[NU Sports] LOL

[hakirsch at aol.com]

Absolutely agree. It is a big part of what makes college football fun;the arguments.  It was even better when there were more independents and less bowl games to sort things out. In addition I think it was John McKay who argued that final rankings should be held before the bowl games or at least that the few bowl games then should not count for rankings  Regardless it was always fun hearing from the alums who got robbed at being #1. Alabama ,penn state Michigan state all had legitimate claims during the 60s and 70s (my formative years ,so to speak)but were denied #1 status.  

Harry
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Hodges <jonathanwhodges at gmail.com>
Sender: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:33:31 
To: Eric West<e-west at northwestern.edu>
Cc: <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] LOL

Another problem is that "the best team" does indeed vary week to week (due
to injuries, improvements, adjustments, etc.), and it's hard to tell because
everyone cannot play everyone else simultaneously.  And if we could somehow
do that and instantly know the exact ranking order, I bet it would be quite
boring.

IMHO, what's great about college football is that we have all of this great
stuff to talk about between games and leading up to the bowl season.
Meanwhile, they had to invent fantasy football to fill the time between NFL
games.

Jonathan

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Eric West <e-west at northwestern.edu> wrote:

> The specific argument aside (after all, it might be moot as early as next
> week, and likely will be by the end of the season), I'd like to address one
> oft-repeated point in these debates:
>
> Arthur Miller wrote:
>
>> ...playoffs...are no better at determining the best team over the course
>> of an entire season than a poll system.
>>
>
> That's because there's no such thing as "the best team." It's an arbitrary
> and ultimately meaningless designation, and I've rarely seen a pro-playoff
> person worry too much about that myth in the first place.
>
> Some people like to argue about whether Team A or Team B is "the better
> team," and others prefer to watch them actually play a game and see who
> wins. Similarly, some people like to argue about who "the best team" is, and
> others would prefer to see the teams actually play some games and see who
> gets the championship. Lots of people might even like both (though perhaps
> in chronological order).
>
> It's true that just as winning one game does not always make one team "the
> better team," winning a championship does not always make one team "the best
> team." But when has that ever really mattered, and why would it?
>
>
> Eric West
> e-west at northwestern.edu
>
>
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