Liberal Arts Major
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
If it means anything, after Alabama found a way to mess up that kind of lead, it became a lot more improbable that Boise would have gotten to the National Championship Game, so if anything, this topic just came a little earlier than it would have otherwise.
Still, it looked like Boise was going to have an extremely real shot at making it earlier in the day. ...And then everything just started to collapse. =(
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
I had picked Auburn to win the Alabama game, but after rushing out to an early lead I figured it really was the case that Auburn can't defend against the pass. I started to waver back in favor of Auburn once Mark Ingram or whoever lost that fumble for a touchback in the second quarter. During halftime I went to get a delicious gyro and missed the beginning of the third quarter; when I noticed Auburn got another touchdown in like a minute, well, that was all she wrote for Alabama. Though, I guess Alabama had a minute to get within field goal range at the end of the game - too bad they had to start from their own 25ish with no timeouts, a reserve quarterback, and receivers that can't catch a ball in the open field to save their lives.
The Nebraska game was hilarious.
Arizona fans probably got their hopes up when they had the lead going into halftime, and it's true that the first quarter was pretty much right on target in terms of beating Oregon (lots of time of possession, scoring in the red zone, etc.), but they should have shelved those dreams when Arizona failed to convert an impressive red zone drive into seven points. You can't beat Oregon in the second half if (a) you've got a mediocre defense to begin with and if (b) right off the bat, your defense literally can't give up any points or you're doomed. Arizona's repeated failure in the red zone in the second half was even par for the course with the team's offense all year.
I tend to be pretty skeptical when it comes to good, late-season undefeated teams losing "challenging" games to teams like X-2 Alabama and we-lost-to-Oregon-State Arizona that get hyped up for a week and then go back to being irrelevant as soon as they get destroyed, so I had been resigned to the Rose Bowl (still awesome!) ever since Utah lost to Notre Dame. This, though, was sickening. Not because BSU lost. Prior to the Fresno game I thought they probably weren't good enough to beat a top-tier team like Oregon; that defensive performance changed my mind, but I wasn't at all surprised to learn yesterday that woops, turns out Fresno just sucked. BSU has had a lot of difficulty staying in the game for the second half for basically its entire FBS history - a problem that became evident in the VT game and again last night - and it's been having special teams problems all season long. What really got me is that their 24-game winning streak was snapped by Nevada.
Fuck Nevada.
But a lot of good will come of this loss. Obviously, BSU has some problems - problems the VT game hinted at but which were overshadowed by VT's own collection of failures. Now the coaching staff (and Kellen Moore) have thirty minutes of failure they can work with. I mean, now it's hard to miss. If BSU had gone to the Rose Bowl and turned in this kind of performance (pretty likely), that would have been even less cool. Of course, this is where Brotzman comes in: had he made the game-ending field goal, BSU would have gained all this information and come away with a win, which is obviously much better. Oh well. The bigger upside to the loss, since it's actually intrinsic to losing, is that all the bandwagoners and so on either just converted into real fans or got culled, and we get a great opportunity to distinguish the fans who know anything at all about football from the ones who cheer Boise because they happen to live there. The number of my former classmates blaming Brotzman for the loss on Facebook was rather terrifying.
Meanwhile, another bonus is that all the haters get their day in the sun. It may seem like that last part isn't so hot, but next year or the year after, when BSU has to start from the bottom and once again work their way up, it's going to be a lot harder to ride the wave of anti-BSU "paper tiger" hysteria the way it's gone down this season. Also, it improves Nevada's profile - clearly not everyone BSU plays against is the Little Sisters of the Poor. Even Gene Wojciechowski of "I feel asleep during the 2010 Fiesta Bowl" fame didn't have much ill-will against the Broncos in his analysis. Definitely a step up.
The worst part about this loss on a personal level is that now I have a lot fewer games I actually care about. Case in point: the Utes play against BYU today in the last MWC Holy War. A win over Nevada would have made the game quite relevant. Now I just don't give a damn. But! now BSU gets a December bowl game, so maybe I can watch it with my parents. Awesome, mirite?
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
EDIT: Speaking of people not caring, apparently Glenn Beck's radio program has begun using Harry Reid's "so I hear UNR won a football game" address in Congress as a kind of metaphor for congressional ineffectiveness. Well, next time somebody takes time out of Congress's busy schedule to congratulate Akron for beating Buffalo, sure, I'll buy that. But UNR made sports history, and furthermore, influenced the direction of millions of dollars and thousands of hours of peoples' lives: 8 million right away when the WAC said toodleoo to a BCS bowl and countless millions in wagers, travel fees, scholarships, recruiting efforts, etc., etc. College football is a business, and UNR's program receives state funding to run its "franchise", so it's perfectly acceptable for a representative of Nevada to say, "hey guys, your tax dollars are doing something! (They're costing you 700 big ones!)"
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu