[NU Sports] Playoff time!

[cherron604 at aol.com]

Keep the bowls.  I am envious that Northern Illinois gets a trip to San Diego, and we're staying home.  I remember that last year's trip to El Paso was fun, and it was an important event (as well as a great party) for El Paso.  Talking to alot of the locals convinced me that bowl games mean alot to them locally.
 
Keep the present method, perhaps tweaking it a bit here and there.  Controversy, chaos, injustice and skullduggery have always been part of the Football National Championship scene, and should remain there.  A sterile 8-team playoff might be fairer, but this feels like more fun (to me as an observer).
 
A fast start next year will be critical - three non-conference games, all three at home (not sure any of the 3 will draw more than a scattering of fans).  We have to beat Northeastern, Nevada and Duke on the first 3 Saturdays of September, especially with a road date in Columbus and a Michigan home game to follow.  
 
Chuck Herron  Tech '85
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: tbng at comcast.net
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Sun, 3 Dec 2006 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Playoff time!


> First to compare our September team with our November team is 
> completely unfair. With Bacher for all 12 games we would at least 4 
> more wins. 
 
Not unfair at all. They were the Northwestern University Wildcat Football Team on both ends of the season, were they not? 
 
It's great to improve at the season wears on, but we have to be more ready to play at the first kickoff, especially against teams that should not be as good as us. Bad starts have become an old song with NU football - at least since it started to matter after the victory at Notre Dame in '95 (and then blew one to Miami of Ohio). In 1996 it was fantastic to have held Michigan to 16 points and beat them, but we needed some of that fire in a season-opening loss to Wake Forest. In 1997 we beat a very weak Oklahoma team, struggled to beat Duke, and then lost to Wake Forest again and then to Rice, whom we should have beaten to death with chopsticks. We won the first game in 2003 but then blew one to Air Force and got slobberknockered by Miami of Ohio. In 2004, it was great to beat Penn State, Purdue, and Ohio State, but what happened against Arizona State and TCU early in the season? Only in 2001 did we get worse as the season went on.. During the other seasons we were just purely bad all year. 
 
I'm hoping for an aggressive defense next season instead of this back-on-our-heels, we're-afraid-to-press-them D we've been playing in recent years. Now that Fitz has a season under his belt, an experienced team returning, and a spring practice to guide his boys, I think that will happen. That's sure how he played. Bring them back nasty and snarling and stomp Northeastern into submission. 
> 
> No playoff. Go back to the traditional Rose Bowl and get rid of a third > of the bowls. 
> 
I dig where you're coming from on the excessive number of bowls, but wishing for their demise is like wanting to hear the sound of a steam whistle on the Chicago & Northwestern. Never gonna happen. Decide the championship on the field the way every other college sport is.  
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