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WE HAVE MOVED!
Aug. 28, 2015
BCS Guru was a mainstay of the Bowl Championship Series era. Launched in 2006, we were the premier projection site for the weekly BCS standings. Because of our unmatched accuracy, we became the go-to site for every college football fan who wanted to know what the standings would look like before they were officially released.
But all that came to an end after the 2013 season, when the BCS was replaced by the four-team College Football Playoff. We rebranded as the Playoff Guru, but because of the nature of the selection committee, we soon realized that our model needed to evolve.
So we’re now College Football Exchange, where we feature the best college football content posted on the World Wide Web. Of course, we will provide our unique analysis, but our horizon is now considerably broadened. We’re making our debut in time for the 2015 season, but please pardon our dust as we get our shop in order.
Thank you for your continued support. For now our Twitter handle remains @ThePlayoffGuru until further notice.
Samuel Chi
Proprietor
College Football Exchange
Visit us at COLLEGE FOOTBALL EXCHANGE
WHAT NFL DRAFT SAYS ABOUT 2015 SEASON
The NFL draft is all about procuring the best talent from college football. And what happens at the draft tells so much about not just the past college football season, but the upcoming one as well.
Granted, the best college football players don’t always turn out to be great pros and some Canton enshrinees had very pedestrian college careers. But taken with totality through history, the NFL draft provides a very good indication on the relative strength of college football conferences and programs. You don’t win championships — at any level — without talent.
So it should come as no surprise that for the ninth year in a row, the SEC led all conferences in total draft picks. This not so coincidentally mirrored the SEC’s dominance in college football. In those nine years, the SEC won seven consecutive BCS titles (from 2006-2012) before finally vacating the perch the past two seasons.
But the SEC’s two-year national title drought may not be coming to an end this next season, and that’s among several interesting revelations from the 2015 NFL draft:
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PLAYOFF EXPANSION? NOT TO 8
The first College Football Playoff is rightly declared a success. After Ohio State’s emphatic 42-20 victory over Oregon, we can finally proclaim a national champion in college football that’s more substantial than mythical.
Well, almost. TCU is still out there and a legitimate argument can be made that it was unfairly excluded. The Horned Frogs likely won’t finish worse than third in the final AP Poll, maybe even getting a few votes for second.
That’s why well before all the golden confetti streamed down from the rafters at Jerry Jones’ football palace Monday night, there was already plenty of talk about expanding the playoff. We’re only in the first year of a 12-year pact for a four-team playoff, but there’s already clamoring for an eight-team playoff, or even a 16-team playoff.
It’s not gonna happen. Not anytime soon. And probably not going to be eight teams and certainly never 16 teams.
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TOP 10 COLLEGE FOOTBALL TITLE GAMES
At long last, college football has a playoff at its highest level. The first champion of the College Football Playoff era will be crowned Monday at Jerry Jones’ football palace in Arlington, Texas.
Oregon and Ohio State have a lot to live up to if they want to make the inaugural CFP championship game a smashing success. Even though college football never before had a playoff, there have been epic battles to decide the mythical national championship in the past. These games didn’t come frequently – because of tie-ins, postseason bowls rarely matched up top-ranked teams. But a few came with great fanfare and somehow exceeded the hype and became legendary in sports lore.
It won’t be easy for Monday night’s game – or any subsequent title games – to crack this list. Here are our Top 10 Best College Football Title Games (with video highlights). We’ve expanded on our knowledge to provide you with more details about the greatest online betting sites. It is difficult for punters to identify the finest betting apps due to the increased quantity of bookies in the gaming sector. Here is a list of the Best UK Betting Apps, if you want to play a variety of online betting games in the UK. This selection is based upon the ease of use, License, Odds value, Bonuses and Promotions and reputation.
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REQUIEM FOR SEC’s ‘DECADE OF DOMINANCE’
After the SEC’s disastrous bowl season, college football’s cognoscenti are all rushing to write the obituary of the conference’s dominance. In fact, make that two disastrous bowl seasons.
The SEC is the only conference not to win a BCS/CFP bowl in the last two years, going 0-5. The much-acclaimed SEC West went 2-5 this bowl season, with only bottom dwellers Texas A&M and Arkansas winning their bowl games.
But could it be that this “SEC Dominance” is more myth than reality?
Sure, the SEC did win seven consecutive BCS titles. It even managed to stage the only BCS championship game featuring teams from the same conference. But did the SEC really “dominate” as much as it (and its media acolytes) say it did?
The BCS was very much an SEC creation, designed by former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer and refined by retiring SEC commissioner Mike Slive. It helped to raise the profile of an also-ran regional league devoid of major media markets into the premier conference in college football.
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WHEN LITTLE GUYS STILL HAD A
CHANCE
SAN DIEGO – Thirty years ago on this
field, in this bowl game, BYU became the last team not from the
current power five conferences to win college football’s mythical
national championship. We pay tribute to that occasion because
something like that probably will never happen again.
The No. 1-ranked Cougars, the only unbeaten
Division I-A team not to lose a game before the bowl season in 1984,
were by conference rule obligated to play in the Holiday Bowl
instead of a more prestigious New Year’s Day bowl game. Their
opponent certainly had brand recognition, but its 1984 squad was far
from vintage.
The 1984 Michigan team turned out to be the
only one in the Bo Schembechler era not to post a winning record. No
Michigan team in fact compiled a worse record in the 30-year period
between 1968-2007 after it lost to BYU in the Holiday Bowl to finish
6-6.
Even after winning the game, 24-17, BYU had to
sweat it out for 12 long days. Because of their narrow victory,
there was rampant speculation that the Cougars might be jumped by
No. 2 Oklahoma if the one-loss Sooners could handle No. 4 Washington
in the Orange Bowl. But thanks in part to the infamous Boomer
Schooner incident that wiped out an OU field goal, the Huskies went
on to win 28-17, handing BYU its only national title.
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PATS EMERGE AS SUPER BOWL FAVORITES
After opening as two-point underdogs, following their 45-7 thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts in last week’s AFC Conference Championship game, the New England Patriots have roared to life on the Super Bowl betting lines, improving to two-point favorites, while the point total in the matchup is set at 48.5 in NFL online betting at sportsbooks available through bettingsports.com.
The Patriots’ surge on the Super Bowl betting odds comes despite the controversy that continues to swirl around the team in the wake of allegations that members of the Patriots were complicit in
reducing air pressure in 11 of the 12 footballs used by New England in their win over the Colts.
The allegations suggest that the softer footballs gave the Patriots an unfair advantage in the AFC Championship game, played in the chilly and wet confines of Gillette Stadium.
Regulation footballs or not, the Patriots were dominant in their victory over Indy, tallying at least 41 points for the fourth time this season, and halting a worrisome three-game ATS losing streak, during which they scored an average of just 20.3 points per game.
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The college football championship game is just around the corner and then we make our way towards Super Bowl 2015. If you love football, then this is the best time of year! And for those who enjoy a little extra excitement, the Mega Dice sportsbook offers a myriad of options to test their gaming knowledge and potentially win big. Place your bets and take part in the exhilarating world of sports gambling. To view the latest
college and Super Bowl online betting odds check out the guys at BSB
here and get in on the wagering action. BLAME HERBSTREIT FOR BIG 12 SNUB
The worst thing the Big 12 can do is going for the quick fix. When no such “fix” is needed.
Sure, the conference rightfully feels it got screwed by the selection committee after being the only Power 5 conference left out of the inaugural College Football Playoff. But before the Big 12 runs out to hastily extend an invitation to Cincinnati or BYU or whomever to join the conference – or arrange a title game between its top two teams – it needs to …
Stop. Just stop.
The Big 12 got left out not because it didn’t stage a conference title game or because its conference champion didn’t play a 13th game. It got left out because the selection committee proved to be no more discerning than the average fan who watches too much ESPN.
The fact is that if you replaced TCU with TEXAS, the Big 12 doesn’t lose that final playoff spot to Ohio State and the Big Ten. Or if you replaced OHIO STATE with ILLINOIS, then the Horned Frogs would be on their way to New Orleans to face Alabama in a national semifinal game.
The Big 12 lost out because the schools it had in contention were small, private, Christian colleges, not college football behemoths like the four teams that made it. And in no small part because that’s the way ESPN wanted it.
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SEC CAN THANK UCLA FOR BCS RUN
The SEC dominated the second half of the BCS era, winning seven championships and firmly establishing itself as the premier conference in college football. That has led to an expansion of its footprint, added riches from television contracts, and a nascent network to be launched this August.
But none of it happens without the biggest upset in BCS history, a game that took place on the West Coast on the final day of the 2006 regular season. The end of one dynasty beget another.
USC entered its annual rivalry game in 2006 ranked No. 2 in the BCS standings. The Trojans were poised to appear in an unprecedented third consecutive BCS title game and all they had to do was handling their downtrodden, 5-6 crosstown rival. And why not? USC had won seven straight in the series and mauled the Bruins the year before, 66-19.
A simple USC victory would’ve set up a BCS title game against Ohio State, leaving Florida (and the SEC) on the sideline. It would’ve been an eighth consecutive season without an undisputed national title for the conference. After Tennessee won the first championship of the BCS era in 1998, the SEC only appeared in one title game in the subsequent seven seasons, and that resulted in LSU’s split title with USC in 2003.
There was little doubt that USC would go on to trounce the Buckeyes in the BCS title game as Florida eventually did. The Trojans would’ve won their third national title in four years and left little doubt as to who truly rules the BCS. They likely would’ve gone to another one or two BCS title games in the following two seasons.
But that dynasty inexplicably got derailed on that December afternoon at the Rose Bowl by the underdog Bruins. USC’s high-powered offense was totally stifled and shut out in the second half. It was the only time in Pete Carroll’s final eight seasons at USC that his team would be held under double digits.
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