[Jason the Yank]

Originally posted by Andrew K:
OU QB was knocked out early, but I can OU coming back as Tech is awful at closing games.

Tech holds them off.

Mon everyone having 1 loss and causing the BCS to implode. :thup:

[Kizzak]

As if a playoff would fix this mess

[Jason the Yank]

At least it'd be settled on the field.

If it's good enough for the other NCAA football divisions, why isn't it good enough for I-A?

Oh yeah, the "power conferences."

[Kizzak]

it's still settled on the field, just not quite extensively as you'd like

[BamaZeus]

Originally posted by Jason the Yank:
At least it'd be settled on the field.

If it's good enough for the other NCAA football divisions, why isn't it good enough for I-A?

Oh yeah, the "power conferences."

I think it's more a matter of how they would go about choosing the top 16 teams or however many they use. We have enough whining about teams not making the BCS or who's #2 vs. #3, etc.
Can you imagine if a team like Wake Forest or BC win the ACC with 3 losses and potential Big East champion UConn with its only losses at Virginia and at Cincinnati (both ranked) gets shut out? There'd be trouble if that happened, but it's entirely possible this year.

[Jason the Yank]

Originally posted by BamaZeus:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Originally posted by Jason the Yank:
At least it'd be settled on the field.

If it's good enough for the other NCAA football divisions, why isn't it good enough for I-A?

Oh yeah, the "power conferences."

I think it's more a matter of how they would go about choosing the top 16 teams or however many they use. We have enough whining about teams not making the BCS or who's #2 vs. #3, etc.
Can you imagine if a team like Wake Forest or BC win the ACC with 3 losses and potential Big East champion UConn with its only losses at Virginia and at Cincinnati (both ranked) gets shut out? There'd be trouble if that happened, but it's entirely possible this year. </BLOCKQUOTE>

The way I-AA does it is 8 conference champions get automatic bids, with 8 at-large bids determined by a selection committee like the basketball tournament.

IIRC, there are 10 conferences in I-A. You could give the "power conferences" and 2 of the mid-majors (say the Mountain West and whichever of the MAC/WAC/Conference USA you want) automatic bids, and have 8 at-large bids.

[Jason the Yank]

Let nobody say Nick Saban doesn't keep things in perspective. :thup:

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - Alabama's latest loss has coach Nick Saban searching for ways to motivate his team.

Citing the 9-11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor, Saban said Monday his team must rebound like America did from a "catastrophic event."
In this case, that would be an embarrassing 21-14 loss Saturday to Louisiana-Monroe.

"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event," Saban said during the opening remarks of his weekly news conference. "It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event."

Alabama's just getting ready to face No. 25 Auburn, its biggest rival, on Saturday.

A Saban spokesman said the coach chose the 9-11 and Pearl Harbor references to illustrate the challenges facing his team.

"What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy; everyone needs to understand that. He was not equating losing football games to those catastrophic events," football spokesman Jeff Purington said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with

All we need now is Kellen Winslow bellowing "I'M A SOLDIER!"

[BamaZeus]

I watched Saban's PC yesterday online and I was a bit surprised by the comments, but I saw the point he was trying to make.

I mean, when I went to the game Saturday, I never dreamed we'd lose to Monroe, and after the game was over, the stunned silence of the crowd was not unlike having a bomb go off at midfield. We've lost to bad teams before, but I've never seen a team absolutely mail it in, on Senior Day yet.

You have to understand, this town has become accustomed to and spoiled by winning all the time. Anytime the football team loses, it is therefore acceptable to question everything from the coin flip to how poorly the marching band plays, why Eli Gold shouldn't be doing play by play, etc.

You ought to read some of the message boards sometimes after a game: we have what's called "meltdown" mode that starts at kickoff or before and continues on until the next game and beyond.

That being said, when we lose to a bottom-tier team, the meltdown magnifies in the stands where no one can understand how we lost the game. It then spills over to sports talkshows and message boards, where some members of the media stir it up even more, knowing that angry fans will keep calling in to whine and moan and improve their ratings.

Heck, last night our basketball team lost to Belmont, not a bad team, but they're not Kentucky either. Meltdown was only interrupted by the fact that one of our former football players, Siran Stacy, was involved in a fatal car wreck and most of his family died.

Oh well, we were in a near identical situation in 2001 and came out and whipped Auburn, so we'll see on Saturday

At the very worst, we can still get a Liberty Bowl bid so we can spend New Year's week in Tunica and gamble and drink our sorrows away

[Kizzak]

that's no different from any other school

Half the Tech fan-base gets hilariously angry when we don't win by a large enough margin, or we don't blow the other team out by half-time.

[Andy Jordan]

it's final at LSU - Arkansas 50, LSU 48.