Back from vacation...READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!

Neckthai · Post by **Neckthai** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 1:19 pm

PK... two words
 
 Keith Smart
 
 <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_razz.gif">

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 1:38 pm

Neck:
 
 Six words:
 
 F*ck you.
 Carmelo Anthony.
 Hey Phillippe.
 
 <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif">
 
 Out,
 PK [ This message was edited by: pk500 on 16-07-2003 10:38 ]

bkrich83 · Post by **bkrich83** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 5:24 pm

Sup Jack, long time no talk, glad you had a nice vacation.
 
 Fave teams
 NFL-San Diego Chargers
 College- Arizona Wildcats
 
 Arizona is my favorite team in college, but I follow all the Pac 10 teams pretty religiously. Actually I follow all of college football pretty heavily.
 
 I would agree with everyone, the BCS is a joke and the lack of a playoff system hurts the credibility of college football. What I would have given to see OSU´s defense go up against USC´s speed and firepower on offense. Or Oregon vs. Miami two years ago. The list is endless.
 
 I have been saying this for 12 years now, ever since Washington and Miami had to split the title. Now that would have been a fun game to watch.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:08 pm

Steve Emtman ... Lord, there´s a name from the past.
 
 SF, BK: Whatever happened to that guy? He was an animal at Washington, but I don´t ever remember hearing much about him in the pros. Injury? Bust?
 
 Take care,
 PK

Neckthai · Post by **Neckthai** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:16 pm

Emtman got picked No. 1 overall by the Colts and played pretty well as a rookie, but he had two severe knee injuries and was a shell of his college self. He signed with Miami and maybe Seattle before fading away like Tony Mandarich.
 
 neck

bkrich83 · Post by **bkrich83** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 9:50 pm

Neck hit it. Emtman had a pretty darn good rookie year. But then had two of the worst knee injuries I have ever seen. Was never the same after that.

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:24 am

bkrich83...Are you ready for camps to open brother? I can´t wait. Great to hear from you,I look forward to you throwing some knowledge my way on my favorite sport ever.
 
 Remember our bet for the Pack / Lighting Bolts matchup this year? What the hell are we going to bet anyhow? Well we have a few months to work that out <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_wink.gif">

bkrich83 · Post by **bkrich83** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:55 am

No doubt Jack, I am up for the bet.
 
 And hell yes, I am counting down the days for camp to open. Can´t wait to get my first glimpse of David Boston in a Chargers uni.

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 9:56 am

bkrich83....David Boston is a great pick up. It should be a very interesting year for the Chargers. They should make the playoffs this year.
 
 I am also interested in what the Bengals will do this year. I like Marvin Lewis,I want to see what he can do as a Head Coach.
 
 Peace.

NovaStar · Post by **NovaStar** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 10:26 am

Hey Jackdog, welcome back. I enjoyed reading about your little adventure on the train. Grabbed that porter by the neck, I like your style!! <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif"> My teams are:
 
 College-Florida State
 
 NFL- Minnesota, and all the NY/NJ teams.

bdt92 · Post by **bdt92** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 2:13 pm

Bk,
 You should get tickets to the Bears/Chargers game here in Chicago on Nov. 2. I´ve got season tickets so we could meet up and celebrate a Bears victory after the game. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_razz.gif">

bkrich83 · Post by **bkrich83** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 4:39 pm

You know BDT thats not a bad idea. I may try to do that. My brother is the Defensive Coordinator at Lakeland college and Chicago´s not too far from him. I was going to visit him and see one of his games this year, maybe I could get my trip to coincide with that.
 
 I would be happy to drink the beers you pay for after the Bolts roll over Chicago.
 
 <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_wink.gif">

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 12:37 pm

HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!!!!!
 
 Wahoo! Training camp for the ´Skins is only 1 week away! Here´s hoping Parcells has a nervous breakdown thanks to his QBS!!! Or maybe just melts into a goo in the Texas heat.
 And for me it has to be UMD, especially now that the Len Bias effect has finally been put to rest (thanks to those 2 great alum/coaches they have now in hoops and football).
 
 As to this playoff/BCS moaning and whining; to me, college sports is all about the league season. In 2 years, my beloved ACC will be ruined forever, but for 2 years still I can hold on to the past. Listen PK, ask dave010 if any Brits complain about not having a post-season playoff for the so-called ´chamionship´ in the EPL. Sure they have their FA Cup and their League Cup, but the season is where the Championship is decided, over the long haul, not some dressed-up, over-hyped, short-term game of craps. College athletics is the last great bastion in the US where the regular season actually has meaning. I could care less about some nebulous ´National Championship.´ Sure it´s an honor, but it´s more important to me that UMD destroy UVA and NC State every year. I mean we´re talking about picking one team out of what, 100-something schools, to say ´that one single team, and they alone, had a successful season.´ I just can´t see it that way. Even with an all-NCAA playoff, it would be a joke, as plenty of good teams would be left behind, unless it was a massive 64 team marathon like the hoops. What the heck? Who needs conference games? Why not just make the whole season a massive tourney for the weird looking crystal football trophy? So for me, I choose to pay the most attention to the conference season, and guess what, even though UMD has almost no chance of ever winning the National Championship, they can still have a successful season in my book, as they have ever since Big Ralph came home.
 Just my 2 cents.

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 1:16 pm

Hugo
 
 Some interesting points about the ´playoff v season´ debate.
 
 My take is as follows...
 
 1. The Premier League can do without playoffs for the simple reason that every team plays every other home and away during the season. There is thus no argument about strength of schedule etc, as everyones is the same. The one thing that may affect the end of season is where the team you are playing may have an added incentive to win (for a European place, or to avoid relegation). Still, that can´t be predicted at the start of the season.
 
 The only British sports to have adopted an end-of-season playoff are Rugby League and Rugby Union. RL adopted theirs 8 years ago, once they moved the season to Summer to avoid competing with soccer. The whole competition remodelled itself on the Australian Rugby League (ARL), and the Grand Final is now an accepted part of the British sporting calendar.
 
 Rugby Union adopted this system 2 years ago, and has had some teething troubles as fans struggle with the concept of being top all season then not being ´champions´. Still. as the game is one of the most boring on the planet other than basketball and Aussie Rules, I couldn´t care less.
 
 As for college football, I can see why, with differing strengths of schedule and the element of personal preference inherent in voting, why people think that a playoff system is required. Hopefully my own knowledge of the rules will be enhanced by 03 being my first season with access to live TV games, so I might change my mind.
 
 I must admit though, playoffs in some of the other sports (NHL/NBA in particular) look ridiculous. You play 80 or 82 games to eliminate less than half the teams ? What´s that all about ?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 6:17 pm

>>>Listen PK, ask dave010 if any Brits complain about not having a post-season playoff for the so-called ´chamionship´ in the EPL.<<<
 
 Hugo:
 
 Lousy analogy. Period.
 
 As Dave said, every Premiership team plays each other on a home-and-home basis. So there´s no need for a playoff. The regular season has meaning, and there´s a balanced schedule among every team in the top flight.
 
 But that kind of comprehensive schedule and schedule balance is impossible in college football. You´ll always have some matchups among powerhouse schools that don´t happen during the regular season. So how are you going to know which team is the best? You really don´t care if your team is the best in the land? I find that hard to believe.
 
 Your analogy between the Premiership and conference college football also is flawed because there is one top flight of English football, period. The Premiership. There are at least five top-flight Division I college football conferences that play an approximately equal caliber of football depending on the year: ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC and the Pac-10, in no particular order.
 
 In the Premiership, the team with the most points is the champion of the top flight, obviously. But are we supposed to have five top-flight champions in college football -- the champs of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC and Pac-10?
 
 You´re in a major minority, I think, among fans who are satisfied with winning their conference.
 
 As I said in my earlier post, I´m not satisfied with Syracuse men´s basketball just winning the Big East. I didn´t cry when SU has won Big East titles in the past, regular season or tournament. But I got quite misty when the Orange won the national championship -- in a playoff, not some bullshit game set up by sports writers and a computer -- in April.
 
 I´m sure Ohio State football fans felt the same emotion last January. They wept the kind of tears -- even for winning a pseudo national title due to the lack of a playoff -- that aren´t shed for winning the Big 10 regular-season title.
 
 Take care,
 PK [ This message was edited by: pk500 on 19-07-2003 15:20 ]

bkrich83 · Post by **bkrich83** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 6:27 pm

You guys are forgetting one thing. Soccer sucks the big one. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_razz.gif">
 
 Ahh I feel much better, got my anti-soccer post in for the week.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 7:01 pm

PK
 
 Believe me I know I am in the minority. And yes, the anaolgy to the EPL or soccer leagues in general was not meant as an appeal to use that system in this case. I simply meant to point out that conference seasons can be satisfying competitions, even without a post season tourney. I think my point of view comes from the realization that with so many schools, and in a sport where 10 or 11 games is plenty enough, due to the physical nature of the thing, we would never be able to truly determine a national champ the way we do in say hoops or baseball or other games. Just can´t do it. And to me, even a playoff would leave out some great teams as well as remove the possibility for the crazy and amazing upsets we get in the hoops tourney, unless it was like 6 weeks long. So I think that even an 8 team playoff would not be enough to satisfy me that the team that wins that tourney is truly the best team in the land. So I say, lose the BCS, and give us back the freedom to argue and discuss and disagree as to who the National Champion should be. I will say though that last seasons´ Championship game was not terrible, like they have been up to last year.
 
 And I know I am old fashioned, as I pine for the days in Baseball when the regular season games were known as Championship Games, because the league WAS the Championship and then the 2 Champions would play the World Series. Those days are long gone, and I am fully aware that they are.
 
 Dave 010- I couldn´t agree more about the NBA and NHL systems; the regular seasons are all but meaningless to me, except for a few rivalry type games each season and of course as the season winds down and playoff positions are solidified. Mostly playoff expansion is about about the loot. However, the playoffs, especially in Hockey, are so grand that it´s worth the wait. The Stanley Cup is definitely deserving of such a long and tough ´second season.´
 
 And PK I sort of understand you on the hoops; many a tear was shed here when the Terps finally won the big thing, but still, there is frustration as they have yet to win the ACC Tourney since Len Bias played for them and won it. They did win the ACC a couple years ago though. That was pretty darn sweet, in some ways even MORE satisfying than winning the big dance. Not just a reward for 6 wins in a row (not that that is an easy task by any means), but rather a reward for winning the most games across the entire 16 game home and away season, and against the same schools you play every year. It was especially sweet for a Terps fan in a family in which two sisters went to Duke, and my best friend from college was from Chapel Hill. Maybe you don´t feel so strongly about your Big East season because they´ve watered it down so much with so many football schools. I mean I can´t deal with the fact that in NCAA basketball there are conferences anymore that DON´T have every team play every other team twice. And conferences where not every team goes to the conference tourney (ahem, Bloated East, and I still like Goergetown too, and live in NYC, so I do love Big East hoops). Soon the ACC will be that way and I for one think it´s a shame.
 
 I think my skewed mindset comes down to this; for a long time America had no problem with meaningful regular seasons in their sports. Now, more and more sports are falling into the ´playoff trap,´ where we must conjure up some way, no matter how contrived or tangential (eg BCS) the system may be, to create the all-powerful winner-take-all "Championship Game." I for one am disappointed that MLS for example insists on having playoffs. And maybe I am the only one.
 
 Of course I want my team to be the best in the land, but I just don´t know if there is a way to absolutely determine that in the vast game of College Football.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:24 pm

Hugo:
 
 So bowl games are meaningless for you? After all, they have no bearing on the conference title.
 
 And if the ACC goes to a conference title game, will your Terps winning that mean more to you than if the Terps also won the BCS title game in the same year?
 
 Just checking! <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif">
 
 Take care,
 PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:24 pm

BK:
 
 You used to think NASCAR sucked, bro. Now look at you.
 
 You will be converted to footie sometime, dude.
 
 Until then, F U. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif">
 
 Out,
 PK

bkrich83 · Post by **bkrich83** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:25 pm

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD>Quote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><BLOCKQUOTE>
 On 2003-07-19 17:24, pk500 wrote:
 BK:
 
 You used to think NASCAR sucked, bro. Now look at you.
 
 You will be converted to footie sometime, dude.
 
 Until then, F U. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif">
 
 Out,
 PK
 </BLOCKQUOTE></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>
 
 
 DAMNIT Good point!!! <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon27.gif"> <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon27.gif">
 
 Eh, F.U. PK for being right. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_wink.gif">

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:40 am

No, bowl games aren´t meaningless, I love bowl games, I think they´re great.
 
 I don´t really like the idea of conference championship games, I feel the college game should stick to full round-robin conference seasons. That said, since they happen, I love to watch ´em. Just ´cause I don´t like the system doesn´t mean I simply ignore it. Are you kidding? I´d go crazy if UMD won the BCS title, and I´d go crazy if they won an ACC title game (though I hope they can win a proper championship before it´s too late). And if they won both in the same year- well they´d have to, wouldn´t they, ´cause if they lost the conference title game they couldn´t be in the BCS title game.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:53 am

Hmm ... that´s one of the key areas where we differ: I think bowl games are a joke, especially now that the BCS has ruined the traditional conference alignments to some bowls.
 
 They´re overhyped exhibition games, and just about every team with a winning record gets a bowl bid due to the glut of bowls.
 
 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ...
 
 I´ll take the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl -- a true college football championship title game -- over any Division I bowl, any day.
 
 I don´t even get that stoked when Syracuse plays in a bowl game. Does a pennant hanging in the Carrier Dome reading (insert year) Gator Bowl Champion mean a f*cking thing? Not really. And certainly not as much as the pennant that will hang in the Dome this year that reads: SU Men´s Basketball -- 2003 NCAA National Champions.
 
 Take care,
 PK [ This message was edited by: pk500 on 19-07-2003 21:57 ]

bdt92 · Post by **bdt92** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 1:12 pm

I don´t know how anyone can even get into the bowl games. I mean seriously, if MLB or the NFL adopted a BCS type system where the ´supposed´ top 2 teams played each other in the World Series or Super Bowl not one damn person would care about the World Series or Super Bowl.
 
 Take the top 24 teams and have a playoff. College football is a joke with all these meaningless bowl games. They´re all about the money. Hell, if I was a rich man I could sponsor the "BDT BOWL". But I wouldn´t call it that, I´d call it the "KEEP BENDING OVER AND TAKING IT UP THE WAZOO WHILE THERE IS STILL NO TRUE NATIONAL CHAMPION BOWL".

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:59 pm

Well PK, I can´t agree more that there are far too many bowl games. But I still love the big ones, and though they are exhibitions, they are far from meaningless. College football is so diverse with so many great traditions all over the country, the bowl games should be a chance for teams that have had exceptional seasons to enjoy a competitive matchup with a school they woudln´t normally play in a celebratory atmosphere. Why they need to be any more than that I just don´t see. This compulsive need to matchup #1 vs. #2 and the system that this has engendered has eroded the real (to me) value of bowl games as much as the obscene glut of ridiculous new bowl games the past 10 years.
 If we need to decide absolutely one single perfect super #1 team each year, than do it in a fair playoff.