jimb@ISM780B.UUCP (01/08/86)
>Yeah, right. You think that two blowouts (Rose and Sugar) were more >exciting than the Orange Bowl? Maybe for Tennessee and UCLA fans but not >the general public. The Orange Bowl was a great game (even though I'm a >Penn State fan) and it could have went either way until about 5 minutes left >in the game. Bless you, my boy. The Oklahoma fans, the Big Eight defenders, and even a proponent of the SEC have been on me like white on rice. I was beginning to think that, unlike the football team, Penn St. defenders were rolling over to play dead. Acutally, the Rose Bowl didn't become a blow-out until late in the third quarter. As for the general public, the Orange Bowl placed 15th in the Nielsen ratings, but the Rose Bowl was 9th. To partially support your view, the Sugar Bowl ranked 62nd. I suspect that most of the public -- including me -- watched more of the Orange Bowl, agreeing with NBC's hype about the national championship. But I enjoyed the parts of the Sugar Bowl I watched more. The fact that the Orange Bowl was a close game does not de facto make it exciting, unless your individual loyalties were strongly engaged. The tempo and flavor of the game was dulldulldulldull. At least the parts I saw. >OVER-RATED PENN STATE TEAM? Penn State is the Rodney Dangerfield of college >football, they never get any respect. They were 11-0-0 going into the >Orange Bowl and weren't given a chance to beat Oklahoma. They played one >hell of a game against the Sooners , the best offensive team in college >football, completely shutting down the Sooner's wishbone attack like no >other team was capable of doing all year. If the Lions had a quaterback or >one less turnover against the Sooners, they would have been 12-0-0 and #1. >But, the Sooners won fair and square and with their defense they deserve to >be numero uno. What was so boring about their manner of winning? Do you >expect #1 team to win every game 50-0? Yeah, they held the Sooners close. Read the Sooner flames to see what I think of Oklahoma. (BTW, Los Angeles sportswriters are already jockeying for spaces in the pressbox at next Septemeber's Oklahoma-UCLA game at Norman.) As much as I hate the idea of a national collegiate championship series -- it would diminish the luster of the good bowl games -- I really would like to see Oklahoma against UCLA, Tennessee, or Michigan. You say "If the Lions had a quarterback...." Good reason in my book for a team not being number one. The Sooners won fair, but I hate to see bad officiating, no matter which way the breaks go. It may be a part of the game, but like Denkinger's call in the World Series, I don't have to like it. Win 50-0? No. Win? Yes. >As for strength of schedule, Penn State beat some good teams this year. >They thrashed the Irish and Pitt and they gave Bama and Maryland a whipping >also. Whoopee. Thrashed ND and Pitt. And Maryland, too, no less. The only team you listed that I'd give a tinker's dam for is Alabama. As far as I'm concerned, Penn St. beat one decent team and eked out a lot of narrow victories over teams only marginally better (this year) than a bunch of walk-ons. IF it had been Ohio State and Tennessee instead of ND and Pitt, I'd be impressed. Maybe even Air Force -- a comparable team -- with its good record and relatively light schedule (Lost to BYU, probably the strongest team it played.) >You must be from the west coast with your whining over UCLA, so let >me tell you that their are alot of good teams from the east that don't get >any national attention. Hmmm. Well, I admit to being born here, but I spent seven years, including most of high school, in suburban Chicago. I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara -- a school which had no football team at the time. Does this info. make you happy? As for national exposure, I saw a hell of a lot more games on the tube from the East than I did the west. And that idiot, Frank Broyles, is such a chauvinist that he finds it remarkable when he's calling a game from a good school outside the South. Double feh! >One other thing, you complain about Penn State's weak schedule then go on to >say that if UCLA would have beaten USC they would have been rated #1. Ha, >ha, ha. What makes a team deserve number one by beating USC? Even the >Irish beat USC. Playing in the Pac-10 is not as demanding of a schedule as >you would like us to believe. Not because they beat USC, but because of their record. They had been rated number 8 going into that game. Other highly rated teams also lost that weekend, so if UCLA had won, they would have moved up. With the strong Rose Bowl win, they might have been in contention, but probably would have placed second to Oklahoma. (At the time, UCLA in the polls was ahead of both Michigan and Tennessee.) As for USC, yes UCLA coughed up a loss to a weaker team. How many times has Pitt knocked off a superior Penn St. team? My mother is a Penn St. alumnus and is sick of the number of times it happened. When a game is one of intense rivalry, ANYTHING can happen. As for the Pac-10 schedule, it's no cakewalk. I respect every school except Oregon St. (I despise USC, but you have to respect them as an opponent. Maybe you feel that way about Pitt.) And considering how the Pac-10 schools did in bowl games, with the exception of USC's loss to Alabama I don't feel bad. Come to think of it, I'm glad Alabama won. The Pac-10 schools can hold their own with any conference -- or group of independents -- in the country. The Pac-10's best THRASHED the Big-10's best and other teams did well against SWC and SEC teams. I'd be happy to have a round-robin tournament between this year's teams from UCLA, Oklahoma, Iowa, Penn St., Tennessee, and Miami. Gad! Just think of it. Each team has already played one game (in the bowls). Of course, you may not want to consider that particular pipe dream; Penn St. would undoubtedly come in sixth. >Go Bears? Finally something we agree on. No one deserves a Super Bowl >Championship more than Walter Payton. Amen, brother. May he not have the same fate as poor old #14 (Ernie Banks.) > Joseph M. Dakes > AT&T Bell Laboratories > Reading, PA > mhuxl!jmd -- from the of Jim Brunet, Agitator at Large {ihnp4, decvax}!ima!jimb (most reliable) ihnp4!vortex!ism780!jimb or jimb at ima/*cca-unix.arpa ^ this asterisk is necessary!
rjv@ihdev.UUCP (ron vaughn) (01/12/86)
In article <30400016@ISM780B.UUCP> jimb@ISM780B.UUCP writes: > > > I suspect that most of the public -- including >me -- watched more of the Orange Bowl, agreeing with NBC's hype about the >national championship. why was this hype? it DID decide the nat'l championship. in fact, the orange bowl has had its fingers in the deciding of the nat'l championship, one way or another, quite a bit in the last few years. boom her sooner, ron vaughn ...!ihnp4!ihdev!rjv
jimb@ISM780B.UUCP (01/14/86)
>> I suspect that most of the public -- including >>me -- watched more of the Orange Bowl, agreeing with NBC's hype about the >>national championship. >> >> me, jimb >why was this hype? it DID decide the nat'l championship. in fact, the >orange bowl has had its fingers in the deciding of the nat'l championship, >one way or another, quite a bit in the last few years. > > Errr, either sloppy reading or unclear writing there. NBC *did* hype the game. I *was* in agreement with the hype, agreeing that the Orange Bowl would decide the national championship. As a footnote, one of the options the Rose Bowl committee is considering is dropping the Big-10 when the current contract expires, and inviting the highest ranked national team outside the Pac-10. Won't that put the fox into the hen house? <chortle, chortle> > boom her sooner, > > ron vaughn ...!ihnp4!ihdev!rjv I say, old bean, that seems to imply a lack any sort of finesse or elegance; isn't it better to titillate than never? -- from the bewildered musings of Jim Brunet "A word means what I mean it to mean, nothing more, nothing less." -- Lewis Carroll {ihnp4, decvax}!ima!jimb (most reliable) ihnp4!vortex!ism780!jimb or jimb at ima/*cca-unix.arpa ^ this asterisk is necessary!
ekblaw@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU (01/15/86)
Statement regarding the Rose Bowl's higher Nielsen rating over Orange and Sugar Bowls: It's easy to be higher when there is no competition. The Rose Bowl was the only football game broadcast at its time, while both the Sugar and Orange bowls had another game on at their time. Robert A. Ekblaw
moore1@ihuxi.UUCP (Moore) (01/22/86)
> > Statement regarding the Rose Bowl's higher Nielsen rating over Orange and > Sugar Bowls: It's easy to be higher when there is no competition. The Rose > Bowl was the only football game broadcast at its time, while both the Sugar > and Orange bowls had another game on at their time. > > Robert A. Ekblaw Aahhh, dear roger ekblatt, how obvious thou art. Any football fan of kinder- garten age could have told you what you spent four lines on the net to tell the rest of us.