[NU Sports] It's over

[wildelk2 at aol.com]

    First of all Jeff, I am a statistics wonk; I'm not sure what a wonk is but I are one!    
    Good points in your post point to something patently obvious to me.   Why do we consistently get 2 teams in the BCS?  Money, and only money.  The Big 10 should do the right thing and tell the BCS to shove it; break ranks and send our champ to the Rose Bowl; end of story. If were not going to have a play-off, we should put our teams in position to win more bowl games. To wit:
Rose:  Ohio St. vs. TCU
Capital One:  Wisconsin vs. Alabama
Outback:  Mich. St. vs. Florida
Gator:  PSU vs. Miss. St.
Insight:  Michigan vs. Missouri
Texas:  Iowa vs. Baylor
Ticket City: Illinois vs. Texas Tech
Little Caesar's: Northwestern vs. NIU


   Would we win all of them? No. But this line-up looks much evenly matched than what we get every bowl season. FWIW, I think we'd have a hell of a time with NIU.
 
   Later,   Eric  






-----Original Message-----
From: Beamsley, Jeff <Jeff.Beamsley at covisint.com>
To: Eric West <e-west at northwestern.edu>; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Sun, Jan 2, 2011 8:11 am
Subject: RE: [NU Sports] It's over


I was reacting to the suggestion that losing the bowl game was going to damage 
NU's football future.
 
I'm as tired of "moral" victories as the next guy.
 
I'm also just as tired of the suggestion that the NU football program is either 
fundamentally or fatally flawed.
 
Neither is the case.
 
The team isn't perfect, but very few teams are.
 
We could use more talented players, but that's true of virtually any team. The 
real question is are we getting the most out of the players that we have.  I 
think the answer there is yes.
 
Our bowl loss this year was the norm for the BT.  We were matched up against a 
better team as was the case with most of the BT teams this year.  The last three 
years that we've played in bowl games the BT overall has a losing record.  The 
BT IS the most powerful conference in the country in terms of money, but it's 
not where the best football is being played.  
 
It would be nice to have an "easy" win to get the bowl game monkey off our back.  
The reality for us in the BT right now is that we are a middle of the pack team 
playing in a very competitive conference.  That means we get beat up during 
conference play.  The good news is that we get to go to a bowl. The bad news is 
that we get matched up with a middle of the pack team from another powerful 
football conference and are often the underdogs.  You don't have to be a 
statistics wonk to realize that you are going to have a losing record if you 
consistently play teams that are better than you.  
 
NU will have a much better team next year that it did this year.  The team next 
year will benefit from the "near misses" this year and hopefully learn how to 
put opponents away when they have the chance and finish games when they have a 
chance to win.  Those two qualities were lacking in this young team and it 
showed yesterday.  What they have already clearly learned is that they can 
overcome significant adversity and that's what will make them a dangerous team 
next year.  
 
Jeff
 
 


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From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com on behalf of Eric West
Sent: Sun 1/2/2011 12:31 AM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] It's over



On 1/1/2011 4:21 PM, Beamsley, Jeff wrote:
> We lost.
> Big deal.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you overall, but I have to take issue with
that. Not winning a bowl game is a big deal, as it is basically the
team's primary goal each year.

> Nobody at halftime would have given this team a snowball's chance in hell to 
have the ball with a chance to win at the end of the game. Yet there they we 
were.

I'm also tired of the "moral victory" angle. I bet the team is tired of
that too. We're in a better place than that, and have been for 10 years
if not 15. If anything, their (not-quite) comeback today made it more
frustrating, because it suggested that once again our team only played a
partial game.

The great news is they can still get better. For today, we have a right
to be sad. I just want a bowl win.


Eric West
e-west at northwestern.edu

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