This so-called sportswriter has no clue

[Sooner47]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/dec/02/lincicome-sooners-have-cyberspace-pals/

The entire premise of this article is that the computers favored Oklahoma because we ran up the score on teams. Quote from the article:

"Clearly the reason Oklahoma got the computer edge was because it ran up the score on teams, since most of the computer programs are based on point differential. Oklahoma has won four games scoring in the 60s, another four in the 50s."

I wonder if it would be too much trouble for this moron to do enough research for his article to know that the margin of victory component was completely removed from the computers several years ago. Many of these sportswriters are a total embarrassment to their profession.

By the way, you can send a message to this jerk by clicking on "contact" next to his byline at the top. I encourage all of you to do exactly that - I did.

[oupride]

See 2002
The commissioners agreed that margin of victory was not an appropriate element in the standings and accordingly removed the Matthews and Rothman rankings from the formula. (http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/history)

[SoonerStormchaser]

Whatever...this crap will be spewed all week.

[oupride]

I just sent him an email saying strength of schedule has everything to do with Sooners leaping Texas.

[Hot Rod]

Whatever...this crap will be spewed all week.

Which is just evidence that a lot of people are upset that the Sooners are playing good, and for some reason, not good enough.

Like I said in another post, 45-35 will be mentioned in some way, shape, or form during the game on Saturday night.

[bluedogok]

You have to remember that sports columnists are about the most uninformed bunch of people there are out there. They are there to express opinions, regardless of the facts.

[Leroy Lizard]

To be one of the three or four best college football teams in the nation and then to get excluded from the final sorting out is beyond the reality in which the local teams rest. I mean by that, both the front part and last part of the preceding sentence, the including and excluding.

Huh?

[soonerboomer93]

you know, I grew up reading that paper, my parent still get it

I sent a nice letter to the editor asking why the writer didn't even have rudimentary knowledge of the BCS.

[bluedogok]

I just looked at the opinion "piece", Bernie Lincicome, he makes Randy Galloway and Dale Hansen look like Mensa members.


As conclusive as Obama's eight-team playoff might make things, consider not just the loss of controversy and cross- country chatter, otherwise known as publicity, but under such a plan, Texas would still be left out, as would Texas Tech and either Alabama or Florida, considering that only conference champions need apply.
I don't remember seeing anywhere that "conference champions" was the only criteria for inclusion in the playoff scenarios. Most everything that I have seen proposed is ratings based. The BCS puts a premium on conference champions because it was a system devised by the conference leaders, so it was in their best interest to make sure that their member conferences were guaranteed representation. If the BCS went away and it was in control of the NCAA (scary thought) you couldn't really leave it up to automatic inclusion for conference champions like in basketball because there would only be 8 (or 16) teams in the playoffs. A number of the best at-large teams are included in the Division I-AA, Division II and Division III playoffs as well. When Texas State went to the D-IAA playoffs a few years ago they were not their conference champions but were the runner-up.

[soonermix]

well to be fair we did run up the score in every game we played....
but only for about 3 quarters then we started to pull starters

i'd like to see the actual playing time that bradford got this year and show that to people they might change their minds about running up the score

[The Maestro]

Here is what I just sent him....

Bernie...your column stated at the end...

"Clearly the reason Oklahoma got the computer edge was because it ran up the score on teams, since most of the computer programs are based on point differential. Oklahoma has won four games scoring in the 60s, another four in the 50s.

Even losing to Texas, OU scored 35. And the Longhorns did not make it into the 60s even once.

Running up the score is an old tactic, and I am not against it per se. One team ought to be able to establish how much better it is than another team. Or, as FSU coach Bobby Bowden once told me, "Son, I can't coach both teams."

Sportsmanship suffers, if it matters, and it should. Piling on is unseemly, but as long as the present system exists, it is how teams separate themselves.

Texas' problem is not that it is not as good as Oklahoma - it already proved it was better - but it was more compassionate. Imagine that."

Seriously, do you do any homework? www.soonersports.com might have helped. Sam Bradford did not play in 7 quarters and 9:34 of another quarter. He missed 21 possessions this year and did play in the second half of one game, the fourth quarter vs. Nebraska or Texas A&M or the final 11 minutes vs. Texas Tech.

Run up the score? That was a lack of effort on your part and an amazing ability to sell yourself for a paper you shouldn't be writing for if you can't do a little more research.

And you writers wonder why the newspaper industry is in the ****ter.

Sincerely,

A nobody who spent ten minutes researching...

[Leroy Lizard]

Texas' problem is not that it is not as good as Oklahoma - it already proved it was better - but it was more compassionate. Imagine that.

Texaas -- the compassionate football team.

That's gotta hurt.

[Mile High Sooner]

Having to look at his smug face on a weekly basis I replied online to his ignorant article.
Here's an exert...

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie,
What’s the matter, not getting enough e-mail?
Why is it so hard for you to grasp the reality of a 3-WAY TIE??!

Texas, who only had a lead for less the last 90 seconds of the game, LOST to Texas Tech.
Texas Tech, who should be ranked ahead of Texas under your head-to-head theory, got blown out by Oklahoma.
The Sooners, who lead for more than 3 quarters of the game in Dallas, Texas (the neutral site), lost to Texas.

... ... ...
If your favorite, Texas, had played a more competitive Out of Conference schedule, as Oklahoma did, then the non-biased Computers would have rewarded UT appropriately.
But… Texas chose the whine and politic route to distract the human voters away from their LOSS in Lubbock. Texas wants you to believe their season only revolves around 1 game. Luckily the computers don't have ears.
Bernie, stop drinking the Burnt Orange Kool-aid!!!
Until a playoff is ever established it’s the season that matters most and determines your fate. Unless, of course, you are USC.

[sooner_born_1960]

Wait. Two of you actually responded to the guy, and neither of you mentioned that he was flat wrong about margin of victory?

[stoopified]

Former Coach Mark Gottfried of Inside The Polls exhibits the same type of ignorance.The funny thing is on Monday after the BCS was released the man was so livid ,incensesd,and personally outraged about OU jumpong UT he could hardly talk.He said that head to head was THE deciding factor,completely ignoringTT bbeating UT head to head,but saying because TT lost by 44 they had no right to be in the 3-way tie discussion,it SHOULD JUST BE OU_UT.He kept saying over and over that UT had the human element ENTIRELY on their side and OU only had the computers.Apparently he doesn'trealize that the coaches have OU ahead of UT or thinks they are not human.

This idiot further compounds his stupidity by picking Missou to beat OU saying OU HAS A HISTORY OF LOSING BIG12 TITLE GAMES.He then went on to say OU can't win a big game citing the BEATDOWN OU suffered vs. Boisie State.Apparently he doesn't realize Bob is 5-1 in CCG's and thinks 43-42 constitutes a beatdown.

[bluedogok]

Like I said in another thread, ANY loss by OU is considered a BLOWOUT by the media....

[cheezyq]

http://sportsmediawar.blogspot.com

Wink, wink....

[SteelCitySooner]

http://sportsmediawar.blogspot.com

Wink, wink....

Good article!

[Dan Thompson]

It is true that margine of victory was removed and this year style points where added.:)

[cvsooner]

Margin of victory matters in the human polls, so maybe that's why he's uninformed about the computer polls. More troubling is that such an uninformed potential voter (I'm too lazy to see if he votes in the Harris or AP polls) doesn't know how the system works. Playoff...is the only way to resolve this. And that ain't happenin'...

[A-M]

I sent him an e-mail and quoted the BCS rule where point differential was removed from the computer ratings. In short, I told him his article made him look stupid.