Here for the Wins

Big game. For drivers seat to finish 2nd in conference. I don’t know what they have pitching-wise, but we have plenty available.

We’re sitting tied for 3rd in conference. That tells you something. We play the last place team at home next week. A&M scored 18 in game 1 today for the win but is knotted at 5 in game 2. There are wild swings. There are a small number of conference teams that have not been run ruled. Think we are one of those. College has a number of variables. Midweek you can play to win or prepare for post season. The only time your 4th starter comes into play in the postseason is a maxed out regional or if you hit the losers bracket. The depth of hitters is greater than ever. But that doesn’t mean teams have bench depth. In spite of what some feel, you don’t transfer to sit. Our overall record is around 6th best. Were as deep as just about anyone in pitching. That doesn’t mean it’s always on.

You mean sark doesn’t have you on speed dial?

So you think quality are coming here to sit the bench?

The bigger issue is having a guy here that we couldn’t get productive.

That’s 3 runs on the defense the past two innings.

Do you some of you even pay attention to other teams? “Our bullpen sucks.” OU heads to bottom 8th up 3, come up to bat in the 9th down 4. Pig staff is stellar though since they gave up 8 runs. The Aggies score 18 in seven innings. Auburn scores 13. In 7. All 3 losers will be in the tourney.

My personal favorite.

Front runner. You learn more from losses than victories bro.

Hard to say but maybe Florida. And I’ll likely watch parts of all again between now and the beginning of the season.

I do recall Allegro from Texas chasing him. Interesting that you have 3 guys listed as S. Heisman contender equals stats compiler on a top team. You need him to play big in big games. That was Miami, Texas and Indiana. So he needs to prove it. You averaged what 13 points in those games? Your schedule will likely more difficult. Maybe more than in a long time.

I have no idea who you added. You have limited reps returning at LBer from what I can tell. Similar at TE. So you’ll have to enlighten me on the LBs. Seems like limited game reps in the scheme. From my limited look, it seems as though you’ve lost size there too. Sayin should be better, but he shouldn’t have been a Heisman contender. His season will come down to whether teams can pressure him and how he handles it. That’ll be few games in the regular season. You lost 3 of 5 starters in the defensive backfield. Lots of reps walking out the door. I have no doubt you’ll be very good again, but I’m not sold on the clearly.

Please elaborate as to why you believe OSU is clearly #1. You’ve lost significant homegrown talent the past two years on the defensive side of the ball. Texas-Ohio State were largely on par last year with Texas elite talent being a year younger.

Yet I hear complains about the Jones family and Jeff Fisher all the time. And we have decades of Hacketts.

Around the draft, it was reported that Campbell had 25 career penalties. Ten this year. There were penalties that preceded the interceptions versus OSU and UF. If you look at the play calls and QB decisions, the penalties were impactful because we lost patience. We had defensive penalties versus OSU and UGa that extended, stalled drives. A&M too. All drives resulted in points. Maybe this year, we can overcome.

Yes head to head matters, but it’s not the end-all-be-all. Trust me, I’ve considered many implications and done so for 20 years. At that time, advocates for expansion (known in my personal life) are surprised at how it played out this past year. I was not. Scheduling could go either way. Some programs will step up and challenge. Others will not. As you increase the number of playoff participants, you increase those that had an argument too. If you go to 24, you’ll have those that just missed out on a bye, contemplating what they could have done differently. You might now have a dozen contemplating what they could have done differently to get in to the tournament. They are limited in what they control. They are in full control of their non-conference schedule. It is unlikely that remains two. You originally stated, presumably as an argument, that all levels of football have a playoff better than division 1. I’m not sure you said better but that’s the implication. And now, when I point out examples of the negative consequences of those playoffs you claim I’m on operating on negative assumptions. That’s true life examples in those leagues not assumptions. One thing we all need to remember is that the power brokers will look out for themselves first and foremost. When things don’t go according to plan, then we tweak because it doesn’t fit their preference.

Absolutely? No. Funny you default back to wins as the deciding factor. Notre Dame was clearly better the past two months. There were considerable common opponents. Notre Dame dominated those common opponents. Notre Dame lost their first two games. And if you do an honest evaluation, those were both tossups. Miami not only failed to win the conference they failed to make the game because they lost twice to decent, not even great teams. One of those teams was 0-2 versus the Big 12. The question remains. Best 10 teams or best season/record? Yes, Texas was more deserving than the final two participants. They also were better based on available information than some of the top 10. Being in a conference has limited value when evaluating strength of schedule. That is consistently brought up. There’s a formula to calculate it. At the end of the regular season, Techs SOS was worse than Notre Dame. Miamis was very similar. And Ole Miss’s was slightly better. There is little to harp on this point when that is the case. Use the metric or not. If Notre Dame had the number 1 SOS, would people still complain? You didn’t give a damn that Miami wasn’t even top two in its conference. You give some hubbub about 8-4 Texas with injuries and losses yet give no credence Miami beating ND at home, on a last second FG, when one team had a new QB, first game of season. You’ll probably tell me Arch grew leaps and bounds but won’t introduce that for Carr. It has been discussed that Indiana watered down their non-conference. Bill Snyder used to do it. Jim Schlossnagle does it in baseball. It’s not entirely for wins and losses, but that is a reason. You need to view it from the lens of a non-Texas team. Every team in contention is better off with fewer losses. Duke lost 3 games in non-conference last year. They won the conference but didn’t get invited to the tournament. Maybe that doesn’t change their scheduling, but you have to think they thought about it. As you invite more 3 and 4 loss teams into a tournament, you are expanding the number of teams that will fight to keep that extra loss off the ledger. If you have byes and home games, you’re incentivizing teams to lose one less game to get that incentive. Texas clearly missed out because of that extra loss. If more teams dumb down their non-conference schedule, then it devalues the regular season. If the Tx-OU games has fewer implications, it devalues it. If a team decides, like the high school example I gave you, to play not to win in the final game, that devalues it. I don’t expect that to happen, but it certainly happens in the NFL. I can see sitting a player or two in that scenario however. Let’s just say Texas-Ohio State play every year. You get a small number of other top 20 matchups, but the teams that would typically fall from 15-40 schedule no one. Not only that, but they sit at home for all of them. The college football fan doesn’t win.

That’s a good UTSA team. Top 10 in the country in batting average, OBP and runs scored.

Man, we’re good.

Not ideal hustle.

If you go 8-4, you likely aren’t beating great teams. Miami and Ole Miss both played 8 home games last year. Neither played all the top teams in conference. OU, Bama. Had any of those lost 4 games, there’s virtually no way that team has a great record versus solid teams. I would wager you were one to say that Miami deserved the nod over Notre Dame because of their head to head win this past year. Game 1. At Miami. On a last minute FG. With a veteran QB versus first time starter QB. So to your argument now. Notre Dame clearly played better the past two months of the season. Yet another question not answered. Is the teams that had the best season or is better at the end? The committee didn’t answer that directly but ultimately didn’t care because Texas and Notre Dsme were pretty clearly playing amongst the top 10. The more teams you invite the more chaos comes with it. It really just comes down to what an individual prefers. A tournament will just never be my preference. I read considerable discussion leading up to this year that expanded playoffs would result in better non-conference matchups. It took exactly 1 season to call that into question. That was 100% foreseeable. Further expansion likely ends in more disagreement and potentially unintended consequences.

A&M has given up 7 thru 5 to 10 win Prairie View. So with Texas and A&M both eliminated from CWS contention because of Tuesday blues who else we got?

Nah. We’re not close. I like tradition. I like the finality of only getting one shot at a team. College football represents something to me for which there is no equivalent. If there’s no equivalent, then don’t compare. If I wanted to be like the NFL, I’d just watch the NFL. And I do. I wouldn’t go more than 8 and could be fine with 4. People act as though they think they can get it perfect. Texas-USC was perfect. That’ll never happen again. Give a bye based on unbalanced schedules? Nope. Give a home game based on unbalanced schedules? No. Anytime you give these rewards based on uncertain criterion you’ve effectively manipulated that tournament. No way I’d give a team that loses 33% of their games a shot at a team that lost 0% or 8%. I am not an advocate for it, but the solution for a “best system” is to limit it to 64 teams. Maybe you go divisions and get it down to 8. Even then, you’d have to say any non-divisional game is irrelevant. If you go 32, you just kicked out teams that have competed for 100 years. I’m not talking playing for titles, but those teams have spoiled it for others over the years. I am fine with high school but imagine being the bi-district opponent for Duncanville or DeSoto every year. There are teams that get the short end of the stick due to matchups. I think it was two years ago that my local school basically gave up the last regular season game to manipulate the playoff match. So there are flaws and limitations.

That’s pretty good if you got that without looking it up. The reason I asked is because few pay much attention to the other divisions. I’d be interested to know how many persons watch those divisions over a BCS game. You know since they “get it right.” I can find meaning in many a football game. Just because a bowl game is meaningless or pointless to you doesn’t mean it is for all. How is that much different than a mid-October game between two teams you know won’t play for anything? I even enjoyed the Texas-Michigan bowl game.

But to the rest of your post, four teams per district make the playoffs in Texas high schools. Texas and Notre Dame weren’t in the playoffs because of some dumb rule that required a G5 and a mandatory 4th conference champ. Oregon, Ole Miss got favorable seeding that gifted them a win and provided them an advantage the following week. There has been ample bitching about Notre Dame’s schedule. Ole Miss played 4 games away from home. I don’t remember exactly but think they tied for the fewest games against the above .500 SEC teams. Their strength of schedule was similar to NDs. A&Ms strength of schedule was far better, which earned them a far more difficult opening game. I would not have felt sorry had OSU not won it in 2024. There is something faulty about not winning your conference but winning a national championship. If you think the time off after losing to Michigan versus us playing Georgia after A&M did not have an impact, you could be right. I’m confident in saying that time was incredibly beneficial to OSU. There are too many teams, too few games and unbalanced schedules to get it right. Then throw in some unearned qualifiers.