The Old Days. Kinda miss it

[Tin Man]

A Sunday morning 2nd cup of coffee daydream, offseason thingy.

I know this'll bring some heat. There are those that want to keep adding teams to the SEC. NIL has changed the landscape and I get it. It'll never morph back to what it was.
It was kinda sweet to wake up on New years Day, suffer through the Rose Bowl parade and get the kickoff for the big bowl games, Cotton, Rose, Orange, Sugar and the others, and wake up on Jan 2 with the season over. Who remembers the 10 team SEC? I'm 68, so dang - seems like yesterday and a hundred years ago at the same time. Oh, and stay off my lawn - don't disturb me as I watch Ed Sullivan reruns.

View attachment 764365

Whippersnapper…

 

[sami]

I didn't mind the South Carolina and Arkansas additions.

It should've stopped there

Agreed. It was the addition of the four Big 12 teams that ruined the league.

 

[adam.vol]

The NFL and their ever growing contracts ruined college football. Stop supporting that made for tv entertainment and college football just may come back down to earth.

 

[Go aeiou]

It was "The Good Ole Days".

 

[volfanbill]

Granted, it is better for figuring out a national championship, but still it has flaws. You just can't get past the committee aspect of it. Last season was a good example. There were teams that made it in that wouldn't have had a chance if they played the competition a typical SEC team plays. Expanding the field should take care of that, but as good as it is, it's not "pure". I've never doubted a superbowl winner didn't deserve it. I have in college football.

It’s always funny when people bring this up. No mention that the SEC only had one team win any playoff games

 

[ptcarter]

It’s always funny when people bring this up. No mention that the SEC only had one team win any playoff games

Not saying it's 100% committee, but Tennessee's pathway wasn't as easy as some. We got pretty much annihilated just like the weak teams that prompted this discussion. I would say however OSU, as much as it pains me to say it, was deserving.

 

[YankeeVol]

Cannot agree with this enough. No one gets this but the pinnacle of college football was actually before the BCS. No computers, no god forsaken committees, no expanded playoffs, no replay. The game was rife with AMBIGUITY, which is what made it so interesting. Perhaps even poetic. Every single regular game was a playoff game, and every single game on new years day mattered . . . sometimes you went to bed that night and you knew who the champion was, sometimes you didn't, and then you'd open the newspaper the following day and there the final polls would be. It was absolutely freaking nuts but it was also oddly amazing. It was so dramatic. The thing that younger folks cannot imagine today is how consequential like a september regular season game was. Those fla/ tn games in the 90's felt like the center of the universe. Like the world was standing still for them. We had these INSANE teams back then, and their shot at the title was effectively dashed in September. It was so painful when you lost but also sort of beautiful as a piece in the larger story of a team's season. . . . The overall CFB product was just way better back then. It's still good, viewership at all time highs, and I'm always gonna watch. But no doubt, it was better back then, and I'd say really because it was sort of flawed. And I think less regular season games was part of it too. But everyone is right . . . ain't ever goin back to that model.

Just great, Auburn read your post and claimed 4 more NCs

 

[zjcvols]

I know this is all subjective, but there's just no way in the world that the pre-BCS world was better. It was crazy (and not in a "this is so entertaining" way, but in a "this is silly" way) to have the most popular college sport determine its national champion by whoever the media thought the best team was after all the games were played. And until the 1970s, the final poll came out before the bowl games! And we think they are meaningless now...

Ambiguity does make things more interesting...to a point. People eventually got frustrated with that, and rightly so, over time. Even with the CFP, college football is still the sport (college or pro) that has by far the most meaningful regular season. It does make games played by a team(s) with a locked-up playoff spot less meaningful, but it makes games played by teams on or near the bubble more meaningful.

I think 2001-2010 was the best era ever for college football. Elite program and teams but enough parity. You could basically watch every game your team played. Before the transfer portal era. Conferences still mattered and made sense. The regular season was still so important. Upsets meant so much more. The BCS wasn't perfect but better than the old system.

 

[zjcvols]

The biggest thing I can't stand about college football right now is the conferences and the schedule. Yeah, NIL/transfer portal has made the game different and there's negatives to it, but overall I can live with it because it's the right thing morally. Watching some talented QB get stuck for 3 years behind a 1st rounder or players not being able to leave because their coach bailed and not getting paid what they are worth sucked. If the NCAA didn't spend all their money and resources fighting the Supreme Court, instead working on a fair system, we would be in a much better place.

The conferences thing is disgusting. Think about this, the 4 professional major sports leagues will squeeze out every penny they can for profit, and even they respect regional rivalries more than college sports. What Greg Sankey and Kevin Warren (and the Presidents) have done is truly shameful. The way schedules are set up sucks. If I could go back, I would have passed an NCAA by law saying only ten teams per conference. Would have protected the sport. Instead we got stupid stuff like Cal/Stanford/SMU in the ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE and Central Florida/Cincinnati/West Virginia in the freaking Big 12 that has 16 teams in it. Imagine if Tennessee had this schedule:

Preaseason- ETSU
8/30- Home vs. Syracuse
9/6- Home vs. UAB
9/13- Away vs. Florida
9/20- BYE
9/27- Home vs. South Carolina
10/4- Home vs. Georgia
10/11- Away vs. LSU
10/18- Away vs. Alabama
10/25- Home vs. New Mexico
11/1- BYE
11/8- Home vs. Mississippi State
11/15- Away vs. Ole Miss
11/22- Home vs. Vanderbilt
11/29- Away vs. Kentucky

Just would make me more excited. Instead we play ETSU, we play Syracuse in Atlanta in that soulless dome, we play Oklahoma in ****ing November. Just doesn't make college football the same.

 

[zjcvols]

ACC: Central Florida, Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami (FL), North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Wake Forest
Big Ten: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin
Central Ten: BYU, Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Utah
Metro Conference: Boston College, Cincinnati, Louisville, Maryland, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, West Virginia
Pac-10: Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington State
Southeastern Conference: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Miss State, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Southwest Conference: Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, LSU, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Tulane

FCS games are preseason. Nine game conference schedule. One P7 team you must play.

It can be so simple.

 

[05_never_again]

I think 2001-2010 was the best era ever for college football. Elite program and teams but enough parity. You could basically watch every game your team played. Before the transfer portal era. Conferences still mattered and made sense. The regular season was still so important. Upsets meant so much more. The BCS wasn't perfect but better than the old system.

The BCS was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be.

 

[zjcvols]

The BCS was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be.

It sucked because from 2000-2008 they had some **** luck.

2000- Computers don't factor in head-to-head, FSU gets in. They fix it so head to head matters more.

2001- Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska all get upset in the final two weeks of the regular season. Tennessee gets upset. Oregon doesn't have a conference title game to boost the resume, Nebraska gets in without winning their division.

2003- They get three one-loss teams. USC doesn't play a conference title because they had the stupid 12-team rule, Oklahoma does. OU has a better resume all year, Darren Sproles torches them, Oklahoma gets in.

2004- Three undefeated perfect teams. Everyone felt bad for USC the previous year, the SEC wasn't THE SEC quite yet, Auburn gets left out.

2008- Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech play in the same division, somehow all go 11-1.

2011 was the straw that broke the camel's back. I think 4 was perfect honestly. That way you had an answer if you had 3 perfect teams or had 3 1-loss teams vying for 2 spots. The problem was they didn't keep the BCS. They did the stupid committee.

 

[sami]

It sucked because from 2000-2008 they had some **** luck.

2000- Computers don't factor in head-to-head, FSU gets in. They fix it so head to head matters more.

2001- Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska all get upset in the final two weeks of the regular season. Tennessee gets upset. Oregon doesn't have a conference title game to boost the resume, Nebraska gets in without winning their division.

2003- They get three one-loss teams. USC doesn't play a conference title because they had the stupid 12-team rule, Oklahoma does. OU has a better resume all year, Darren Sproles torches them, Oklahoma gets in.

2004- Three undefeated perfect teams. Everyone felt bad for USC the previous year, the SEC wasn't THE SEC quite yet, Auburn gets left out.

2008- Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech play in the same division, somehow all go 11-1.

2011 was the straw that broke the camel's back. I think 4 was perfect honestly. That way you had an answer if you had 3 perfect teams or had 3 1-loss teams vying for 2 spots. The problem was they didn't keep the BCS. They did the stupid committee.

I always preferred the BCS, but might have felt differently if they had used the same system for selecting four teams instead of the corrupt committee. Why they went that route I'll never get other than my suspicion that they wanted control over the matchups.

 

[zjcvols]

I always preferred the BCS, but might have felt differently if they had used the same system for selecting four teams instead of the corrupt committee. Why they went that route I'll never get other than my suspicion that they wanted control over the matchups.

The worst thing that happened was Ohio State winning the title. Baylor and TCU both had much better cases but OSU got in for Big Ten/TV reasons. Cardale goes on an absolute Nick Foles run, they win the title and the committee got a free pass.

 

[sami]

The worst thing that happened was Ohio State winning the title. Baylor and TCU both had much better cases but OSU got in for Big Ten/TV reasons. Cardale goes on an absolute Nick Foles run, they win the title and the committee got a free pass.

Yeah, that certainly became the poster child for "the committee got it right" crowd, didn't it?

 

[05_never_again]

I always preferred the BCS, but might have felt differently if they had used the same system for selecting four teams instead of the corrupt committee. Why they went that route I'll never get other than my suspicion that they wanted control over the matchups.

Unless you want to have a computer(s) completely determine it, in college sports, there is always going to be some degree of human beings (whether via polls or a committee) picking the matchups. There are 136 FBS teams who can't come remotely close to all playing each other (even at the conference level) with wildly different strengths of schedules. It is why, for most of the history of the sport, there wasn't even really a strong desire to crown a "national champion." People didn't think there was really a point to it. If you won your rivalry games and won your conference, you had a great season. If someone asked "But who is the best team in the country," the response would be something like "I don't know, but who cares?" Crowning a single team as a national champion was kind of looked at in the same way as we'd look at determining which single high school team was the best in the country - it wasn't something people really thought about, plus nobody really had a great way of going about it.

Mythical national championship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The need to crown a singular team as that year's national champion wasn't really a thing until the 1990s, as the game became more professionalized. The desire to do so has just gotten even more intense since then, to the point where a lot of fanbases think they've had an awful season if they don't win or almost win a national title.

 

[feathersax]

The BCS was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be.

The BCS worked ever6 time. Thanks, Roy Kramer.

 

[GVF]

Is it true Georgia Tech was SEC football champion more than the combined number of Kentucky, Vandy, USC, Missouri, and Mississippi State? With the endless merry-go-round of conferences, could you ever see the day the SEC invited them back in if the conference went to 22 or 24 colleges?

The force was with GT right up to the day they left the conference. Dodd led that race cause he was butt hurt over some things, and as many alumni predicted it did ruin GT athletics. Not just football.

There was also some serious ego involved. Dodd thought it was beneath the GT brand to have to travel to go play the Mississippi schools, who just happened to be the two votes to block the return of GT in '75 or '73. This is all well documented within the walls of Google.

 

[GVF]

Unless you want to have a computer(s) completely determine it, in college sports, there is always going to be some degree of human beings (whether via polls or a committee) picking the matchups. There are 136 FBS teams who can't come remotely close to all playing each other (even at the conference level) with wildly different strengths of schedules. It is why, for most of the history of the sport, there wasn't even really a strong desire to crown a "national champion." People didn't think there was really a point to it. If you won your rivalry games and won your conference, you had a great season. If someone asked "But who is the best team in the country," the response would be something like "I don't know, but who cares?" Crowning a single team as a national champion was kind of looked at in the same way as we'd look at determining which single high school team was the best in the country - it wasn't something people really thought about, plus nobody really had a great way of going about it.

Mythical national championship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The need to crown a singular team as that year's national champion wasn't really a thing until the 1990s, as the game became more professionalized. The desire to do so has just gotten even more intense since then, to the point where a lot of fanbases think they've had an awful season if they don't win or almost win a national title.

Yet there always seems to be a mythical HS national champion.

 

[GVF]

I know this is all subjective, but there's just no way in the world that the pre-BCS world was better. It was crazy (and not in a "this is so entertaining" way, but in a "this is silly" way) to have the most popular college sport determine its national champion by whoever the media thought the best team was after all the games were played. And until the 1970s, the final poll came out before the bowl games! And we think they are meaningless now...

Ambiguity does make things more interesting...to a point. People eventually got frustrated with that, and rightly so, over time. Even with the CFP, college football is still the sport (college or pro) that has by far the most meaningful regular season. It does make games played by a team(s) with a locked-up playoff spot less meaningful, but it makes games played by teams on or near the bubble more meaningful.

The only people that can say that are the ones that are too young to have lived in both eras. Or all three. Pre-BCS, BCS, Post-BCS. It wasn't about a flawed system. But, that flawed system kept it flowing cause it gave ESPN the conversations they needed to survive 24 hour broadcasts.

It was about the games true passion in its intended truest form that is missing as us old-timers experienced it. And the notion that when you were building your recruiting it was for the next 4 years. There was excitement because they weren't bailing after 12 games. Been a Volfan most of my 60 years. Used to yell, jump and scream at that TV. It was beautiful. Nowadays it barely changes my heart rate. The college game has been detrimentally dismantled for mere greed.

 

[Boston Vol]

I've always thought that all the sport needed was the pre-bcs system with just a plus one title game after the bowl games.

 

[GVF]

It’s always funny when people bring this up. No mention that the SEC only had one team win any playoff games

Yeah it's entertaining that no one plays football the way the SEC plays football...until the post season and they all kick our butts around like rag dolls. Happens every year. SEC is lucky to even break .500 in post season games. Remove Bamas run under Saban, and the rest of the SEC could have been demoted to G5. Barring a few support appearances by UGA. Not talking all-time. Just recent years. All-time the SEC is only school predominantly over .500. No one else really is. But, all-time ain't been playing the last 10-20 years.

I'd be happy to be disputed with some stats. Just don't use last years post season in the numbers. And don't bring me all-time stats. I know the SEC is light years ahead there. I'd say from 2010 -2024. Let's see some recent compilations.

Edit: Bowl Performance last 4 post seasons

American	0.643​
Big Ten	0.601​
Sun Belt	0.542​
SEC	0.525​
MAC	0.522​
Big 12	0.484​
Independent	0.475​
Mountain West	0.473​
C–USA	0.394​
ACC	0.375​
Pac-12	0.246​

The real kicker is how bad the ACC performs in bowls with all the G5 conferences above them. Almost like Clemson is the only ACC team to ever win in post season.

 

[GVF]

I've always thought that all the sport needed was the pre-bcs system with just a plus one title game after the bowl games.

Same here. Thought it was always pretty easy to say who the two best were fairly confidently after the bowl games played out. And would have been thoroughly enjoyable. Would put heavy importance in how the top 10 in the regular season played out their bowl games. Would be some killer games to set that 1/2 pecking order.

 

[Boston Vol]

I've always thought that all the sport needed was the pre-bcs system with just a plus one title game after the bowl games.

Just to build on this, here’s what the pre-BCS 90s title games would have looked like under a plus-one model. How good would this have been?

1990
11-1-1 Colorado
11-0-1 Ga Tech

1991
12-0 Miami
12-0 Washington

1992
13-0 Alabama
11-1 FSU

1993
12-1 FSU
11-1 Notre Dame

1994
13-0 Nebraska
12-0 Penn State

1995
12-0 Nebraska
11-1 Tennessee

1996
12-1 Florida
11-1 Ohio State

1997
13-0 Nebraska
12-0 Michigan


Now, there’s no guarantee that the bowls would have played out the same way. The bowl coalition/alliance might not have even been needed if there was a plus-one title game, but in my opinion, this would still be the best system for college football.