BCS Shake Up

Like it - a half way decent chance of an all SEC NC game again.

Bama wins out (or Georgia wind SEC Championship), ND loses to USC and Florida beats FSU and there it is!

Florida vs SEC winner for the NC.

 

hehe Go Gators!

 

Notre Dame is on an upset course. USC has had a bad year, though everyone knows they have more athletes than the sum of parts has shown. ND held off Oklahoma in similar curcumstances, so they are certain they can do it again. But if anything can make USC's year seem worth anything, it's beating ND, the new #1. And it's certainly happened before, although we're long past John McKay v. Ara Parseighan.

If anyone else remembers, in 1966 #1 Michigan State and #2 Notre Dame battled to a 10-10 tie, with ND playing for the tie at the end, as their first string QB was injured, and MSU was not eligible to go to the Rose Bowl because of some silly Big Ten rule of only one bowl team, the Rose Bowl, and no team goes in consecutive years (MSU went the year before and finished #1). But Notre Dame, unlike MSU, had a game remaining-- against USC, and ND poured it on, 51-0 and got away with the MNC, still following a decades-old tradition of playing in no bowls (which helped them win a few MNC's). So USC coach McKay took great offense and vowed he would not again lost to ND; and in his remaining 9 years there he won 7, tied one and did lose one (in '73, the year ND beat Alabama 24-23 for another NC). Years later, Parseighan, then a college football analyst for a network, was broadasting Gerry Faust's final game as ND coach against Jimmy Johnson's Miami team, which had an outside shot at an NC. Miami won 58-7, and Parseighan became almost silent and then shot down Miami for "running up the score"-- that's so laughable, winning by 51 points in the final game to help the victor's "case," when that is exactly what he had done 19 years earlier, saying "What should we do-- just lay down?"

So the bad blood is historical between those 2, which should add to USC's determination to make their season by knocking off ND. It actually goes back to 1931, when USC pulled "the impossible" upset of the immediate post-Rockne era of ND. I predict there will be a few fisticuffs on the field next Saturday.

 

Notre Dame has had a weak schedule. If they end up playing any SEC team they will not be able to handle it.

 

Notre Dame's schedule included seven ranked teams at the time they played ND, two conference champions, seven, maybe eight bowl bound teams depending on the selection, including two BCS bowls. No SEC team played that kind of schedule. Alabama's non league schedule included only one opponent ranked at the time, Michigan, and then Western Kentucky, Western Carolina and Florida Atlantic. Three ranked opponents at the time in their league, LSU, Mississippi State (which is no longer ranked) and they lost to Texas A&M. The rest of their west division opponents, Arkansas, Auburn, Mississippi, and the teams they played from the east--Tennessee, and Missouri, all have losing records. Two of Alabama's wins--Western Carolina and Florida Atlantic, actually led to negative computer points.

So I don't see this BCS matchup as a cakewalk for the Crimson Tide. I see Notre Dame outplaying them, Bama running out of gas and being outcoached, and losing like they did to Utah a few years ago.

 

ND's schedule has been no where near any SEC team this year.

 

http://www.fbschedules.com/2012/06/phil-steele-2012-college-football-strength-of-schedule-rankings/

Notre Dame is #1 in strength of schedule in the NCAA. Alabama is #28. The SEC team with the strongest schedule is Ole Miss, #2. And we see where they finished.