quote:
I wonder why FBS college football needs to have a requirement that you win your conference when the NFL, NBA, ... none of them have to have one.

In the NFL and the NBA, you have to win the conference championship, not your division. But then you get shitty teams like the Giants winning it all with a reg season record barely above .500.

quote:
why should the regular season conference championship matter when the regular season itself doesn't matter?

Because that's how college football has traditionally worked. Unlike professional leagues, college basketball, and college baseball, there has NEVER been playoffs or tournaments in Div I college fball. In fact, football is not really designed to be a tournament sport; that's why you don't see Invitational tourneys at the beginning of the season like you do in basketball and baseball. The DNA of reward for a good season in college football is based in bowl games. You win your conference and your conference has a bowl tie-in, you get to go to the bowl game. Before Bama this year, the last school to win a Natl title w/o winning their conference was in 1936. Therefore, historical precedent says that a school should have to win its conference to win a National Title.

quote:
if you're going to shut out Bama last season -- even though they are the second best team in the country -- because they lost to us, why make us play some lesser team?

Given that Bama did not play one team with the vertical passing capability of OK State last year, you have no proof that Bama (or LSU) was better than the Pokes. You are following the ESPN logic that Bama was better because they have been a historically better program.

quote:
we knew that Alabama was better than Oklahoma State just as much as we knew LSU was better than Alabama.

OK State's resume begs to differ. And, no, you don't know that. See above.

This post was edited on 4/29/12 at 11:49 pm

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Posted by getback

Member since Dec 2011

2199 posts

Posted on 4/30/12 at 12:50 am to bluestem75

quote:
In the NFL and the NBA, you have to win the conference championship, not your division. But then you get shitty teams like the Giants winning it all with a reg season record barely above .500.

Yeah, you win your conference after competing in a thing called playoffs, including wild card teams who werent even divisional champions..

quote:
In fact, football is not really designed to be a tournament sport

Name another division of football without playoffs.. pee-wee, jr. high, high school, every other college division, NFL, etc.

Everyone calling out that you must win a conference title is looking backwards and not forwards.. Wait until LSU goes 11-1, with a close loss to eventual SEC champion, and gets skipped over by Mountain West champ Boise St. at 10-2, Big 12 champ Nebraska at 9-3, etc., and your tune will change..

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Posted by VerlanderBEAST

Member since Dec 2011

18989 posts

Posted on 4/30/12 at 4:42 pm to bluestem75

quote:
football is not really designed to be a tournament sport

every other level of football besides FBS has a tournament

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Posted by King Joey

Just south of the DC/US border

Member since Mar 2004

12507 posts

Posted on 4/30/12 at 11:32 pm to bluestem75

quote:
In the NFL and the NBA, you have to win the conference championship, not your division

There is no regular season "Conference" championship in the NFL. The "Conference Championship" occurs during the playoffs, so teams that have already failed to win their division -- and by this logic, are incapable of being the best in their conference -- are already in the running for the championship despite not being the best team in their conference (or division).

quote:
Given that Bama did not play one team with the vertical passing capability of OK State last year, you have no proof that Bama (or LSU) was better than the Pokes

If that is true, then there is no "proof" that either LSU or the Pokes (or Oregon or Wisconsin) were better than Clemson or West Virginia, or Arkansas State (Sun Belt Champions) for that matter. So excluding the Mountaineers and Clemson and the Red Wolves is no more valid than excluding Bama.

quote:
Before Bama this year, the last school to win a Natl title w/o winning their conference was in 1936

That's not entirely true, as several teams have won National Championships in that span without being in a conference (thus not winning their conference championship). The extensive history of independent National Champions (Miami, FSU, Penn State, etc.) suggests rather strongly that college football has never considered conference championships a prerequisite for a National Championship.

quote:
You are following the ESPN logic that Bama was better because they have been a historically better program

I am not, I am simply pointing out the fallacy in someone else's reasoning in support of a conference championship requirement. The same criteria that would select LSU, Oklahoma State, Oregon and Wisconsin above the other conference champions would have selected Bama ahead of all of them except LSU. Which means the requirement is simply an arbitrary application of factors to one set of teams that are deemed moot with regard to another set of teams. If the factors are significant enough to pick the best 4 teams out of the conference champions (which is the suggestion I'm discussing here), then the factors are significant enough to pick the best 4 teams overall.

quote:
OK State's resume begs to differ. And, no, you don't know that. See above.

By the criteria being used to pick LSU, Oklahoma State, Oregon and Wisconsin as the 4 conference champions that get into the playoff (which is the hypthetical suggestion I'm debating here), we do know that Bama was better than Oklahoma State. If those factors can tell us which 4 conference champions are better than all the rest, then they can tell us which 4 teams overall are better than all the rest.