My Letter to Tostitos.

GolfDiveNCougs wrote:
Boy, sky's the limit with the other two sponsors, regarding durogatory taglines: Allstate and FexEx.



"If you're a TRUE College Football Fan, you're in BETTER hands WITHOUT Allstate!"

"A playoff. That's NOT Allstate's stand!"



"What Brown can do for you that FedEx won't... DELIVER a TRUE College Playoff"

"I'll take Brown, the color of a College Football, than green, the color FedEx is taking FROM it!"



This could be FUN!!!

craigoscarson wrote:


This isn't just about the Fiesta, it's about the bowl system in general. Every year there's a travesty, not just this year. Did Utah deserve a shot at Florida last year? yes

GolfDiveNCougs wrote:
Here are the order the bowls had picks this year: Sugar - Fiesta - Orange - Fiesta - Sugar

Mars wrote:

Here are the order the bowls had picks this year: Sugar - Fiesta - Orange - Fiesta - Sugar

Why in the world would the Orange Bowl take 2-loss Iowa over undefeated Cincy?!?

kitic77 wrote:

GolfDiveNCougs wrote:
Here are the order the bowls had picks this year: Sugar - Fiesta - Orange - Fiesta - Sugar

Why in the world would the Orange Bowl take 2-loss Iowa over undefeated Cincy?!?

They didn't. The Big East Champ goes to the Orange.

Mars wrote:

Mars wrote:

Here are the order the bowls had picks this year: Sugar - Fiesta - Orange - Fiesta - Sugar

Why in the world would the Orange Bowl take 2-loss Iowa over undefeated Cincy?!?

They didn't. The Big East Champ goes to the Orange.

No, the ACC Champ goes to the Orange. Like Notre Dame, the Big east champ doesn't HAVE a tie-in.

kitic77 wrote:
Oh. Then wouldn't the MWC make more sense as a BCS conference than the Big East. You could make the MWC a tie-in team to the Fiesta and you know any MWC team would travel well there.

GolfDiveNCougs wrote:
In response to rasta's assertion that this was the best possible (or at least a good) financial scenario for the Fiesta Bowl, I don't believe that's the case, but I will concede they didn't have many great options. I still assert, however they were in a position to make their situation better than it became, and that is a HUGE redflag that there in fact WERE conversations taking place outside the cute little ON-the-record teleconference they reported having.



AFTER the 2 Title Spots, the 2 Rose Spots, and the 1 Orange spot was filled, that left:

2 spots open in the Sugar

2 spots open in the Fiesta

1 spot open in the Orange



Here are the order the bowls had picks this year:

Sugar - Fiesta - Orange - Fiesta - Sugar

(The 1st two to fill the vacancies left by the title game teams, the last 3 are in reverse order of the date the games are played)



These were the available teams:

Cinci, TCU, Florida, BSU, Iowa OR Penn State (only 2 teams per conf rule), Va Tech, and BYU



In ANY scenario, Sugar takes Florida with the 1st pick. That's a big ol' DUH.



So the Fiesta had MANY options. With the 2nd AND 4th picks, they could have ended up with ANY of these matchups:



Penn State - TCU

Penn State - BSU

Iowa - TCU

Iowa - BSU

Cinci - TCU

Cinci - BSU



And depending on whether the Orange took TCU or Cinci with their 3rd pick (assuming they wouldn't take BSU) if the Fiesta took a Big10 school with their 2nd:



Penn State - Cinci

Iowa - Cinci



And all of that is FORGETTING VaTech and BYU, who, agreed, wouldn't have worked in BCS bowls this year for obvious reasons.



I contest that ANY of the above matchups would have been at LEAST equally lucrative, both in terms of ticket sales and ratings, and most of them MORE SO. In point of fact, if Cinci WERE to have been brought in, a Cinci-TCU or Cinci-BSU game would have met all of the points of interest that the Fiesta bowl said they were getting with the matchup they have (besides having the two non-BCS teams in one game, which, hello, in the current College Football environment, I'm amazed they actually had the audacity to BRAG ABOUT!!!).



Fact is, the ACC and Big East are ALREADY being compared dis-favorably with the MWC/WAC-1. I don't see EITHER of them wanting ANY part of a loss to TCU or Boise. The Big Ten has come under considerable fire of late as well (though on a national scale, it stops short of comparing them to non-AQ's). Now, Big Ten Jim Delany is basically the Godfather of College Football; I've read multiple sources that say NOTHING happens in College Football without his stamp (how you get that kind of power without a LOT of compromising photographs of a LOT of people I have no idea...), but I could also guess that he's not ABOUT to put one of his teams on the field to watch happen to them what has already happened to the Big East, the Big 12 and the SEC.



The SEC is still REELING over the Utah debacle last year, they don't want round two! Further, I can't recall who first brought it up in the other thread (thank you, though), but I hadn't considered it before either: you can also bet that the SEC doesn't want to end their Patron Saint's tenure with two losses. It speaks VOLUMES about how good the BCS Brass actually think Cinci is, given that THEY were made the sacrificial lamb to Florida this year, not one of the non's. Yes, I also realize that if it's a conspiracy theory we ARE looking at, it was just an added bonus that Florida got an over-rated Cinci AFTER the Subversive-Bowl matchup was spawned, still, this sure looks like the SEC expects an easier game from Cinci than from Boise or TCU!



More and more, this was looking like a case of the Big Conferences telling the Fiesta Bowl the ol' you-scratch-our-back-we-scratch-yours line. And in the next few years, if we see the Fiesta Bowl end up with a great matchup that looks like it should have been snatched up by earlier picks, we'll know.

mormonrasta wrote:
You make alot of good points, but I don't think you understand how unappealing Cincy was to the BCS.



I agree, Cincy-TCU was probably the best game, but Cincy is even more irrelevant than BSU or TCU. BAYLOR draws more people to their games than Cincy. They are one of two FBS teams that don't have PRACTICE FIELDS. Their coach is everything to that program and he'll be at ND by the end of the week. That matchup would have been to the Fiesta's financial peril.



TCU-BSU matchup is still better than any of the Big 10 options in terms of competition, and it doesn't put the Fiesta in financial jeopardy. That's why they pulled the trigger on that matchup.



Here's a writer that articulates what I'm trying to say better than I can.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/12/09/mailbag/index.html



Honestly, if the BCS were manipulating matchups wouldn't they want Florida-TCU, Iowa-BSU, and Cincy-GT? The current matchups guarantees an undefeated team other than the BCS champion, maybe two. Hello controversy. If they spread all of the undefeateds out and they all lose, then the ONLY undefeated team in the country would be the BCS champ. Why would the BCS not want that? What are the odds of TCU, BSU, and Cincy sweeping those matchups?



I don't buy that "the BCS" is afraid of certain teams losing. Ranked nonchampion BCS conference teams are 7-5 vs. ranked nonBCS conference champions since 1998. While the TCUs and BSUs more than hold their own, they are not dominant in these types of situations.

GolfDiveNCougs wrote:



rasta, I agree with you 100% just how unappealing Cinci was. I admit I was baffled last year by the Sugar Bowl taking Utah over Cinci. Fool me twice, as it goes. It's clear the bowls do know something we don't about the numbers. No argument there from me. But what I'm saying here is that if the Orange thought they'd do better financially (and possibly competatively) taking Iowa or Penn State than either of the non-'s OR Cinci, WHY didn't the Fiesta? I think the Fiesta is getting too much cred for their "maverick" approach to bowl games. Iowa travels EXTREMELY well (shoot, if I lived in Iowa, I'd want to travel too!!!), and Penn State brings in the ratings. They're one of the Royals. That may actually have been the reason the Orange Bowl took Iowa and not Penn State this year (it's really a toss up which team would have shown better, I think). The Orange Bowl has been a ratings pit the last few years (ACC fans have moved on to Basketball by the middle of January? Think maybe SO), and they knew that wouldn't change this year, so the Orange might just have been hoping against hope to actually fill their stadium.



I see no reason why the Fiesta wouldn't have done the same. There would be GREAT storylines here with either Big 10 school in the Fiesta. Could TCU follow in the other non- footsteps and take out another Royalty program? Could Boise recreate the Fiesta magic? They'd be guaranteed a full stadium, and assured better ratings. I don't see how you think that would put the Fiesta in ANY financial jeopardy, ESPECIALLY not more than the Battle of the Non-'s that's currently on the ticket.



Further, I think your argument about the BCS looking for as few undefeated teams at the end of the season to as possible to quash controversy is a smoke-screen. If I understand correctly, you're saying you don't think the BCS is, otherwise they'd have put all 3, TCU, BSU and Cinci in places they COULD lose. That is VERY faulty logic, firstly, because there are no guarantees any or all of them would lose (quite contrarily, actually, most people (including the voting Coaches), think TCU and Boise are stronger than most of the other qualifiers). Secondly, because there isn't REAL, NATIONAL controversy when there are multiple undefeated teams. There is REAL, NATIONAL controversy when there are multiple BCS teams. Nobody CARES about how many non-'s end the season undefeated. Seriously, in the BCS era, how many non-'s have ended the season without so much as a sniff? Isn't it close to double-digits? More? Yeah, there was a bit of complaining last year with Utah, but as you and everyone else said, if Utah was serious about a shot, why did its coach vote them #5??? The REAL pissin-and-moanin' happened at the end of the '04 season because AUBURN was undefeated, NOT Utah (and it helped Auburn's case when Oklahoma looked like idiots in the title game). And, interestingly enough, this year, we just HAPPEN to see the ONE remaining undefeated BCS team with arguably the toughest draw. Not many people think Cinci could beat Florida in the Sugar Bowl if they couldn't even beat VaTech in Miami last season. Gaaahhhh. Maybe you're on to something you were actually attempting to make fun of.



On top of all of that, if you think ANY BCS schools' fans are going to tune in to watch the first ever BCS Irrelevant Bowl, you're sorely and sadly mistaken. Trust me, I'm in the heart of the Metro-Atlantic Seaboard. There are people, actual college football fans around here wondering why the Fiesta Bowl would host an In-Conference matchup. They don't know about the non-'s, and they only take note when one of them is playing a Royal. Let me tell you, it has the VaTech crowd VERY interested right now that Boise is coming out this way to play them on FedEx (Redskins) Field.



THAT is the reason it is calculated and unjust to place them together and secluded. I KNOW you can see that.



You're skeptical that a system out there could be better than the BCS. I get it. You see things in terms of what teams ACTUALLY have to prove and not prove. And you're right. I've said it before, you put either Boise or TCU on the field with MOST of the other eligible BCS teams, it's a win for the "little" guy, and NONE of them, including Florida, would be in for anything less than a DOGFIGHT.



BUT THAT IS NOT THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION. Think a little more Ephesians 6:12. They're NOT fighting against flesh and blood here. Non-'s have already proven three times over that they MORE than hold their own on the sport's biggest stage doing that. This is about the wrestle against PRINCIPIALITIES, POWERS, the RULERS of DARKNESS in this world, and the spiritual wickedness in HIGH PLACES.



They sit back and laugh in scorn at the two poor saps having to duke it out to prove that the other is more inferior, not that EITHER are superior to anything.