Phil C
09-26-2008, 10:52 AM
I am inclined to agree about 96% of the time. After what happened to USC last night I am more inclined especially nowadays. The High School teams are producing bigger, faster and better players today. This is not a putdown on the former players but today even the smaller schools are getting good coaches and better facilities plus the NCAA has the scholarship limits so one school like USC may get most of the best talent there is still enough around and you don't have great players riding the bench who could be playing elsewhere. Parity is being reached and that is good.
I did some research and I feel that you get a dominate team that whips everyone else but that is rare. I did a study on the past 50 College National Champions in Division 1. I did it with the point of examining dominate teams and the qualifications due to time limits was that they had to win the National Championship in the AP poll until the BCS games came and they had to have a perfect record (no losses or ties). Also due to time constraints I examined these teams from the past 50 years (1958 to 2007). Bear in mind that until the latae 60s bowl games were taken into consideration which I do and also that they didn't playoff ties till many years later.
Of the 50 National Championship teams I examined there were 31 teams with perfect records while 29 had at least one blemish (at least one loss or one tie).
Next I looked at the 31 teams left. I examined them for close games or extreme close games. I admit this isn't perfect but I considered a close game to be a win of 6 to 8 points because a team could score a long td pass or a punt return and get a td and even if 8 points behind a two point conversion would tie. An extremely close game is one decided by 5 points or less because another td would beat them for sure and in some cases a field goal would be enough. Remember even this can even be misleading but I went by final scores of games. Sometimes even a 24 to 15 game can be close.
Of the 31 teams that were perfect 21 had at least 2 close games with 19 of them having at least one extremely close games. This left 10 teams. Of these 10 teams 3 of them had 1 close game and 5 had 1 extemely close game. They won but these games take away the super status because with one play they would have been beaten or tied.
Also bear in mind that a OT would be a close game because the game was tied at the end of regulation and had the loser even got an extra field goal it would have been a loss.
This leaves two teams which I prefer to say were completely dominating teams and some would argue with good points they were super teams. I am talking about USC of 1972 who closest game was a 31 to 21 win over Stanford. But Nebraska of 1995 was totally dominated with their closest game being a 35 to 21 win over Stanford. In fact during those years they won 26 straight games with their closest being in the 1995 Orange Bowl with a 24 to 17 win over Miami and this was the '94 team.
In conclusion even if you want to count the above teams as super teams (and you would have a strong argument) the thing is they only come about once every 25 years so they are rare. I expect with parity nowadays it will be even rarer but you will probably get one once in a while.
This study I think also helps prove as I have whinned about before is that Division 1 NCAA football needs a real playoff system. It will probably many years before they do and there is talk about expanding it to 4 teams which will be better but still not what we need. We will get a real one but that may be many years from now because they are slow to change. Look how long it took them to get the OT periods to eliminate ties.
I did some research and I feel that you get a dominate team that whips everyone else but that is rare. I did a study on the past 50 College National Champions in Division 1. I did it with the point of examining dominate teams and the qualifications due to time limits was that they had to win the National Championship in the AP poll until the BCS games came and they had to have a perfect record (no losses or ties). Also due to time constraints I examined these teams from the past 50 years (1958 to 2007). Bear in mind that until the latae 60s bowl games were taken into consideration which I do and also that they didn't playoff ties till many years later.
Of the 50 National Championship teams I examined there were 31 teams with perfect records while 29 had at least one blemish (at least one loss or one tie).
Next I looked at the 31 teams left. I examined them for close games or extreme close games. I admit this isn't perfect but I considered a close game to be a win of 6 to 8 points because a team could score a long td pass or a punt return and get a td and even if 8 points behind a two point conversion would tie. An extremely close game is one decided by 5 points or less because another td would beat them for sure and in some cases a field goal would be enough. Remember even this can even be misleading but I went by final scores of games. Sometimes even a 24 to 15 game can be close.
Of the 31 teams that were perfect 21 had at least 2 close games with 19 of them having at least one extremely close games. This left 10 teams. Of these 10 teams 3 of them had 1 close game and 5 had 1 extemely close game. They won but these games take away the super status because with one play they would have been beaten or tied.
Also bear in mind that a OT would be a close game because the game was tied at the end of regulation and had the loser even got an extra field goal it would have been a loss.
This leaves two teams which I prefer to say were completely dominating teams and some would argue with good points they were super teams. I am talking about USC of 1972 who closest game was a 31 to 21 win over Stanford. But Nebraska of 1995 was totally dominated with their closest game being a 35 to 21 win over Stanford. In fact during those years they won 26 straight games with their closest being in the 1995 Orange Bowl with a 24 to 17 win over Miami and this was the '94 team.
In conclusion even if you want to count the above teams as super teams (and you would have a strong argument) the thing is they only come about once every 25 years so they are rare. I expect with parity nowadays it will be even rarer but you will probably get one once in a while.
This study I think also helps prove as I have whinned about before is that Division 1 NCAA football needs a real playoff system. It will probably many years before they do and there is talk about expanding it to 4 teams which will be better but still not what we need. We will get a real one but that may be many years from now because they are slow to change. Look how long it took them to get the OT periods to eliminate ties.