.906 | 62.313 | 1,583.619 |
| 13 | Nebraska | 10-3 | 1,100.563 | 794.125 | 134.594 | 332.250 | 1,427.844 |
| 14 | Oregon State | 9-3 | 1,003.250 | 789.238 | 120.000 | 337.063 | 1,335.425 |
| 15 | Clemson | 10-2 | 703.469 | 648.100 | 42.156 | 123.938 | 1,185.475 |
| 16 | Florida State | 11-2 | 770.094 | 803.838 | 117.906 | 278.688 | 1,177.338 |
| 17 | Michigan | 8-4 | 595.594 | 533.200 | 45.063 | 146.500 | 937.231 |
| 18 | UCLA | 9-4 | 965.719 | 728.075 | 204.375 | 567.875 | 921.544 |
| 19 | San Jose State | 10-2 | 519.594 | 546.275 | 53.750 | 117.313 | 894.806 |
| 20 | Northern Illinois | 12-1 | 552.844 | 613.325 | 149.781 | 319.063 | 697.325 |
Under the old system, the bowls would have looked something like this:
ReplyDeleteRose: # 19 Michigan (Big 10 Champ) v. # 8 Stanford (Pac 10 Champ)
Sugar: # 1 Notre Dame v. # 2 Alabama (SEC Champ)
Orange: # 4 Florida v. # 7 Kansas St. (Big 8 Champ)
Cotton: # 6 Georgia v. # 10 Texas A & M (SWC Champ)
Fiesta: # 5 Oregon v. # 12 Oklahoma
Gator: # 9 LSU v. # 13 Florida St.
That set of games would be infinitely better than the set we are actually going to have.
Man, this set of games made me so homesick for 1975 that I'm now working to a film of the 1975 Sugar Bowl.
DeleteLouisiana Superdome must be quite a spectacle.
Love the emphasis on the bands and "their fancy gyrations."
DeleteMan, this is great--the background music is excellent.
DeleteJIMMY CEFALO! I love Jimmy Cefalo. I guess I'm for Penn State now.
A 62-yard field-goal attempt in the first quarter? Oh, man.
DeleteRichard Todd! Oh, yeah, I'm definitely for Penn State.
DeleteOzzie Newsome ... Greg Buttle ... wow ... some awfully good football players in this game ...
DeleteQ1, 5:35: Alabama 3, Penn State 0.
DeleteScott Fitzkee ... big USFL player ...
Delete"Cefaloo"? Interesting. ... Woodrow Lowe! He's a native of Columbus, Georgia, where I once lived!
DeleteSecond quarter starting ... Tide still up, 3-0 ...
DeleteThat Richard Todd can run a play-action.
DeleteWow. Good game. Still 3-0 at half. Third quarter ...
DeleteBahr ... 42-yard field goal with a little more than four minutes to go in the third, and we're deadlocked at the Louisiana Superdome ...
DeleteRichard Todd is fantastic in this game ... just recovered a fumble ...
DeleteTerrific option ... Alabama touchdown ... 10-3 in waning moments of third ...
DeleteFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Delete11:19 to play ... another Bahr field goal: 10-6 ...
DeleteTONY FREAKIN' NATHAN! OK, I might be for Alabama, after all.
DeleteMy, oh, my ... Richard Todd can do it all!
Delete3:19 to go ... Alabama straight-on kicker ... short field goal: 13-6 ...
DeleteThird-and-11, and Penn State runs a REVERSE! FOR 10 YARDS!
DeleteFourth-and-1 coming ... oh, man, that's going to be close ... measurement ...?
Alabama holds!
DeleteRichard Todd runs out the clock! It's Alabama!
DeleteThat early Superdome featured the only all-orange scoreboard I can remember. If I had to explain the mid-1970's to someone very quickly, I would say that it was the sort of era where artificial turf and all-orange scoreboards were thought to represent the future.
Delete"The Superdome, the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana were proud to be your host during your stay in our community--and cordially invite you to visit us again next year when another super attraction will be staged by the Sugar Bowl in the Louisiana Superdome!"
DeleteI remember this quite well. I was a huge Alabama fan, and I was nine years old. Alabama had gone to New Year's Day bowls in 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1974 -- and they lost them all. This team -- the 1975 team -- was not supposed to be as good as some of their prior teams, and so I assumed they would lose the Sugar Bowl as well.
DeleteThe night of the game, I couldn't actually watch, because we had to attend Wednesday night services. By the time we got home, I was a nervous wreck. But when we turned on the game, it was almost over and Alabama was in the lead! I got to see them end the game, and one of my lifetime goals -- to see Alabama finally win a bowl game -- had been achieved.
Thank you, Richard Todd and Tony Nathan.
"Quarterback Richard Todd, who had suffered a Christmas-Day cut on his finger, came out with his finger bandaged, and Penn State literally dared him to throw." He completed 10 of 12 passes for 210 yards in this game; he was fantastic on play-actions; he recovered a late fumble; he held on kicks; he ran the option flawlessly (and sometimes heroically), and he saved Alabama about 10 lost yards over the course of the game on sacks. He was fantastic. Based on this game, I think the Jets will absolutely be making the right move in picking Todd with the sixth choice of the 1976 draft--the perfect successor to Joe Namath.
DeleteFor the record, I think everyone who has written a column in the last five years complaining about how the BCS is rigged against the minor conferences should be required to cover the Orange Bowl in person.
ReplyDeleteI of course will be rooting for Northern Illinois. I have a friend who is a graduate and a big fan, so I gotta pull for them.
DeleteI'll be rooting for Northern Illinois, too. But I do think it's ridiculous that they get in to that game. Any automated system should have a this-is-jive/human gatekeeper, too.
DeleteI think it should be noted that the computers had Northern Illinois ranked 19th. It was the humans that put them into the BCS.
DeleteMy point is that this game is taking place because a bunch of folks in the press spent years and years whining that the BCS was unfair to little schools. So I don't want any of those people to turn around and complain that no one will watch Northern Illinois. I think they should all go cover this game and treat it as a huge deal.
DeleteGood for the computers ... I stand corrected.
Delete