Tom, I was at that 2001 game and Fla had one of it's best teams under Spurrier that year and 9-11 did set it back to Dec. and Tenn benefited greatly from that. I have been into that scenario before as UF was without leading rusher Earnest Graham because of the "twisted" play of Darnell Dockett of FSU a week earlier. Don...ditto...it would of course be great to play OSU....if UF could get that lucky to make the NC game. On WVa and the big time.....in the '94 Sugar Bowl UF played 2nd ranked 11-0 WVa in the Sugar Bowl and blasted the Neers 41-7 and eliminated them from NC consideration.
I don't understand what he is saying. Is he implying that FL is a better team because OSU and MI haven't played the defenses FL has played? Hmmm.
I've been 100% on the money with Ohio State all year. The only team that has any chance of beating them is Michigan. If they play Florida for the NC I would predict that the Buckeyes would win by at least 21 points. No contest.
To tell you the truth I'll be happy with any BCS bowl for both Texas and Notre Dame. Let Ohio play the Army of Darkness for the Nat'l Championship! Terry
George, You totally underestimate Meyer's record with time to prepare and also the Florida defense. That said....OSU probably wins by three but you never know.
question <t>while rattling off teams and who played who<br/> <br/> does ND get extra kudos for playing an Air Force team that damn near beat Tennessee in Neyland??<br/> <br/> I didn't think so.</t>
checking some numbers <t>I was astounded to see that Georgia has not left the southeast since 1965. In the past 20 years, Florida has gone 1-1 in trips outside the southeast with one win against Rutgers in 86 and one loss to Syracuse in 91.<br/> <br/> I was doing some more reading. Its fairly interesting and I'll post more later. One thing is for sure. One sure fire way to make the BCS system to actually work is to have more of the BCS teams play each other. I'm sorry, but one game against UCLA even in an average year is better than two 9 win directional schools.<br/> <br/> This has got to change, but like everything else in college football, its about money and not championships. The title is the shiny object that they dangle in front of us to keep our eyes away from what is really going on.</t>
MCG, I'm not underestimating Meyer nor slighting the Gators who have a very good team. But you don't match up well and there is a disparity in talent. Everything points to a BIG OSU win in that scenario.
It appears Corey is the only one who buys into my travel theory at all. Interesting. Stu, comparing Iowa City to Atlanta? Which one of the two haven't you been to? :wink: If traveling to the four corners of the country was such a non factor wouldn't more teams be doing it?
Been into this scenario 100 times but here goes again... UF has only one home and home non-conference foe due to budget and SEC schedule constraints and that is....same state school FSU for obvious reasons. UF did have a 12th game home and home with Miami and maybe the addition of a permanent 12th game will eventually allow for some travel but for now it seems all big schools just added a 7th home game against a patsy....like Michigan vs. Ball State. One team that is in for a battle with this additional home game though is getting much more than it bargained for and listen up wise guys because this may be the play of the year.....Western Michigan vs. FSU.
George, ?I didn't say I didn't buy into it...I said you guys act like ND is the only team that ever left their driveway. Haven't been to Iowa City...my point is travel is travel and the distances are about the same...actually I'd say traveling to a different time zone is tougher than going north-south. What is your point? That travel to Atlanta is tougher? D'ya think it might be economics?...it's expensive to travel to the "four corners" and most teams aren't gonna benefit that much from it...Notre Dame on the other hand benefits from exposure and fan base all over the country.
Back in the 80's Rutgers, a sub .500 team, played a lot of Ivy league schools and was trying to make Princeton it's annual rivalry game. Colgate was it's punching bag. I think they were 9-1 vs them during that span. The sportswriters and several key members of the BOD wanted Rutgers to play in the IVY league. They really weren't interested in big time football however the 80's brought some memorable moments to the program. 1979 Rutgers ventured to Knoxville and knocked off Tennessee 13-7 1980 Rutgers @ Bama (10-2)and nearly pulled off the upset of the century losing 13-7 1983 Tennessee ( 9-3)venture up north and beats Rutgers 7-0 1985 Rutgers @ Florida (9-1-1 ) ties Florida 28-28 1986 Fla @ RU Ru loses 15-3 1988 RU @ Mich State RU pulls off another upset 17-13 1988 RU @ PSU RU pulls off huge upset beating PSU 21-16 This mediocre program put a scare to a lot of big time programs. They got worse in the 90's and came very close to dropping football or dropping to AA and Ivy league. Schiano, a Jersey guy, has rescued the program and is building it up brick by brick. They have an 8-0 record that no one outside of New Jersey respects, yet they are playing good football and defeated several solid teams with winning records and even pasted an Illinois team that is giving some Big 10 teams fits. RU has it's big games coming up with Louisville & West Virginia. They have Cinncinati and Syracuse in between, both with the ability to beat them. RU is college football's feel good story of 2006. They have been winning primarily due to a small but fast swarming defense, a solid running game and a solid special teams. They will not get through the next 4 games unscathed unless QB Teel steps up and shows a passing attack like they did on their 1st drive vs UCONN. IF and that's a big IF Teel steps up, Cinderella will make it to the ball and drive daggers into the BCS system and pizz off the rest of the college football world.
I guess the question is will Schiano stay the course at Rutgers, I have to give him credit for getting the program to where it is this year. But he will be looked at by other programs with more money, will he go or will he stay? Does Rutgers have the money to invest in making it attractive for him to stay?
Schiano is hot property, not only because of the success on the field but off the field as well. Rutgers football program was ranked fourth in the nation last year, in academic progress among all 119 Division 1-A schools, behind only Stanford, Navy and Duke. ... It will take a lot of money to pry him loose from Rutgers. Right after he was hired by RU, Miami was making overtures to Greg just before they hired Coker. He was quoted " I just cost you guys a lot of money" to his assistant coaches. He could have taken the money and ran and left Rutgers holding the bag. He's a class act, loyal, very positive, very energetic guy. He stood up to a lot of criticism and tough times. You have to understand that there was a strong faction that wanted to shut Rutgers football down or drop them to AA. It's going to take mega bucks to lure him away. I don't know if the school can afford to keep him. There's still a large contingent of snobs who thumb their noses down on football, so it's no easy task, even though he is a solid Jersey guy. I suspect AD Mulchany would make a plea to some of the wealthy alumni to raise funds to keep him. Schiano is a state treasure, sort of like a young Paterno. You don't let coaches like that walk away.
I'm not sure what he's saying here.....that perhaps his team is superior to ours and M's in spite of being humbled by Auburn and having a few other squeakers, because they have faced more teams that will frequent bowls with names such as Music City, Alamo, Insight, Sun, Meineke Car Care, Liberty, Chick-Fil-A, etc......what an absurd notion. Personally, I like Tressel's comment re: bowls, etc. "Just tell us where to go and we'll play the New York Giants if we have to..."
Looks to me like Rutgers might be getting some of the home grown talent in NJ to finally stay home. In the past NJ has produced great high school football kids who ventured west to ND, Nebraska, and other schools. jif
Part of building and then maintaining a program is the facilities. If Rutgers is to keep NJ kids at home they have to have similar facilities to ND, Penn State and the ACC schools that come into Jersey to recruit. The Irish with Charlie Weis will be tapping into Jersey kids in the future, we have Ragone and Kamara both top prospects in the class so far this year. Penn State has always done well in Jersey. If RU doesn't have the facilities and isn't willing or able to upgrade then it will be hard to keep the best talent in state and maintain a consistently good program. They can pay Schiano a million dollars or more, but he'll always have to do it with lesser talent that he developes which is a lot harder.