(11-19-2023 11:32 AM)schmolik Wrote: (11-19-2023 10:34 AM)CardinalJim Wrote: Hold on this happens every season in a P5 conference. To act like this is some indictment of The SEC and a rebuilding Auburn is silly.
Oklahoma State lost to South Alabama of the Sun Belt and Iowa State lost at Ohio of the MAC from the Big 12.The Cowboys and Cyclones are both bowl eligible. OSU is still mathematically in the race for the Big 12 Conference Championship game.
There’s a big difference between rebuilding P5 teams losing to G5 programs and P5 conference upper echelon teams losing to a P5 team.
Auburn has a losing SEC record.
Fresno State beat Purdue, like the Tigers, the Boilermakers have a losing conference record. That’s why I didn’t include a rebuilding Cincinnati losing to Miami of Ohio.
Is a rebuilding P5 program losing to a bowl eligible P5 team that much of a surprise?
That’s one of the biggest problems with college football. Good or bad the name on the jersey carries too much weight.
When did Louisville join the SEC? Why is a Louisville fan defending the SEC?
G5's beat P5's all the time but as I said previously when it's vs. the SEC "it just means more".
It also happened during SEC "Cupcake Week", a rip on SEC schools for playing these schools this week as opposed to conference games and more meaningful games later in the year. When everyone else plays their cupcakes in September and there's multiple upsets in September, there's plenty of laughing to go around. If Auburn loses to New Mexico State in early September, there's four or other P5's that lost the same week. Oklahoma State lost to South Alabama? Probably wasn't the only embarrassing loss that week (although getting blown out's embarrassing no matter how many schools lost). When you're the only conference playing cupcakes, you single yourselves out when you embarrass yourselves while the Big Ten and Pac 12 are playing each other.
Also, in September teams are trying to figure things with new players out and an upset could be more explainable, especially when you have a new head coach (like Auburn does). In November, the "you're ironing out the bugs" excuse doesn't work anymore.
If this one loss causes the SEC or at least some schools to end Cupcake Week, it's a victory for college football.
Listen up Schmolik:
1. The Big 10 front loads its cupcakes to get a step up on rankings. A cupcake is a cupcake no matter when you schedule it.
2. Auburn's last two seasons under Harsin, easily the worst individual to ever coach at the school, saw two recruiting classes which ranked 40th or lower in the nation when the Auburn average has been between top 10 to top 15 as an average yearly. The man didn't go to any Friday night football games, left recruits without transportation to Auburn at the airport in Atlanta, set up coaching evaluations for local high school teams in a common place (Phenix City Alabama which is across the river from Columbus Georgia, and not an hour from Auburn) which the coaches and kids showed up for, but not Harsin or his staff. Why Auburn is paying a buyout is the mystery. His sorry butt should have been fired for failure to do the job.
3. Who does Auburn play next? Alabama. Traditionally this week, until conferences started growing and media networks started insisting on fewer byes to enhance their marketing, was always a bye week. The cupcake games which were offered at the start of the season (talking first two games) as Auburn always played Tennessee in game 3 in those days and always ended the season with Florida, Georgia, and Alabama all in a row, were negotiated away so that most SEC schools opened with a tough OOC game or played one the second week of the season and two bye weeks for injury recovery were reduced to one. The 11th week in the SEC saw over half of the schools taking byes to get healthy and get ready for their biggest rival. Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Mississippi State would all be idle. The Tennessee vs Kentucky game and whoever L.S.U. played were the only TV options. The cupcake game replaced the bye week and was utilized to get ready for the biggest rival. That's how we wound up with the setup.
4. The SEC has dominated winning national championships since the BCS era. Now why is that? They actually got to play for them. The biggest con job of all was the Rose Bowl which excluded SEC schools and showcased the PAC 12 and Big 10. And then the national championship was decided by AP voters and not on the field. And where did most of those AP voters reside? The largest cities had the preponderance of them, and they voted for that to which their readers would respond favorably.
You might keep that in mind when yanking on Ole Miss because when they had their best seasons and toughest teams, they got little to no recognition in the damned polls.
5. Auburn got bushwacked by a better prepared smaller school. It happens. Hugh Freeze was never known for his defense, Auburn has a Michigan State second stringer for a QB. Freeze winning 6 games was exactly what the high end of expectations were this year. Beating Arkansas in Fayetteville was a surprise and losing to New Mexico State at home was as well.
6. Did you ever play football? Basketball? Baseball? At any level did you play? The problem with most message boards, since they are a modern phenomenon, is that they have a lot of opinionated people posting who never played the games (in any major sport). They serve as a platform for their personal biases and for trolling, and they have little to do with sports. Those who played know that getting bushwacked can happen for any number of reasons and is simply part of the game. Any team not ready to play can run into one, with fewer or less talented players who are having a great day and get embarrassed.
7. The CFP will happen, it will take Auburn another 2 to 3 years to get back to respectability after the Greene/Harsin tenure set up by Leath, and the SEC will roll along. The Big 10 will remain Michigan and Ohio State. Did you count the cupcakes Michigan has played this year, both inside and outside the Big 10? Outside of playing each other and Penn State, Michigan's toughest games were Rutgers and Maryland. Ohio State won a close one in South Bend against a less than stellar Notre Dame. Auburn will still end the season having played Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss and L.S.U. Now sit down and wrap your head around that. And why the Big 10 was feasting on not so big MACs Auburn's second game was at Cal, not a decidedly tough opponent but a helluva long way from Auburn and a big enough school. The quality was likely closer to the Rutgers/Maryland level (both of which were about game better than Auburn or Cal this year). I point that out to refer back to Michigan's schedule.
8. NIL, consolidation, and the expanded CFP will alter reality further. It won't cement any one conference as being better, but it will essentially cement to the top two dozen schools as the top two dozen schools. Now ruminate on that!
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Congrats NMSU - gets $1.85 million to humiliate Auburn
