Tag Archives: college football playoff

Sports news

They call it ‘The Civil War’

You are likely familiar with the fact that I am a huge follower of University of Oregon football.

The Ducks are going to play a game this afternoon in Eugene, in their home stadium, Autzen. They should win the game. It’s against archrival Oregon State University.

However, this contest gives me the nervous jerks.

One, it’s called “The Civil War” because of the intensity of the rivalry. I don’t like the “war” reference because, well, it’s just a game. But whatever …

For another reason, the OSU Beavers are motivated by the prospect of becoming “bowl eligible.” If they win this game, they will notch their sixth victory of the season, sending them to some lower-tier bowl game. It doesn’t mean much, other than the substantial revenue the OSU athletic department will collect from the Beavers playing in the game.

Accordingly, the Ducks had been in the hunt for a spot in the four-team College Football Playoff — until this past weekend when they lost to Arizona State. They already have clinched the Pac-12 North Division title and likely will play Utah for the league championship. My fear is that the Beavers might have more of a reason to win this game than the Ducks, who still have a chance to play in the Rose Bowl if they get past the Beavers and then the Utes. I just wonder — and it’s only speculation from afar — whether the Ducks have recovered emotionally from that stunner of a loss in Tempe, Ariz.

Still … go Ducks!

Sports news

That's how you pick a football champ

There can be zero doubt about a couple of things relating to Monday night’s football game to determine the national collegiate champion.

* First, the “wrong” team won the game. I am a native of Oregon and I was pulling mightily for the Oregon Ducks to beat the other guys and take a national championship back to the Pacific Northwest. They had me going after the first two possessions of the game. A quick score and then forcing the other guys to punt the ball away. Woe is me and the rest of us who comprise the Duck faithful.

* Second, Ohio State’s Buckeyes deserve the honor of being called the national champions of intercollegiate football. Let there also be zero doubt about the Buckeyes’ place in this four-team playoff, the first of its kind established by the NCAA to determine the best football team in the country. My hat — if I were wearing one at the moment — would be off in tribute to the Buckeyes. Man, they played a great football game!

The playoff system worked.

Four great teams were selected for this two-round playoff system. Granted, Ohio State was not my pick for the fourth seed; I preferred Baylor or perhaps Texas Christian University for that spot.

But as it turned out — much to the dismay of Alabama and now Oregon faithful — the Buckeyes turned out to be more than merely worthy of the honor of participating in the playoff system.

The Bowl Championship Series system is history. The bowl games, while important to the schools participating in them, no longer will determine the national champion. The BCS system of selecting the champs was too prone to second-guessing — not that this system didn’t have its share of doubters.

However, as we saw last night in Arlington, Texas, the new playoff system allows for the title to be decided by the coaches and athletes.

The NCAA football playoff system gurus got it right. Well done.

 

Sports news

What to call college football's big game?

I might be breaking some new ground here, but a thought occurs to me regarding the Big Game set for Monday night to determine the best college football team in the country.

The game doesn’t have a catchy name. You know, like the Super Bowl?

My Oregon Ducks are going to play the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first-ever college football playoff championship game. It needs something catchy.

Let’s flash back for a moment to the first Super Bowl, played in 1967. It wasn’t even called the Super Bowl. It carried the clunky name of “AFL-NFL Championship Game.” The American Football League champs that year were the Kansas City Chiefs; representing the National Football League were the Green Bay Packers.

The Pack won 35-10 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, which was about two-thirds full for the biggest game in pro football history.

The AFL and the NFL played three more interleague championship games before the leagues merged in 1970. But someone came up with the name “Super Bowl” in time for the 1968 game between the Packers and the Oakland Raiders.

I’m open for suggestions on what to call the college football equivalent of the Super Bowl.

Heck, college basketball has its March Madness and its Final Four; Major League Baseball has its World Series; college baseball has its College World Series; hockey fans know the title series of their sport simply as the Stanley Cup.

The NCAA has come up with a marketing winner with this college football playoff. It figures to smash TV-viewing records Monday night.

So … let’s give college football’s big game a name to make it — and us — all proud.

Oh, before I forget: Go Ducks!

 

Sports news

Looks like the Buckeyes belonged after all

I’ll be candid. I was one of those who thought a team other than Ohio State should have rounded out the four-school playoff bracket to determine the best team in college football.

My favorite for the No. 4 seed was Baylor.

It didn’t happen. Ohio State got in, I guess, on the strength of its schedule.

I’m no expert on this, but it appears that the selection committee that picked the Final Four got it right.

OK, so I’m basking a bit in the glow of my Oregon Ducks’ big win over defending national champ Florida State in the Rose Bowl. Oh, did I mention it was a serious beat-down of a very good football team — by an even better football team?

Well, I digress.

Ohio State finished off the night of playoff football by defeating the top seed, Alabama, which was representing the vaunted Southeastern Conference, where loyalists proclaim it to be the premier football conference in the nation.

Maybe it is. However, on New Year’s Night, the Crimson Tide failed to do the one thing it needed to do, which was score more points than the Buckeyes.

The No. 1 seed proved to be, well, quite mortal.

I am not going to try to dissect what happened in the Sugar Bowl. The Buckeyes outplayed the Crimson Tide on the one night that it counted. And on that night — last night — Ohio State proved that it belonged in the Final Four.

What now? Well, Ohio State will play the Oregon Ducks for the national championship.

You know where my heart lies. Go Ducks!

***

And while I’m on the subject of the Ducks, take a look at John Canzano’s excellent column in The Oregonian about the post-game press conference featuring college football’s two most recent Heisman Trophy winners. I believe it will explain a lot why the Ducks belong in the playoffs, too.

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf/2015/01/canzano_jameis_winston_vs_marc.html#incart_maj-story-1

 

Sports news

Yes, we're Texans now … but, go Ducks!

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My wife and I moved to Texas more than 30 years ago to allow me to advance my career in journalism.

It worked out pretty well for us since we landed in Beaumont, where we lived for nearly 11 years before moving to Amarillo just shy of 20 years ago.

Even though we now call Texas home, I remain of Oregon, the state of my birth, land of tall trees and mountains, a rugged coastline, a major city with a glorious downtown district — and from time to time, college football teams that capture the nation’s attention.

This year, the Oregon Ducks are front and center.

They have a Heisman Trophy recipient, Marcus Mariota, calling plays as their quarterback. They have a talented corps of receivers who catch Mariota’s bullet passes, some fleet running backs who can pick ’em up and lay ’em down, a defensive front line that has emerged as one of the best in the nation and a homegrown head coach, Mark Helfrich, who is working the job of his dreams.

In a few hours, the Ducks are going to play Florida State in the Rose Bowl. The Ducks have been to the Granddaddy of Bowl Games three times since 1995. The game Thursday marks No. 4. They have a chance not only to win the game, but to advance to one more game. The Big Game. The one that determines the national champion of all of college football.

The Ducks played for the championship in 2011, losing to Auburn in a thriller.

This time, it feels a bit different. They enter the game as the favorites, although that doesn’t mean squat. As the saying might go: You play the game anyway. FSU is undefeated and has escaped its share of close scrapes this season.

And that makes me modestly — and cautiously — confident about the Ducks’ chances against the Seminoles. They’ve got a Heisman winner, too, last year’s pick Jameis Winston at QB. He’s a good one as well. They’ve got a stout defense and a freshman running back with tremendous balance.

I won’t make any predictions here. I’m not smart enough to pretend to know the ins and outs of a complicated sport.

The next big game will be against either Ohio State or Alabama, who will play later Thursday in the Sugar Bowl.

So, with that I plan to watch a little college football Thursday, starting around 4 p.m. Texas Panhandle time.

The Oregon Ducks need some love. I’m just one transplanted Oregonian sending all the love I can muster. Any additional love and good karma would be much appreciated.

 

Sports news

College football playoffs work against sportsmanship

Baylor University head football coach Art Briles speaks the truth about one troubling aspect of the NCAA college football playoff system.

It “changes the way you approach football games,” Briles said. Coaches and players become concerned with what’s called euphemistically as “style points,” resulting in teams running up the score on their opponents.

http://agntv.amarillo.com/sports/coachspeak-college-footballs-final-four

OK, Briles’s ox has been gored here. The Baylor Bears were thought to be one of the teams that would be included in college football’s version of the Final Four. They were bounced out by Ohio State, which scored a lot of “style points” by pummeling Wisconsin 59-0 in the Big 10 championship game over the weekend.

The Final Four comprises Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and the Buckeyes.

Allow me this disclosure: I am pulling with all the force I can for Oregon, which plays FSU in the Rose Bowl. I am a native Oregonian and my heart belongs to the Ducks. The other game — ‘Bama vs. Ohio State — will take place in the Sugar Bowl … yawwwwn.

I do get Briles’s concern about this selection system. It relies on human subjectivity, just as the old system did when the final polls helped select the national college football champion. The playoff teams are chosen by a committee of experts: coaches, ex-coaches, athletic directors, players.

This panel looks at the “style points” run up by teams and award them accordingly. This bothers Briles, who said coaches have to decide late in the game, if their teams are leading big, whether to “take a knee” and run out the clock or push for yet another score and risk embarrassing the other coach — who is likely a good friend — and the opposing players.

Is this system perfect? No. Did the playoff committee get it right with the selections it made? Probably.

I agree with Coach Briles about the concern over running up “style points.” That does not do a single thing, though, to diminish my joy at watching the Ducks trample Arizona in the Pac 12 championship game this past Friday.

Go Ducks!

 

Sports news

Another poll determines playoff

I’m trying to clear my head over this college football playoff poll business.

The NCAA decided to create a four-team playoff at the end of the regular season. Check. I got that part.

The governing agency I guess had grown weary of polls determining the top two teams in the country and the criticism the final pairing drew — usually from loyalists of other college teams left out of the Big Game.

So the NCAA came up with the playoff system.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/college-football-playoff-rankings-oregon-over-fsu-sends-message/ar-AA7G4Is

But then had to wrestle with determining how to find the top four teams. Who picks them? It’s not a poll exactly. The selection comes from a committee of experts.

OK, now for full disclosure.

I kind of have a dog in this hunt. I’m a native of Oregon and the University of Oregon Ducks currently are rated the No. 2 team in the playoff hunt. They moved ahead of Florida State this week on the basis of their overall play against other ranked teams and the fact that the Ducks beat a very good Utah Utes team in Salt Lake City.

This playoff business, though, has me biting my fingernails each week.

Who’ll get the top nod? Who will the panel think did the best over the previous week? Can the panel of experts actually get it wrong and overlook a team that no one is seeing?

What happens from now until the end of the season? Well, your favorite team — whichever it is — has to win the rest of the way. That includes the Oregon Ducks.

Then comes the subjective analysis from the panel of experts — coaches, ex-coaches, ex-players, athletic directors, etc. — on who should be seeded in what order.

I’ll say it right now: Fans, alumni and boosters of whichever team finishes the regular season rated No. 5 in this poll of experts are going to raise a ruckus royale.

Some things, therefore, never change.