Hypothetical: 4-9 and a Rose Bowl berth
The following is inspired by the faint possibility of a 7-6 UCLA team playing in the Rose Bowl (oops, Oregon just scored another touchdown...).
Suppose a Big Ten team (Let's say Indiana just for fun) starts the season with four straight non-conference losses. Also suppose that Indiana goes 3-5 in conference play but still wins the Leaders division. This is not impossible - if every Leaders team loses every game against the Legends division, and each team goes either 3-2 or 2-3 in intra-Leaders games, then the division winner will be whichever 3-2 team wins the tiebreaker.
That would make Indiana 3-9 after the regular season but still playing in the championship game. Suppose they win. Their record goes to 4-9, and as the winner of the Big Ten championship game, they are awarded a spot in the Rose Bowl.
Or are they? They don't have six wins, so they're not even bowl eligible. So what happens?
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:40 PM ^
I win an argument with my wife.
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:41 PM ^
The ultimate hypothetical
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:06 PM ^
In my house, this would qualify as Bizzaro-World.
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:50 PM ^
That men can't win arguments, because we are wrong.
December 3rd, 2011 at 3:04 AM ^
Men can't win arguments, because even when we are right, we still end up losing overall.
December 3rd, 2011 at 7:43 AM ^
Exactly!
December 3rd, 2011 at 9:59 AM ^
I just "lost" an argument to my wife that only wackos care about watching an HD video source.
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
+ 100 imaginary MGopoints.
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:58 PM ^
Yeah, but a 4-9 Indiana team winning the Big 10 title game might be mathematically possible. Your scenario isn't.
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:40 PM ^
Dont worry about it
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
Thats like hypothetically saying the animated Napolean Dynamite is going to be good...
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:01 PM ^
Is that even a thing? I really hope not...
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:10 PM ^
yeah, i saw commercials for it on fox watching the oregon/ucla game.
December 3rd, 2011 at 1:24 AM ^
Liger?
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:07 PM ^
You meant to say "the hypothetical animated Napolean Dynamite", right?
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:13 PM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:52 PM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:53 PM ^
ur stoned
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:55 PM ^
I just laughed so hard at this thank u.
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:55 PM ^
Hypothetically you have better things to do on a Friday night.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
But here I am.
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:59 PM ^
Yes. The OP is right. The winner of the B1G championship game goes to the rose bowl regardless if they have a losing record.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:07 PM ^
Bowl eligibility only applies to bowl invitations. The B1G is automatically given a berth in the Rose Bowl. Imagine if every team in an AQ conference save one was given a bowl ban. Even if that remaining team went winless, they would still take the conference's BCS berth.
December 3rd, 2011 at 8:09 AM ^
How would they play the conference championship game?
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:09 PM ^
Hypothetical: a meteor falls into the path of a wide receiver running up the sideline, knocking him out of bounds before he returns and catches the pass. Is it a valid catch?
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:16 PM ^
Only if he returns in bound immediately, unless he got knocked 10 feet out of bounds or something ridiculous. Alternatively, we could call that one a do-over assuming the teams were not vaporized on impact.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:57 PM ^
The Tsunami gets 15 for unnecessary roughness though.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:57 PM ^
The Tsunami gets 15 for unnecessary roughness though.
December 3rd, 2011 at 6:17 AM ^
The shift in the Earth's orbit would get called for unsportsmanlike conduct as well, I think. The gaseous remains of the officiating crew would run out of singed flags on this one.
December 3rd, 2011 at 8:19 AM ^
The replay official would say there was no meteor, so the pass was incomplete.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:15 PM ^
Meteor? Who's on offense, Ohio State or Virginia Tech?
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:23 PM ^
According to the replay official, the receiver was clearly wearing maize and blue, therefore the pass is ruled incomplete. The ball will be spotted two yards behind the line of scrimmage. 2nd and 12.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:37 PM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:37 PM ^
Anything is possible
December 3rd, 2011 at 12:36 AM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:38 PM ^
while on the topic. If (when?) UCLA loses, they will dip below .500. Do they lose their bowl eligibility by a loss in the conference championship?
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:42 PM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:44 PM ^
I saw the same thing. There was a special vote that allows them to play in a bowl game even though they're 6-7
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December 2nd, 2011 at 10:44 PM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:20 PM ^
No way that any team could possibly lose all four non-conference and somehow win a division. There's no way a team could ever be that bad, especially considering how laughable non-conference schedules are, and then somehow be that good. Neither division has enough cupcakes.
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:24 PM ^
But maybe in the Big East.
December 3rd, 2011 at 8:13 AM ^
This year illustrates a possible scenario where it could happen. A group of starters on a team that otherwise has some talent issuspended for the first 4 games, that return for conference play.
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:52 PM ^
Have you not watched college football over the past 25 years??? Anything is possible. And this case could certainly be possible if say, the star qb and rb were suspended/injured for the first 5 games then came back. Nothing impossible about this scenario at all. And did you see the Leaders division this year? what about next year?
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:23 PM ^
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:40 PM ^
I get it this is the real friday night drinking thread
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:45 PM ^
This basically sounds like the Big East every year. When will the BCS get smart and require AQs to at least be in the top 20, better yet top 14? If not, the spot should go to a more qualified team.
December 3rd, 2011 at 1:10 AM ^
Theoretically, you don't have to win a single regular season game to win the national title in basketball.
December 3rd, 2011 at 2:36 AM ^
Let's also not forget that the Pac 12 South's best team is ineligible for the post-season, hence the silliness of UCLA. Let's say next year's B1G East, Ohio is banned from a bowl but rips through the competition, while everybody else falls off to the 2-3 win level. It's even more plausible once the B1G goes to 9 conference games - you could see someone with as few as 3 wins conceivable going to the title game.
Of course, maybe this is an argument for the B1G's gerrymandered divisions. After all, the biggest disparities between divisions this year are in the SEC and the Pac 12. I am not a fan of "leaders and legends" divisions, but maybe there's something to it.
December 3rd, 2011 at 2:40 AM ^
Indiana doesn't win the Big Ten Championship