The GRB Official 2018 College Football Thread

[Freed Roger]

Look folks Northwestern* vs Ohio State for the Big Ten championship

*full disclosure - am on the NW bandwagon on account of friend that played there.... But geez.

[go birds]

not sure where the taxslayer or outback bowls are but nashville is prolly a much funner destination, my GRBros!

[Tim]

So who do y’all put at #4?

OU
OSU
UCF
UGA

????

I guess I’d go OU, though I’m convinced UGA is one of the four best teams

[MrCrowesGarden]

Mizzou got hosed on its Bowl. They use circular logic on them more than any other team it feels like. "The fans don't travel well, so let's send them to a bowl below their stature and when fans don't travel for it, we can go 'SEE?!' "

The SEC teams probably belong more in tiers than in rankings, but you could make a case they're the 4th best team in the conference.

[lukethedrifter]

They really should’ve finished off a South Carolina. And Kentucky. They’d be playing on New Year’s Day if they had.

[MrCrowesGarden]

They really should’ve finished off a South Carolina. And Kentucky. They’d be playing on New Year’s Day if they had.

No disagreement there, but they got hosed against Kentucky.

Losses to two top five teams, a last second loss in a monsoon and a last second loss where obvious OPI was missed. They're good.

[Tim]

Well they could be getting Kelly Bryant as a consolation prize.

[lukethedrifter]

They really should’ve finished off a South Carolina. And Kentucky. They’d be playing on New Year’s Day if they had.

No disagreement there, but they got hosed against Kentucky.

Losses to two top five teams, a last second loss in a monsoon and a last second loss where obvious OPI was missed. They're good.

Well they are Mizzou. The gods don’t care for the Tigers it seems.

[Diddy]

Go Pokes

[tlombard]

The SEC teams probably belong more in tiers than in rankings, but you could make a case they're the 4th best team in the conference.

I looked up the tie-ins for the Bowl games and while some are tied by finish in the conference, the SEC tie-ins are actually by tier and the Liberty Bowl is in the first of the two tiers. I don't know if the games contracted with the SEC work together in each tier to get the best matchups for all but this is the best one for Mizzou to prove people wrong when it comes to these perceived slights.

Seeing as the Liberty Bowl and Texas Bowl are the two games that match up an SEC team against the Big 12 and Memphis is so close to St. Louis, it seems like a perfect setup for Mizzou fans and for the game itself. They get to revive a formal rivalry (I think the series record is pretty close even) in a fun city that is a pretty easy drive for a large part of the fan base. Mizzou also apparently has recruited heavily in Memphis and has a number of players from there.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if Mizzou fans don't travel well this year with all of that going for the game... their reputation as not being a draw will be proven as built on a solid foundation. If Mizzou fans don't travel well for this matchup then they absolutely deserve their reputation as not traveling well... and being crybabies who's perception of their relevance on the national stage is borderline delusional. : )

Then it seems like a lot of others are predicated on finishing order and only really get a choice based on ties in the standings. Iowa State (which won last year's Liberty Bowl) finished tied in the Big-12 for 3rd record wise with West Virginia. The Alamo Bowl is obligated to take the 2nd place team from the Big 12 and pair them up against the 2nd place team from the PAC-12 but with the top 2 teams in the Big 12 making the playoffs and a Jan 1 game they then got to choose between WV and ISU. In the end, they went with ISU which travels well even though WV is ranked much higher. Maybe beating them head to head when WV was ranked #6 earlier this year played a role too, who knows.