13 February 2011 189.1 – The Panel start off without Sportzfan Stan again, who is still on injured reserve. The Gelding thinks it will be a long season for Richmond while Daniel thought we might have been talking about Collingwood for two hours. Daniel also complains about how bad the half time entertainment with the Black Eyed Peas at the Super Bowl. Dan Butterly comes on to talk US sport and in particular the Super Bowl between the Green Bay Packers & Pittsburgh Steelers. He is reminded of his pick of the Steelers last week. He says it was a great game from start to finish and believes Aaron Rodgers gave a flawless performance with the Packers win was all the better due to the injuries the Packers dealt with not only during the season but also during the Super Bowl itself. Dan also discusses the seat fiasco where it appears the Cowboys only 
applied for a permit for the seats three weeks before the game. He looks at NCAAB and was right in saying Ohio State wouldn’t go through the season undefeated having lost to Wisconsin today. Dan says he thinks Daniel may be the only international Clippers fan in existence. The Panel talk about who their dream guest would be – the Professor says Aaron Rodgers, the Gelding would like Damian Oliver and Daniel wants Michael Jordan – we’ll work on them. The Gelding and the Sydney Colt were on fire with their selections at Caulfield and Randwick selecting 5 winners from 6 selections. The Panel look at the NAB Cup and the Gelding reiterates he believes it is going to be a long year for the Richmond Football Club.
Tag Archives: wisconsin
Rose Bowl decides nothing
For the record let it be known that the TCU Horned Frogs (from the Mountain West Conference and ranked #3 in the NCAAF rankings) defeated the Wisconsin Badgers (from the Big 10 Conference and ranked #4) 21-19 to take out the prestigious Rose Bowl. Also for the record, TCU had a perfect season and finished with a 13-0 win loss record.
Only the vagaries of the NCAA/BCS (Bowl Championship Series) system could allow an undefeated team to not play for the #1 spot. Currently there are three undefeated teams in NCAAF play. Auburn,
Oregon and TCU. Auburn and Oregon play off for number one spot on the 10 January 2011 in the ‘so called’ BCS Championship game.
My question to both the NCAA and the BCS is “How can the winner of that game possibly be crowned number one?”. If nothing else, at least the game will eliminate one of those teams from contention as one will suffer defeat and that will leave only two teams with perfect records. No amount of computer or human prediction will ever be able to tell us whether the TCU Horned Frogs could beat the other undefeated team.
Countless people, including President Obama have called for urgent change to the BCS system…and with good cause. The BCS is the equivalent of an exclusive club – in this case six BCS conferences who are guaranteed automatic berths to the big money Bowl games. These six BCS conferences are supposedly ‘stronger’ than the other conferences and therefore somehow have a greater entitlement. Let me say that in my years following NCAAF, that assessment can only possibly have been made on an historical basis. Clearly, that is not the case today.
Let’s for a moment take a look at the BCS Conference Wisconsin hails from – the Big 10. In Bowl games yesterday that Conference went 0-5 – a big duck egg!! If we now take the time to also review the Mountain West Conference, they are 4-1 in Bowl games this year, the fourth consecutive year they have sent five football teams to bowl games, posting the best win percentage among the eleven FBS 
conferences for the fourth time in seven years. The MWC will also claim the 2010-11 Bowl Challenge Cup, becoming the only Conference to win the trophy four times since the award’s inception in 2002-03.
So you tell me…on those figures alone, are the Big 10 stronger than the MWC? The answer is a resounding “No”! Do the Big 10 deserve preferred treatment over the MWC? The answer is also a resounding “No”!
As I see it there is only one solution to this impasse. Change the system! Bring in a playoff system between the top ten ranked teams. This could be done within the current Bowl calendar. It would also mean that many of those Bowl games would gain some relevance rather than be as they are now, a match between Colleges who managed to scrape together a .500 season. Hardly riveting, prime time viewing!
Fairness demands that parochial vested interests be set aside for a fairer system. Will it happen? Not unless the sporting public brings pressure to bear on the people controlling the system. Aside from the vested interests of the BCS conferences maintaining the status quo and hanging on to the big money Bowl games, perhaps more worrying to those Conferences is the spectre of being required to regularly compete against MWC colleges in the big games!
I am certainly looking forward to discussing this topic with our US correspondent, Dan Butterly, when Sportzfan Radio resumes on 16 January 2011. Our show won’t rest until the system is changed for the better!
Sportzfan Radio #183.1
12 December 2010 183.1 – Sean makes a rare appearance in studio and Daniel starts with an apology as it took him five days to read Mark Fiorenti’s blog so he knows nothing about what happened in the sports world for the week. He also adds his favourite Qatar player after some research is Eric Clapton and Sean adds that FIFA’s new game Qatar hero. Stan gets into Daniel again about basketball asking him how he thinks the Melbourne Tigers will go against Perth. Sean thinks as it is Al Westover’s 200th game it may get the Tigers across the line. Their is also a discussion about the the test cricket side and Stan is for sacking all the player sand the selectors. Dan Butterly talks US sport and commences with his view on the Heisman trophy and who will win it. He thinks Cam Newton from Auburn will win it, even with all the cloud of suspicion over him regarding the behaviour of his father. Dan also talks about the Bowl matches coming up with 35 being played over three weeks. He likes Oregon to beat Auburn in the Championship game and TCU 
to beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. There are moves afoot within the Conferences and Hawaii has now decided to leave the WAC and join the MWC in 2012. The Professor asks whether the MWC will play a game in Australia given Hawaii is halfway here. Dan agrees that it would raise the MWC profile. Sean says AAMI stadium would be perfect to host such a game. Dan feels Brett Favre’s streak will end at 297 as he will not recover in time to play in tomorrow’s game.
The Professor thinks there may have been a first last week when the Gelding was not on the show at all. The Gelding talks cricket first discussing the problems with Victorians trying to get into the Test
side. He then moves on to racing and reviews his selections for the Flemington meeting. Although he got off to a great start tipping Aloha to win, it was all downhill from there with his other three selections failing to even be placed. The Gelding’s favourite Qatar player is Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin.
The Panel discusses Gary Ablett’s revelations during the week where he hadn’t spoken to his coach, Bomber Thompson since March this year. Sean talks about a rumor that James Hird and Thompson had been talking about getting together for 2012 but because Essendon’s coterie groups wanted Matthew Knights out, everything got moved forward 
twelve months. Daniel starts talking about Bob Costas (NBC sportscaster) but he really means the Geelong president, Frank Costa. Stan is swinging the axe again and Sean observes he is going to put Centrelink out of business as everyone is getting the knife.
Mark Fiorenti talks up the local Melbourne derby between the Heart and the Victory with over 23,000 at AAMi stadium. Sean went to his first game during the week to see Heart play but they went down in front of around 2,000 people. Mark says it was the lowest ever at an A League game in Melbourne. He says the FFA must address this as mid week games don’t work.