Official College Football Championship Week Thread
 

We've reached the end of the college football regular season. With all due respect to the Army-Navy game next weekend, all other teams wrap up play this weekend. There is only one matchup of BCS Top 25 teams not connected with a conference championship game, Texas at Kansas State.

Here are the Conference Championship games:

Northern Illinois vs. Kent State - MAC
UCLA vs. Stanford - PAC 12
Central Florida vs. Tulsa - Conference USA
Alabama vs. Georgia - SEC
Florida State vs. Georgia Tech - ACC
Nebraska vs. Wisconsin - Big Ten

Times, just for the heck of it

NIU - Kent St 7p Fri ESPN2
UCLA-Stanford 8pm Fri on Fox
UCF - Tulsa 12n ESPN2
Bama - UGA 4p CBS
FSU - GT 8p ESPN
Texas - KState 8p ABC
Nebraska - Wisconsin 817p Fox

Not sure how the Texas-K State game is gonna turn out. David Ash turned back into the horrible 2011 version against TCU, with two picks in the red zone and an incomprehensible fumble on a throwing motion near their own end zone. Case McCoy has been named the starter for the game. But a pissed off K State team has had two weeks to prepare, and they have had Texas's number the past few years.

Hope Rutgers doesn't choke at home. Also would like to see Kent State get into a BCS game over some retread major conference team that's played a better schedule and tougher competition. Naturally would prefer the former over the latter but both doing their jobs would be fine.

Might as well add the Rutgers - Louisville game as it's a de facto conference championship, with the winner getting the BCS bid. ESPN Thursday night at 7:30.

I'm not a big fan of saying someone should be fired, but I just listened to the Mora press conference after the Stanford game, and that reporter should be fired. How any media outlet would want him representing them is beyond me.

I feel so dirty that I have to root for Texas so OU can be the sole Big 12 Champion.

TJ Simers, ladies and gentlemen. He is an utter and complete douche and his sole purpose is to get a rise out of people so he can write about it. He is one of the main reasons I would have to avoid the LA Times if I bothered to still have a paper.

Nice to see the national championship game scheduled so early for once. :D

I kinda want to see GT win and Kent St. get into a BCS bowl game. The Orange Bowl pitting GT against Kent St. would get tens, maybe even hundreds of viewers.

And Kent State might even win. A MAC team winning a BCS game. Yes please.

Well at least until the half when Kent had a 4 or 5 TD lead. At that point I figure interest would wane.

Kent should probably be an underdog at NIU, but I'll be rooting hard for them and against UCLA and Texas.

Kent vs. Georgia Tech would be hilarious, 2 of the most run heavy teams in the country. The Orange Bowl could offset some of the losses from having an empty stadium by painting rocks and substituting them in for the footballs.

Flying up to NJ to catch the RU-UL game. Sadly, this is my first RU home game since I graduated a while ago. Last RU game I went to was at the Ville a few years ago, we had a 4 TD lead or something and Brohm came back to win.

I had no idea a win, coupled with a Kent State win, could put RU in the Sugar Bowl. Apparently there will be some reps from the Sugar Bowl there in case we win. I guess RU is more attractive than Kent State for the Sugar.

Anyone know what the revenue increase would be for the MAC if they get a team in the BCS?

Quick look at the bowl/payout schedule tells me that their 3 bids combine for $1.825MM. They can take a 4th spot some years but I don't imagine that would increase the pie very much. BCS game payouts are around $17MM, and I'm not sure if the MAC gets a small, small slice from the pie or not every year for being part of the "system".

I'm not sure how the conference shares bowl revenue.

In ten years this will make a great trivia question:

A team that finished third in their division played in their conference championship game. Name that team.

Which one? Wisconsin or Georgia Tech? If you follow the ACC tiebreakers, the Jackets would be eliminated from the three-team tie based on the loss to VPI.

Does the three team tie count as first, second, third? Wisconsin is third without any ties in front of them.

Kind of random, but I just read that (provided Kansas doesn't beat WVU in Morgantown on Saturday) the Big 12 didn't lose a game this season to a non-bowl team. Every team in the conference except for Kansas finished bowl eligible despite playing 9 conference games and the only four OOC losses came to:

12-0 Notre Dame (over Oklahoma)
11-1 Northern Illinois (over Kansas)
7-5 Arizona (over OSU)
6-6 Rice (over Kansas)

I just threw up in mouth a little.

I think it's a 14 or 15M increase to what they normally get from the BCS.

Under the current system, non-AQ conferences split 18% of the BCS pie if one of their teams makes a BCS bowl game and 9% if none of them does.


But they'd have to share that with the other non-AQ conferences, so it gets split about 60 ways or so, so each would get about $400k or so.

If the MAC was an AQ conference, they only have to share that $28.2 million with the 12 other members of the MAC. So it's a pretty big difference and that revenue split won't change under the new system, they'll still have to share that revenue for a BCS bid that's reserved for the MAC/Big East/MWC/Sun Belt/C-USA in the new system too.

56 non-AQ schools plus Army, Navy and BYU. So their share would be split 59 ways and in two years, the Big East gets added to that pot. ;)

Cannot wait for tonight. Was wide awake at 5:52 and got in to work early, will be out of here by 1 or so and headed to Brunswick. Going to be perfect November football weather tonight.

My fiancee thought I was a nutjob because last night I kept trying on different layering methods of clothes for the game to figure out the best combination. It didn't help that I paced around the apartment for two hours afterwards.

I expect the team to win. Too much to play for in front of the home crowd, Louisville is banged up, especially Bridgewater who we should be able to get to.

A loss would obviously be tremendously disappointing given the spot the team was in two weeks ago. There's a billion reasons to love it, but this is really why I'm so ecstatic about the Big 10 move. Because if we ended up stuck in the Big East with the schools they've recently and continue to bring in, nights like tonight wouldn't have the same meaning.

Let's fucking go.

I don't think that's how it works.

Based on 2011 payouts (2010 season), when TCU was an AQ, The non AQ conferences got 24.72M total with the Mountain West getting 12.75 Million. They got 24M in 2010 (2009 season) with the MWC getting 9.8 and the WAC getting 7.8M for having the 2 BCS teams.

I would expect the MAC to get close to 15M a team with the other 4 conferences dividing up the rest. Army, Navy and BYU as independents get 100K, but aren't included in the non AQ pool.

Honey Badger to enter the draft. Might as well since he's smoked away his college career. He might as well get what he can as a pro while he has little chance left.

The Bengals should open up as favorites at 5/1 here

Ok, I just looked at the wiki page too and saw that. That makes more sense to me. There were other sites that seemed to misinterpret what the MAC would get, probably because no one seriously considered this ever happening.

Big Nebraska fan this weekend! GO CORNHUSKERS!!!

Empire State Building lit red tonight for Rutgers.

Louisville backup Will Stein gets the start.

First play on offense for Rutgers.

85-yard touchdown pass.

ugh, that penalty on the fake field goal is a huge momentum swing as Louisville goes down the field and scores a td

yuck

The only positive is they're moving the ball through the air and there's a whole quarter. So there's that.

Yahoo, 6-8 here we come

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets get bowl waiver approved by NCAA - ESPN

Ok, I can't watch this game anymore. I hope they win, but they're just so frustrating.

Same. old. Rutgers.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bowl here we come.

Least surprising result of the week. At least Rutgers is a family. :p

Someone get Logan the biggest bottle of peppermint schnapps they can find

WOO HOO!!!

I've seen enough Gary Nova for one lifetime.

When the Scarlet Knights come out in all black (aside from our ghettofabulous Chrome helmets), sporting F.A.M.I.L.Y. on every jersey, we deserve everything we get.

WR Tim Wright needs to take a long look in the mirror.

Whole team sucked overall. Take away the 2 big plays and we basically punted all night while letting a crippled QB pick us apart.

Hey, maybe next year...right? When the Big East is even weaker? We have a one year window before becoming the B1G doormat.

Those helmets were pretty popular on Twitter. ;)

Does this mean Pernetti has the green light to drop Flood as head coach prior to the B1G move?

Seriously? Holy crap, WTF? It's like they were playing for the joining the Big 10 and then when that was accomplished it was done.

Thank you kindly.

What Teddy Bridgewater did last night on one ankle and with one wrist was really amazing. He threw some beautiful balls, especially on 3rd downs, and his receivers made big plays when they needed to. Simply put, they executed when we didn't. Their WRs spin three times adjusting to a ball in the air on a deep post, and make diving 30 yard catches on 3rd and long, while our 5th year senior WR drops a wide open bomb, possibly a TD, and then drops a crucial long 3rd down pass and also manages to knee the ball into the defender's arms.

Our OL got abused at the LOS while we could barely get near Bridgewater (who wasn't relying on his own mobility) unless we were sending the house...at which time he calmly found the soft openings in our D.

Time of possession was 42-18 in Louisville's favor. Simply can't win that way. Some of that is offset by the two quick TDs we scored, but all year, our ability to sustain drives was an issue.

Forgot to add of course that the illegal man downfield penalty was the backbreaker. Would have been 21-3, instead Louisville marches downfield, scores a TD, we fumble the kick return, and they score again. 17-14 UL.

Agree. The atmosphere in the stadium wasn't the same after Louisville's first TD.