Is it better suited for the conference as a whole to send the most teams possible to bowl games or only ones that have a legitimate chance at victory...aka teams that won't further embarrass the Pac-10?
I've thought about this question for some time and I don't feel that there is any right or wrong answer. One school of thought is that if you send five teams, and those five teams win, you still send the message that only five teams were bowl eligible. Sending 6-7 teams (maybe 8, if it's possible) presents the challenge of winning all your bowl games BUT you can say that we sent 6 teams. However, all that being said, it goes back to scheduling; I don't want the Pac10 to start scheduling weaklings so that it can fill up all 7 bowl slots. I want us to continue to improve from top to bottom (or maybe just 2nd place to bottom, USC can suck it). I want our 6th and 7th place teams to be able to compete with the 4th place teams in other conferences.
What's the deal, OSU? Look, I get it, ruin your own season, that's fine. Nobody cares about that. But to ruin Cal's season? And to cost the entire Pac10 millions and millions of dollars? What's up with that? I mean c'mon!
Well first off, TwistNHook, you can suck it too. We weren't worried so much about ruining Cal's season as we were relegating Oregon to a holiday in Vegas. Now that we're headed to Mexico El Paso for the winter, you guys will headed to San Francisco. Just think, in this time of our bad economy, we actually helped save Cal fans money. And we saved you the embarrassment of getting throttled by Oklahoma State in the Holiday Bowl...
Arizona State is one win away from becoming bowl eligible with a tough game at Arizona this week. Can the Sun Devils pull it out and get to the post-season?
Absolutely. Even to this day, I am still not sold on UA. They've put together some good games at home, but on the road they have been dismal. Granted, this is a home game for them, but it is also a rivalry. And Dennis Erickson > Mike Stoops. I personally will be watching, not for the game itself, but the intriguing match up of two Senior QBs who never really lived up to hype. But I will also be glad to see them go.
Over the weekend, a number of USC Trojan comments appearing on the InterWebs made mention of how disappointed they were to be going to yet another Rose Bowl (UCLA game notwithstanding). Has the Rose Bowl game gradually lost its luster under the BCS format?
The Rose Bowl game hasn't lost its luster due to the BCS; the Rose Bowl game has lost its luster of having USC there so many times recently. I remember pre-Pete Carroll it seemed that there was a new match up every year. Somebody new from the Pac10 versus somebody new the Big 10. The fact that it has been USC v (insert overmatched Big 10 team here) has relegated it to the 2nd least exciting BCS game (the Orange Bowl is irrelevant now, in my humble opinion). I think the best way for the BCS to improve is to throw conference affiliations out the window (eliminate Big 10, Pac10 champion from Rose Bowl, Big 12 champion from Fiesta Bowl, etc) and make it completely at large. And if they rotated who got to choose from non-Nat'l Champions first then it would really liven things up. I will say this, though: Penn State is going to offer USC a better challenge than any other team in previous, recent Rose Bowls (save for Texas '05).
Oklahoma jumped Texas in the latest BCS poll. Is this an example of the BCS getting it right or does it add more fuel to the growing calls for a playoff system?
I can't answer this question. It needs to be defined better. If we are talking about who is most deserving, then Texas gets the nod-- 3-1 in 4 straight games against top 11 competition (at the time), plus the head-to-head win on neutral field against OU, and only loss came on a TD pass with 1 second left in regulation. If we are talking about who is playing better, then OU gets the nod. They are just dominating everybody right now. But I don't know if a playoff system is the answer. It would be fun, yes. But so is the BCS. It gives us something to talk about. And really, it eliminates teams that are undeserving. USC doesn't deserve a Nat'l Championship this year. But they would be in the 8-team playoff and who knows what happens with Pete C at the helm. I think this is the best current system.
