USF Wins Birmingham Bowl for 2nd Year

[JE Pettibone]

We where there for the 2016 win against South Carolina. This Year it was USF over Texas Tech. Lots of Baptist in those three states.

Auburn folk in Alabama better add some prayer meetings tomorrow before Auburn Meets UCF (University of Central Florida) in the Peach Bowl.

[JE Pettibone]

This evening David Flick's favorite Oklahoma State defeated Virginia Tech in a tight game. At The Camping World Stadium in Orlando.

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

Yeah, well, I'm not too much into this four team playoff scenario anyway. I think they should have been bold enough to buck the bowl system and go for eight teams, the champions of the power five, and three at large. And after watching OU and Georgia, I'm not convinced that either of them are really among the top four. Good on offense, but neither team had a defense.

[JE Pettibone]

Ed: Yep! Central Central Florida, the only undefeated team of the season should have had a place in the playoffs.

[William Thornton]

Second tier bowl but beating Auburn was good. Auburn, frankly, wasn't all that enthused about the Peach Bowl. UCF should have been in and not OK, GA, Clemson, or AL? Wisconsin, Ohio State? In an 8 team playoff, I'd put them in.

[Sandy]

The criticism of UCF was its conference, and not having played a tough schedule. However, they played one more ranked team than Clemson, Georgia or Alabama did, though they're not big-name teams, Memphis and USF both had better records than the teams in the ACC, SEC East and SEC West. And unlike Alabama and Georgia, UCF didn't lose to the ranked teams they played. Then they beat Auburn, which beat both Alabama and Georgia. That they did not get in was an injustice representative of the biases of the stacked selection committee. The College Game Day team has said that the legitimacy of the selection committee would be tested when a team from outside the power five ran the table with an undefeated schedule, and boosted their resume by having at least two or three quality wins over ranked teams. Initially, I think their comments were directed at Boise State, which at the time was doing that fairly frequently, but it applies to UCF. Three wins over top 25 teams, plus victories over a Big 10, SEC and ACC opponent. I think there's a better argument for them getting in than Ohio State, which won a power 5 conference, or Clemson, which only played one ranked team.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

I wouldn't bet against AL on this game but would take the side bet that Chubb/Michel together get 100 yards rushing. Should be a good game but I'm not in the market for a $2k ticket. The new stadium is fabulous, though. Went to a soccer game there.

[Sandy]

I wouldn't bet against Alabama in this one, either. Oklahoma ran all over Georgia's non-existent defense, and Chubb and Michel ran up some impressive numbers because Oklahoma didn't have a defense, either. Alabama, on the other hand, does. And I'm sure that Saban and his defensive coordinator scouted and drew up a plan for Chubb and Michel when they thought they would be playing them in the SEC title game. It should be an interesting game, since the SEC's quirky 6-1-1 conference scheduling, two less games than most of the other conferences require, and a "protected rivalry" status that guarantees Georgia games with Auburn from the SEC West every year, and Alabama games with Tennessee from the SEC East every year, mean they only meet in conference play once every eight years, last time being in 2012.

I like college football enough to be interested, but don't care enough for a game set up by a stacked committee between two teams from the same conference, especially the SEC, to waste the time on actually watching it.

[JE Pettibone]

[KeithE]