http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Wed, 5 Sep 2007 12:36:39 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/01/225107.php#comment-628615 actually, woodcock, it isnt a simplified argument. LOOK at Hawaii and Boise's schedule. every team they play SUCKED last year and didn't make some incredible lea forward this year. sure, some credit for teams like fresno state or missouri, but not enough to do anything more than offset the really bad teams they play. i stand by my statement that (in their specific situation, since they are, or were, both ranked) their game agaisnt each other is their only hard game 628615@blogcritics.org Wed, 5 Sep 2007 12:36:39 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/01/225107.php#comment-628363 "How many times do we have to hear the old they don't play anybody argument" As many times as they have to hear the 'yeah you stomped the crap out of us 99 times, but that one fluke means we're equal' line of BS. It makes for good fun but there's a reason a ranked team hasn't been hasn't been beaten by divII in god knows how many tries until now. The mountaineers may have beat michigan this time but they've been trounced two or three times in their last two championship years by second tier DIV I schools. 628363@blogcritics.org Tue, 4 Sep 2007 22:48:10 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/01/225107.php#comment-627570 How many times do we have to hear the old they don't play anybody argument. Lets be honest you are seeing these so call big confernce teams getting their as* kicked on a more consistent bases. If you look at the WAC and Mountain West they are playing more BCS schools and beating them on a consitent basis. So Nicolas your argument for those schools not playing anybody is a typical simplified and uniformed answer as to what is going on in these conferences. We can see how competitive these conferences are when they beat the BCS teams during the season and at the end of the year in the BCS bowl games. 627570@blogcritics.org Sun, 2 Sep 2007 15:48:08 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/01/225107.php#comment-627547 a fair point, but you could do a better job supporting it. a handful more 9-12 seeds going further than the first round of the basketball tournament is nice, but it doesn't really say anything about parity as much as it does about the unpredictability of the tournament itself. Notre Dame got stomped by Georgia Tech because Tech's new tailback is a monster and Notre Dame is the same overrated team (who wasn't even rated this year). Teams like Boise, Hawaii, and BYU wind up being undefeated because they don't play ANYone of consequence. for Boise State and Hawaii, the game they play against each other is the only true test on either team's schedule. Yes, there are a number of dominant smaller-conference teams out there who can compete on any given Saturday with any given team, but we have a loooooooong way to go before the gap truly closes between the big six conferences and the other 50 D-I schools. 627547@blogcritics.org Sun, 2 Sep 2007 13:51:30 EDT