Reasonable expectations in college football

A-fucking-men to that, my man.

 

Groh actually had UVa on the level it should be for quite a while before he alienated almost every high school coach in the state. There's no reason the Cavs can't win 8 games a year and be in a bowl game annually.

 

The more interesting question would be

At which schools in BCS conferences is it completely unrealistic to win with any consistency?

 

With no research whatsoever, in order of decreasing dire-ness...

Indiana
Duke
Northwestern
Kentucky
Wake Forest
Vandy
Wazzou
Illinois

I'll defer to closer observers of pretty much any of these programs, although I've got a pretty good handle on Duke and Wake.

 

I wouldn't necessarily include Illinois, but would add Iowa State and until recently Baylor.

 

I suspect Baylor will go back to being the Bad News Bears after RG III is gone.

 

Really, with the modern scheduling convention of almost all top-tier BCS schools playing 4 knockover cupcakes for nonconference games and then an 8-game conference schedule, the bar has been lowered -- you can go 3-5 in conference year after year, and if you still beat the cupcakes you go 7-5 and go to a bowl game.

Of course, if you are really a 7-5 caliber team, you lose some of the cupcake games, too.

 

I've never understood why Illinois has so much trouble fielding a competitive football team.

I think if Vandy moved to the Big East it would start going to bowls on a semi-regular basis. It's got to be tough to have high academic standards and have to compete in the toughest conference. You could say the same thing about Stanford and the Pac-10, but Vandy doesn't have a tenth of the athletic resources that Stanford has.

 

Everyone who had a national championship before 1999 had a shared title. Have you seen how many god damn polls there were?

 

Northwestern is respectable again. Over the last 10 years I would have them above the following teams in their conference: Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Purdue, and if you take out this year, Michigan State.

 

Colorado-Georgia Tech
Miami-Washington
LSU-USC
Michigan-Nebraska

Isn't that it for the last 30 years?