Deadspin
Tiny tidbits and news niblets from the OTHER bowl games yesterday ...
• It's a depressing, sad label, but it's clear Hawaii's Colt Brennan now owns it: The elite club of "system quarterback." Timmy Chang, Andre Ware, David Klingler ... the more the merrier! Georgia-USC would have been the best game, obviously; Illinois-Hawaii might have been fun too.
• The most entertaining game of the day, without question, was the Michigan-Florida game. It seems weird to see Lloyd Carr carried off the field that way, though, like he's Bear Bryant or something. Maybe if he would have coached as balls-out the rest of his Michigan career as he did yesterday, he might have won a few more bowl games.
• Big Ten check-in: 3-4 in their bowl games, with the BCS title game still coming up. Not as bad as you might have feared, but when you consider the Big Ten hasn't won a Rose Bowl in eight years now ... yipes.
• It's possible that Missouri's win yesterday won't push them up in any polls at all; they're not gonna gain on Georgia or USC, and they were already ahead of Hawaii and Illinois. They're probably a preseason top five team, by the way, and they play Illinois (probably a top 15 team) in the season opener.
• After yesterday, we will confess, our fervor for Oklahoma-West Virginia tonight is, well, minimal. We suspect this is normal.
Comments
Is Auburn over Clemson really the greatest conference on earth's signature win?
"Those dudes in red and black are waaaaaay faster than Samoans, brah."
Man I got to stop drinking. I actually thought I heard Pat Summerall doing play-by-play yesterday.
I'm not sure which was worse - the Fox announcers last night or Bryant Gumbel on Saturday night
No "system" QB club is complete without Danny Wuerffel.
@Mmole: I gotta stop as well. I thought I saw a Dick Clark puppet New Years Eve.
because this season has been so weird, how about they just take a few weeks off for the nfl playoffs, then play straight through the spring and summer. maybe we'll finally have 2 teams worthy of a championship game by august.
@Da_Mang: Or Gino Torretta.
@Da_Mang: Tim Couch anyone? How about any Texas Tech QB over the past 6 years?
@DannyNoonan: I am happy with the win. Let me enjoy it.
@crazyjoedavola: That was Carson Daly.
@Weed Against Speed: or Ken Dorsey.
seriously, what is a "system qb" anyway? is it a qb who puts up big numbers in college and then falls flat on his face in the nfl? why not just call them what they really are - nfl failures.
The game was great but the performance of the night was Bonerama doing the National Anthem.
@UpstateUnderdog: Or Ty Detmer.
@Bob Sheppards Flock: Bryant Gumble makes Dick Clark look like Gus Johnson.
@UpstateUnderdog: In 2 years, we'll be adding "or Tim Tebow".
@matt_t: I couldn't hear the anthem over my own juvenile giggling over seeing the word "Bonerama" displayed on national television.
Hawaii's debacle of a game, albeit against (possibly) the nation's best team, ensures that an 8 (or 16) team playoff will not come to fruition in the near future. For all the goodwill that Boise State built up last year, the nay sayers will cite yesterday's game as a reason why a playoff system would not be good for college football. The argument, as alluded to in Leitch's Rose Bowl post, would be: is it better to play in a competitive bowl game or get blown out in round 1 of the playoffs? Even if you are stomped in a bowl game, the losing players get a nice bag a swag and the schools receive their payouts. I don't think BYU would get much other than a plane ticket home after getting drilled by Va. Tech in a round 1 playoff game in Blacksburg.
More entrants into that elite club:
Sunny Cumbie
Graham Harrel
Todd Marinovich is a product of his Dad's system...thankfully a much smaller club.
@The Teufel Shuffle: bite your tounge.
Mike Vick, prison system quarterback.
/showing myself out
Danny Wuerffel has no idea what you're talking about
@Da_Mang: @The Teufel Shuffle: @Phony Gwynn: @UpstateUnderdog: Uhh.....Sex Cannon?
@That-Dude: A playoff is pretty much a pipe dream anyway. What last night's game did was damage the chances of non-BCS teams getting big bowl payouts by simply dialing up a soft schedule. If I'm Missouri today, I'm really pissed at being shut out of the BCS over two teams that they beat and another that had no earthly business being there.
Is "hiding in the WAC" a system or merely a strategy?
Charlie Ward- Heisman to shitty point guard.
@Da_Mang:
Or any Husker QB.
@DannyNoonan: might want to wait a few days.
I still have a handful of chocolate-covered News Niblets left over from Christmas.
Tommy Frazier and Eric Crouch were also system QBs.
On behalf of women everywhere, I would like to thank Georgia for kicking Colt Brennan in the nuts all night long. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
@Mmole: Interestingly, Pat said the same thing.
@Da_Mang: DW is a god in Panhandle FL. He's actually genuinely a great person. His dad did my dad's (re) marriage ceremony.
/FWBHS '95
Chase Daniel isn't a system quarterback. Gary Pinkel just selects plays randomly out of a baseball hat.
@Da_Mang: No, it doesn't. Non-BCS schools can still get a bid automatically: If they are:
1) Champion of a non-BCS conference and
2) Ranked in the top twelve, or ranked in the top sixteen and higher than another BCS Conference champion.
They played football yesterday? Who knew.
@preciousroy: But that's my point. Hawaii plays in a weak conference and they dialed up an even weaker out of conference schedule and were rewarded handsomely for it.
I like how the BCS stuck it to Mizzou. Awesome.
System QB? How about facing a defense that has sent 29 players to the NFL in the past 6 years. That's almost half their starters every year. Even more when you consider that some of those 11 are Freshman or Sophomores.
@Da_Mang: I concur. Very good points. I am not sure what exactly would be the tipping point to encourage a playoff system. Perhaps every bowl game needs to be a blow-out and the championship game needs to be decided by a field goal for a playoff system to gain traction . . .
Re: Missouri. You hit it square on -- I am not sure how they did not get selected before Kansas. It makes absolutely zero sense. If the Big 12 splits their purse on a tiered system, that oversight may cost them millions. *
* Most BCS conferences split the bowl purses evenly, i.e. Miami and Duke get the same share, even though they don't bring in the same revenue.
@Mmole: I kept waiting for him to someone to get hurt and for Summerall to say "There's a man down". Of course an ambulance running over Temple out on the field was about the only way Arkansas would have had a chance.
@Da_Mang: One point about their out of conference, they were scheduled to play MICH ST, but the Spartans backed out.
No system QB club is complete without the Fox robot.
@Da_Mang: Uh, seeing how that is written into the rules of the BCS, Hawai'i laying a zero last night has no impact on another non-BCS school's chances of getting in. Meet the criteria, get a bid.
If you're suggesting the BCS rules are likely to be rewritten, that's something else entirely.
@THEGINOCIMOLICONSPIRACY: There is no greater satisfaction than watching the Christmas verison of that shit-talkin' robot get knocked on his ass by a snowball.
on a side note, hawaii plays at florida to start their 08 season.
In defense of David Klingler:
There were no other system quarterbacks coming out of Houston, and he played for the Bengals in the 90s.
I've never seen an NFL QB take more of a beating day in and day out. For that, I respect him.
@preciousroy: @Da_Mang: I think you are both correct, meet the criteria and you are in. The problem is there is still a human voting component to the system that may prevent a team from "meeting the criteria." For example, assume Florida backs out of next year's Hawaii game, Hawaii runs the table again with two D-1AA wins, will any human vote them anywhere close to the top 16, let alone the top 12?
THREADJACK//
Best ESPN comment evr:
This is the worst ESPN article I've ever read. Not only is the reasoning completely moot and unrelated to the amazing season Moss had, Jackson sounds like an idiot. Again thanks EEI for pointing this out so I never have to read anything "Scoop" writes again. Bill Simmons 4evr.
// End Jack
@katolesce:
Does Andre Ware not count as a system QB coming out of Houston?
@That-Dude: Fair enough, but even running the table it's going to be hard to not put any undefeated team outside the top 12. Hawai'i's sched was super weak but they still beat Boise State and Washington (a crap team, but at least a marginally better crap team with a healthy Jake Locker at QB). Winning 12 games is tough period.
Yeah, Hawai'i got destroyed, but Georgia was probably one of the three best teams at the end of the season (along with OU and USC). The problem isn't Hawai'i in a BCS bowl game, the problem is that none of the three best teams at season's end is playing for a National Championship.