[NU Sports] Two words for the Oklahoma State boosters

Wed Jan 11 07:58:41 CST 2012

I share Harry's sentiments: I think many (SjT in particular, though)
unfairly glorify the pre-BCS bowl situation.  I think if that situation
existed again with today's national/instantaneous media people would be far
more upset than they are now (since there would be times when #1 & #2 would
have no chance of meeting).  Yes, the shift to national coverage has
changed our perception of the game and just switching back to the old bowl
situation won't change that.  To some extent, I think this is what we would
see if the BCS just fields a No 1 vs No 2 game and allows the other "BCS
bowls" to go back to conference affiliations - there will be no more "BCS
busters" and we'll see more of the "less lucrative" matchups because the
top tier bowls will be locked into specific conference affiliations.

Also, I think going to a bowl, even some upper tier bowls, means less than
it used to due to the proliferation of bowl games.  Not that I'm against
them (I try to watch as many as I can), but this means fans get less
excited about a game and sometimes just aren't able to go to a bowl game
each and every year (as others have noted it is rather difficult to make
and afford travel arrangements to popular tourist destinations during that
time of year in particular).

In any case, it's all driven by money, and the fact is that the bowl games
are still profitable for the organizations that put them on and for the
teams; though many teams may "lose" money due to ticket purchase
requirements, conference revenue sharing equals everything out and means
everyone gets to take home some cash.  Attendance is down and ratings
aren't off the charts, but there are enough people showing up to be
respectable and the key thing is that ESPN gets enough viewers to justify
its subscriber fees and fork over cash to the bowls to keep them going.
And that's because people like us enjoy flipping on the TV and watching
whatever bowl is on, even if we turn around and rail against the system a
few minutes later.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Hodges
Contributor, HailToPurple
Web: http://www.hailtopurple.com/jhodges/
Twitter: @hailtopurple
Email: j-hodges at alumni.northwestern.edu

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 10:25 PM, <hakirsch at aol.com> wrote:

> Of course back in the olden days (pre 1995 ?) there was no formal post
> season process for #1 just a vote by 2 polls. Sometimes by luck, the #1 and
> #2 teams would play each other in a bowl, but it was rare.   Many years
> there were major controversies about who deserved #1. Sometimes  the polls
> split but it was essentially up to the voters. The most famous one of
> course was when only one vote seemed to matter;when President Nixon
> anointed undefeated Texas #1 over undefeated Penn State (I think a 3rd team
> was also undefeated that year) And of course a BT team couldn't go to 2
> Rose Bowls in a row prior to 1973 and couldn't go to any other bowl as well
> thus potentially ending their season without a bowl game
>
>  So SJT could have really screamed about not being able to win it on the
> field.  At least today there is an on the field  process even with its flaws
>
> Harry
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "SjT \(Stephen J. Truog\)" <sjtruog at yahoo.com>
> Sender: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:37:47
> To: Arthur Miller<artmiller1 at gmail.com>; bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com<
> bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com>; Northwestern Wildcats<nwu-sports at tssi.com>
> Reply-To: "SjT \(Stephen J. Truog\)" <sjtruog at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Two words for the Oklahoma State boosters
>
> I don't have a fetish about having a clear-cut champion -- I have a fetish
> for college football itself and hate seeing it end in such an awful way
> every year. I would be fine with the old bowl system, I would be fine with
> a playoff and I would be fine with the Big Ten and Pac 12 just telling the
> B(C)S to go fish and take their rigged-to-the-SEC system and Big XII
> Computers with them and play a series of bowl games every year.
>
> What I am not OK with is the B(C)S - the worst of all worlds. It is a
> system that truly sucks in every way. It has drained attendance, ratings,
> tradition, excitement, meaning and life itself from college football. And
> it has given us fewer undisputed champions than the old system. What I am
> not OK with is having a "champion" shoved down our throat by a bogus system
> and ESPN hype who didn't even win their conference -- while other
> conference champions with better records and resumes were not even given a
> chance.
>
> You can't duck playing good teams -- as most big-time programs do (LSU
> excepted this year) -- and then tout a second place team as worthy of a
> shot over a league champion if the regular season truly counts. And then
> you can't dismiss the legitimate claim that team has for a shared title
> (the team you never gave a chance to) by saying they never played anyone.
>
> It's just an awful system that needs to end -- and this awful "title" game
> brings that closer to reality.
> So I'm loving the suckage of the B(C)S this year!
> - Stephen
>
> PS - I realize the ratings slid last year because of the move to cable,
> but this year you have an apples-to-apples comparison of cable games for
> the big bowls -- and you still have a big drop. Even though the games were
> (at least the first three) much better. That tells me that the B(C)S is
> driving away fans with their bogus pairings, pomposity and eternal week of
> welfare bowls that lead up to a depleted "bowl day" and kills the
> enthusiasm.
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> sjtruog at yahoo.com
> GO CATS!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
> Super Bowl XLIV Champions!
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Arthur Miller <artmiller1 at gmail.com>
> To: bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com; Northwestern Wildcats <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 1:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Two words for the Oklahoma State boosters
>
> Brad nailed it.
>
> Some people need to drop their fetish about having a clear-cut national
> champion in D-I college football.  There are too many teams, playing
> schedules of widely varying difficulty, and the gap in resources between
> the top and bottom programs is too great to make it feasible.
>
> The BCS seems to me a reasonable compromise, but if the chattering class
> can't accept it then we should drop it completely and go back to the
> pre-BCS days.
>
> Art Miller
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 1:32 PM, <bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Iowa State.
> >
> > To me that ends the discussion. Alabama's loss was to LSU, OSU's to the
> > Cyclones. End of discussion.
> >
> > I could live with a conference-winner only rule but for those who hold
> the
> > NCAA hoops tourney sacred, there have been plenty of times it was won by
> a
> > non-conference champ. Why is that wonderful in hoops but so awful in
> > football?
> >
> > I dislike the BCS myself but I want a return to the pre-BCS system of the
> > 1980's.
> >
> > I would note though that this year's BCS games were on the whole
> > entertaining and well worth watching. But SJT tells me it sucks so I
> guess
> > I didn't enjoy the Rose, Fiesta, or Sugar Bowls and the Orange was
> > enjoyable in a weird way (how bad could Clemson get?).
> >
> > Throw in fun games from Detroit to Dallas and beyond and I enjoyed the
> > bowl season a lot.
> >
> > But I am told it all sucks because some people didn't see the mythical
> > national championship (which I really don't care about)  they wanted to,
> so
> > I guess I didn't enjoy myself watching CFB the last month. Oh well.
> >
> > Brad Wilson
> > Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
> > _______________________________________________
> > nwu-sports site list
> > nwu-sports at tssi.com
> > http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports
> >
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