Hey Vick. You are not very good at football. You should consider a different career.
So the real question, who cares?? Unless you live in South Carolina or Alabama, do you real care which of these "semi pro" footfall teams wins? It's not like its collegiate students playing while working toward a meaningful college degree, its the top teen (football sized) athletics, recruited from all over the country to play football on a college campus of a few select (mainly southern) universities willing to trade a piece of paper that says the athlete, having played football in their name (and coincidentally help the school bring in millions of dollars) so the athlete can, after a four year internship, move over to the NFL.
Since the (broken) system of collegiate sports requires TV viewers to continue to operate, I say we reward this non competitive collegiate farce with a no show tonight. I'm sure Mr Saban won't mind, as long as we leave our TV sets on and the cable company measures and assumes we are watching the game.
Statistics: they are right more often than they are wrong, but that's about all you can say.
As far as comparing the two teams performances this season: one element not discussed is the sequence of games. I am a GA Bulldog, been following the SEC since I personally saw Ga beat 'Bama 18-17 on the infamous flea-flicker, but one thing I have learned (as have, seemingly, the people who plan the teams schedules) is you want to play your powerful rival after your off-week, or after their other big tough game. These are, after all, youths that must attend classes and getting to peak readiness only happens a couple of times a season. So, for example, even the semi-finals may show the difference between playing Georgia and the 7-5 Pittsburgh Panthers. It's not just the wear and tear on the players: you get to see on film just what their previous opponent did that worked, and what didn't.
I predict Alabama will win by a slight margin. The University of Alabama: #1 in college football, #129 in college academic rankings. Roll Tide!
War Eagle!
3
Cool. Now I don't have to watch the game to know who won.
In the NFL, the pundit's wisdom is that "On any given day, any given team can......" College is more difficult because the level of talented players is much more variable between teams, but it still holds. You know, it is possible to overthink/overanalyze these things.
5
I know one thing.
If I ever have breakfast with Nick Saban, he's buying.
X's & O's baby!
1
Not much interest in this game nationwide! The National Championship game should be played on New Year's Day in one of the four major bowl venues: Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton!
4
Saban $7.5 million per year.......Swinney $6.75 million per year. Alabama wins!
1
@BBBear
Saban 11.125 million per year ..
I stand corrected. Alabama wins “bigger”. FYI....Alabama governor makes $120,000 per year. Pathetic!
It stunned me the sheer number of bowl games this year. Won ten games? Your going to the ten bowl. Yeesh! Why not get back to tradition and make the rose bowl along with its parade, the venue for the two best teams. And play it on New Year’s Day. How hard could this be. We have Super Bowl. We have Stanley cup. Get back to rose bowl as THE defining champions.
6
Due to the surfeit of quality, none of the bowlers were worth watching until the final week.
@Thomas G
And the bowl game names are so ridiculous. The PlayStation Bowl Game? Geesh! The bowl names now used show it's all about the money.
1
While this article presented a variety of random statistics, it concluded with the results of comprehensive statistical algorithms. Stats are stats and require no understanding of the game. Sometimes team A beats team B; B beats C; and C beats A. This can be just the variations and luck on a given day but can also be that some strengths or styles of play do better or worse against other strengths and styles. So it's be more interesting to read how each team's strengths might perform against the playing style and strengths of the other. Any thoughts?
3
@Avid NYT reader the great thing about stats is that you can just throw the numbers into the computer and click to get some results. what you're asking requires basically a great coach looking at the various aspects of the game and weighing the qualities of the players in each position. but why bother? i mean, all that for a game? give me a break. let the computers do it.
@Avid NYT reader Yes, there are models that do just that. numberFire and TeamRankings are analytics vendors that offer such. They include similar games (eg prior match-ups between opponents with similar styles and strengths) .
They favor BAMA.
1
@Avid NYT reader
A head-to-head match-up across all stats and a prediction can be found here: http://sullyscollegefootballpage.com/Football_Stats/Matchup.cfm
Clemson by a slight edge.