NCAA Football What If

[ShockdaWorld]

How did you lose to UCONN?

Ouch

[WSUwatcher]

Here's a better what if -- and it's one that, as an Alabama fan, I've wondered about more than once: what if Arkansas had not miraculously beaten Ole Miss in their seemingly endless game with the help of the most implausible consequential play of the year in the final overtime?

Bama would have gone into the Iron Bowl #2 in the CFP, would have won convincingly enough that the selection committee supposedly had a heated debate about whether Clemson or Alabama should be #1 going into the conference championship games -- and would have been on the sidelines while SEC West co-champ Ole Miss, by virtue of their head-to head win against the Tide, played Florida for the SEC championship, in a matchup of two-loss teams not in the top eight, much less the top four.

Would the committee have jumped two-loss Pac-12 champ Stanford over Alabama into the playoff, and dropped the Tide from almost #1 to #5? Would Mississippi, assuming they won the conference championship game, have jumped over the world into the top four? Would the Big 10/14 have had two teams in the playoff -- and if so, which two? Or would Alabama have stayed in the top four as clearly the best SEC team, despite their fluke loss to Ole Miss? (Every game counts, after all, fluke loss or not.)

Let's just say that Arkansas gave the committee the gift of the year by somehow winning against Mississippi.

[WuDrWu]

Looking forward to seeing the Peach Bowl and UH / Florida State on December 31.

Probably the only one here...the rest of us will be focused on Drake.

[shocka khan]

How did you lose to UCONN?

Trap game. The way the schedule lined up, UofH played Memphis then UConn then Navy. Memphis and Navy were ranked. UConn was, well, UConn.

The Coogs also had a slew of injuries during that stretch. For instance, in the Navy game, the had a kid who was playing linebacker and had not played running back since high school who scored the winning touchdown (and rushed for about 130 yards). For the last 4 weeks of the season they played three ranked teams (Memphis, Navy and Temple) at the time the game was played.

The starting QB (who was on the Heisman watch lists) was out for the UConn game as well.

They need to go out and beat Florida State. Its the only way to prove the pundits wrong. Probably a tall order, but I still like my hometown team.

[RoyalShock]

Apparently, the viewership for CFB playoffs dipped 35% from last year, leaving ESPN on the hook for $20m in refunds to advertisers.

http://collegespun.com/homepage-new/espn-reportedly-owes-advertisers-a-lot-of-money-because-the-cfb-playoff-ratings-were-so-bad

Ouch.

[ShockdaWorld]

Apparently, the viewership for CFB playoffs dipped 35% from last year, leaving ESPN on the hook for $20m in refunds to advertisers.

http://collegespun.com/homepage-new/espn-reportedly-owes-advertisers-a-lot-of-money-because-the-cfb-playoff-ratings-were-so-bad

Ouch.

Didn't read the story, but just from your post, it's probably (partly) because they did it on New Years Eve and partly during the work day.

[Cdizzle]

Didn't read the story, but just from your post, it's probably (partly) because they did it on New Years Eve and partly during the work day.

And also because they were both really terrible games.

But, yeah. Seriously everyone. NYE is not a holiday. People have to work.

[ShockTalk]

The bowl games among the Top 20 teams were mostly lopsided, even in the upsets. Turned out to be a lot of boring games even if your team won.