All true, but their one big win was better than any of ours. Our losses are to two top five teams, so that helps. When was the last time Tennessee was in a major bowl?
FC: The Daily Collegian says Penn State deserves, but probably won't get, an NY6 Bowl....
- Thread starter Midnighter
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All true, but their one big win was better than any of ours. Our losses are to two top five teams, so that helps. When was the last time Tennessee was in a major bowl?
That's the bugger, for sure.
Tennessee beat Top 10 ranked teams in back-to-back games last month. PSU hasn't beaten a Top 25 team in 3 years.
Will that carry more weight than UT's recent ugly loss to Scar? And the loss of their QB?
One could argue either way. (Maybe Vandy will make it two SEC wins in a row, by knocking off UT, and make the hypothesizing moot
)
In the invitational nature of the current system, the loss of Hooker should be weighed in heavily. With no way to qualify, yes, injuries matter.
And if Vandy wins, it would be 3 sec wins in a row. UK and UF already been taken down.
Assuming LSU finishes with 3 losses and Alabama with 2 losses, the Sugar Bowl is going to select LSU and the Orange Bowl is going to select Alabama. The final CFP rankings will be manipulated to allow that to happen. After the final 4 are selected, the bowls/ESPN/committee enter into a perfectly legal collaborative process to produce the matchups that the bowls and ESPN want. If you don't think the bowls and ESPN have any influence on the process, I've got beachfront property in Arizona to sell you (meaning anyone, not you personally Midnighter!) It happens every year and look no further than 2019 when it included Penn State in the process (CFP weekly rankings):
Nov 12 - PSU 9th, Florida 11th
Nov 19 - PSU 8th, Florida 11th
Nov 26 - PSU 10th (after the loss to Ohio State), Florida 11th
Dec 3 - Florida 9th, PSU 10th
Why did the committee flip Florida in front of PSU for that last ranking? Because the Orange Bowl wanted a home team crowd (Florida) to sell tickets against a weak UVA team from the ACC. They needed the SEC team to be ranked higher than the B10 team. So, Penn State got shuffled off to the Cotton Bowl against Memphis.
There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the Sugar Bowl would have LSU as their first choice of teams from the SEC this year - huge home crowd interest. The head to head win over Alabama can be used as justification by the committee to place them one spot in front of Alabama. At the same time, the Orange Bowl will be thrilled to have Alabama - yes, even more so than Penn State, especially if it is a Clemson - Alabama matchup.
So, anyone that is going through a mind-numbing analysis of SOS, margin of win/loss, quality of win/loss, home or away, early loss or late loss, etc etc is wasting their time. ESPN is paying $500 MILLION per year to televise the NY6. These NY6 bowls are big time events within their respective communities. These entities have a huge say in the matchups (taking into consideration the ties-ins that corelate to each of those bowls).
ESPN - tv ratings determined by matchup's
Bowls - ticket sales and local revenue from hotels, restaurants, etc determined by matchups.
So,
LSU - Sugar
Alabama - Orange
...barring chaos of course.
Bowl execs don't care about whether a school sells its allotted tickets. If the school doesn't sell them, the school (or its Conference) eats them. But, as you write, the sponsors do want people to show up, fill seats, and spend money.
Bowl organizers do like PSU, but I'm not sure it has an advantage over any of the other teams ranked 5-11.
All due respect to UT, but they had to go to OT to beat pitt, and just got boat raced by unranked South Cackilacky…how on God’s green earth should they get in ahead of us??
Hope we play in Florida. Think I am going to surprise the wife and take her. Never did a bowl game. Football, golf, beer! Sign me up!
Will Alabama fans even show up for a NY6 bowl? I doubt it no matter who the opponent.
The should announce the bowl matchups after the NFL draft candidates announce they are sitting out.
2019?
The team that got screwed that year was Utah.
Penn State went to a NY6 Bowl game, and being ranked 9th or 10th had no impact - in either event the slotting within the NY6 bowls was a separate issue (nothing to do with whether PSU/UF was #9 or #10). Florida flipped spots in the rankings with PSU because they curb-stomped a clearly "meh" (but not atrocious) Florida State team in the final week, while PSU played a "take-some-'No-Doze" game against Rutgers - not due to some impotent conspiracy theory.
Now, do the folks who write the checks, as you note, have a big influence with regard to which bowls get which teams (within the parameters established)? Of course they do. Why wouldn't they? They bought those games, the teams/conferences sold them. The buyer has leverage. Penn State (and any of the other big reputation/following programs) has benefited from the financial aspects far more than they have been harmed by them.
UT has been down for so long, their fans will probably travel better than any of the others in the 5-11 range. Unless they are extremely disappointed in the SoCar loss...
Yeah, I think Bama/Clemson in the Orange is actually a pretty terrible matchup for the bowl. Two fanbases who are going to be disappointed with a NY6 bowl rather than excited by it playing an opponent they’ve played a bunch in much more important games. I’d guess TV ratings would be good since the teams have good name recognition among casuals but in terms of “excitement” for the bowl game organizers, I think they’d rather see PSU or Tennessee vs Clemson.
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