The Official 2012 Football Season Thread

[Sgt. Dick]

College Football is over 

[Krlll Mule]

I'm just not an SEC first guy.  Call me a traitor, but I have a method to my madness....Alabama fans as a whole get a bad rap because of their uber "We're the Best" "EVER!" "Forever" attitude. And the average Joe fan seems to be following suit. What these folks need is a good dose of humility.  N.D. 34 - AL 23.  The silence will be golden.

Man, I should start a prediction service.    The big hope N.D. had was their front 7 according to the experts. Well AL just lined up to run...no disguise, and then proceeded to run it right down their throats. Game over. Very boring game.

I think I'll save my priceless NFL playoff predictions for later.   

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, the "experts" said a lot of things, but I don't think they really used much common sense in the process. Was reading a story on the web earlier today about how one of the many BCS computers was STILL calculating Notre Dame as being #1 and Alabama as #2 even after the BCS title game. Something about it taking into account... "strength of schedule"? ? ? I dunno, I disagree there. Notre Dame didn't appear to have any tougher of a schedule than Alabama did in my opinion. The story also mentioned that the computers don't take into account margin of victory either... which is pretty obvious by it ranking Notre Dame over Alabama even after the loss to Alabama, because as I said...

...especially taking into account how Notre Dame damn near lost one of their final games of the regular season to Pitt in overtime in a rather low scoring game. I mean Pittsburgh isn't exactly the worst team out there, but they aren't "good" by any measurement either. If a team playing for the BCS National Title is having problems buttfucking Pitt, they're gonna get nothing but obliterated by Alabama.

A team that struggles to put away Pitt, and the computer is gonna rank them over Alabama? These computers are fucking assholes. Someone unplug that damn thing, please.

[Sgt. Dick]

The only top team that ND played was Stanford.
Other than Stanford, every team that was on ND's schedule that made a bowl game lost except Mich St. who won 17-16 in a small level bowl.
Most of the teams lost bad, except Michigan who played a South Carolina team that had lost its running game to injuries.
Just because ND had some top name teams on their schedule (Oklahoma, USC) it doesn't mean that those teams were very good this year.
Oklahoma got raped by Texas A&M 41-13 in their bowl game.
USC got handled by Georgia Tech 21-7 in their bowl game.

Bottom line ND was over-rated and it showed bigtime in the bowl game.

This game kind of reminded me of the 2008 Sugar Bowl when 12-0 Hawaii played a 10-2 Georgia.  Georgia destroyed Hawaii 41-10, the Hawaii coach actually took out the starting quarterback mid game because he was getting pounded by the defense.

[haunted]

unc v. bama would have been better, lol. our defense would have been exposed, but our QB, no.

the computers do suck though, I was saying that even before this bcs #1 blunder. Just off of observation, it seems like the big east has a more prominent model than the ACC. Look at rutgers and cinci being ranked most of the season, pitt even for a little bit. The two usually ranked teams from the ACC are clemson and fsu, and there is NO WAY that those teams are comparable to the aforementioned big east teams. Louisville ain't either, they had a good surprise win over florida yeah but they lost to U-CONN and Syracuse for crying out loud. and they would have lost to unc, but due to a shitty call in the last few seconds(it was a pass interference in the endzone, dude's helmet was even ripped off, Lville home refs let it slide) lville wins. Rutgers was ranked 15th until week 9 or 10 or something.

I mean it's an 8 team conference and they rank half of them, rofl. The ACC won all of their bowl games with the exception of vandy>ncstate, but ncstate had fired their head coach a week prior so... whatever.

UNC goes 8-4 beating miami, va tech, ncstate(who beat fsu), and a few ok teams like ecu...

yet gets 0 votes for any of the rankings(I consider them a 35th-ish ranked team, feel free to disagree with me, I won't hate you)..... the models put them at like 50-55th. At the very least, y'all can see how the 2nd number is flawed.

[Sgt. Dick]

Louisville QB - Bridgewater is really good, it did not surprise me that Louisville put up points on FLA.  The surprise for me is that FLA could not run the ball and eat the clock to keep the ball away from Louisville.  I thought Louisville and FLA would both put up some points early, but FLA would wear down the Louisville defense and pull away in the second half.  I know Bridgewater was banged up late in the season and was not playing anywhere near his capability and that is when they lost those games. 

[haunted]

I didn't even hear about his injury... his game v. FL was the BEST game i've ever seen him play. Perhaps he was all healed up and additionally rose to the occasion. . .

[Sgt. Dick]

I saw him early in the year and he looked a lot like he did against FLA.  Later in the season he was playing with a bad wrist (not sure if it was the throwing wrist) and he had a bad ankle.  When he was banged up, he lost his mobility and his accuracy was off.  When he played against FLA he was mostly healed, the ankle was fine but he still had 2 pins in his wrist.  He played an excellent game against FLA, he picked the defense apart.    Bridgewater is a sophmore so if Louisville can keep some good weapons around him, he can be one of the top QB's in the nation.

[|iR|Focalor]

I was rooting against them anyway just because I hate John Elway and he's a co-owner or whatever, but for the life of me I can't understand why the hell Denver didn't at least ATTEMPT any kind of drive with the final 31 seconds of the 4th quarter when they got possession of the ball again. They had 2 timeouts in their pocket, while Baltimore had NONE. They could've tried a couple of long passes or several sideline passes with those timeouts to set them up in field goal range. I mean it was doubtful that they could get in range, but who knows, maybe they could've gotten lucky with a pass interference call. I suppose they were afraid of turning it over and giving Baltimore good field position to attempt a field goal of their own... I disagree with the coaching on that call though. You got time on the clock with the ball in your hands, timeouts to spare, and no timeouts on the opponents side, you should give it a shot, especially in a playoff game.

[Krlll Mule]

Falcons-Seahawks = some really bad calls so far this half.  Example: Falcons Gonzolez head-locks Seahawk player....flag against Seattle.  One play later touchdown. Maybe the Falcons have spent their energy this first half and somebody forgets to give the refs a tip  : )

[|iR|Focalor]

Buddy was holding him like it was a run play. He had every right to try to pull him off.

Anyway... even if Gonzalez WAS holding him (I say he wasn't), Seattle got equalized by that 8 second what-the-fuck shitty squib kick that Atlanta handed them on a golden plate. Talk about tense. I think I've shit-talked Julio Jones for not making catches on offense that he should, but at least he makes them on defense, lol.

Too bad for Seattle though. For the past several seasons, the way the curse goes... whoever plays Atlanta in the playoffs goes on to win the Superbowl. So when San Fransisco beats us next week, pile every dime to your name on San Fransisco in the Superbowl, it's easy money.

[Krlll Mule]

Gonzalez has his 1st playoff win after all these years of being the target of opposing defenses and still getting catches and yards.     A classy, humble, guy with skills and fortitude that nobody will soon replicate.  Good for him, and put him in the Hall of Fame - he deserves it.

I don't think the Falcons will beat the 49ers. Best teams or not, I think the NFL wants a brother vs brother Super Bowl. Even left to their own skills, this match-up could still happen. Who knows?  It's just one reason I don't bet on these games (See my Notre Dame vs Alabama brilliant prediction). I will savor the last few weeks and wait 'til next year.

[Sgt. Dick]

I really wanted to see the Pats go down, but they will now host the Ravens next week.
I hope the Ravens can somehow beat NE.  I am tired of seeing Belichick and Brady.

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, unless Atlanta's defensive coordinator can come up with crazy shit like the weird-as-hell "amoeba defensive scheme" they used against Denver early in the regular season to confuse the shit out of Peyton Manning, then I don't expect them to be able to stop Kaepernick from throwing AND running. They better eat their Wheaties all week and play 100% mistake-free football if they wanna get to the big one.

I don't think Baltimore has got a prayer against New England though. Brady and New England's got this up-tempo offense going and it winds the shit out of every defense they face. Baltimore is traditionally known for good defense, but I don't think they're up to the task unless Brady makes a few mistakes and allows 2 or more picks like Manning did.

[|iR|Focalor]

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