Bowl Games Week Open

The Bowl Season is now open.  I will advance the week on Tuesday (11/19).

BCS National Title Game

#1 Iowa Hawkeyes vs #2 Alabama Crimson Tide

Sugar Bowl

#6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs #9 Clemson Tigers

Rose Bowl

#4 Michigan State Spartans vs #15 USC Trojans

Capital One Bowl

#5 Ohio State Buckeyes vs Missouri Tigers

Gator Bowl

#8 Nebraska Cornhuskers vs LSU Tigers

Music City Bowl

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets vs Mississippi State Bulldogs

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Write up to come ....

A couple of things jumped out at me right away:

- George Atkinson III had an incredible season winning Heisman, Maxwell, Walter Camp and Doak Walker Awards as well as being a first team All-American for the second straight year.

- They say good teams are built up front.  Well the two teams playing in the National Title Game occupy all 5 of the First Team All-Americans on the offensive line and both teams starting RB's, not coincidentally, finished in the Top 3 of the Heisman voting.

- Not only was Michigan State passing offense incredible with all-world WR Keith Mumphery but their pass defense was also stellar as 3 of their 4 starting DB's garnered first team All-America honors.

I'll take a Music City bowl berth especially after the way we started the season.

Good Luck Bama and Iowa.

#8 Nebraska has to slum it in the Gator Bowl against an unranked LSU team?! Talk about bad TV exposure. Hopefully I can get revenge on the Tigers for stealing my recruits.  And I guess with 4 of the top 8 teams being B1G representatives, it's hard to squeeze everyone in (Damn you Buckeyes).
At least EA got the BCS rules right I suppose. 

Selection of teams[edit]
A set of rules is used to determine which teams compete in the BCS bowl games.^[8]
Certain teams are given automatic berths depending on their BCS ranking and conference, as follows:

• The top two teams are given automatic berths in the BCS National Championship Game.
  
• The champion of an AQ Conference (ACC, Big 12, AAC, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC) is guaranteed an automatic BCS bowl bid.
  
• Due to the "Notre Dame rule",^[9] independent Notre Dame receives an automatic berth if it finishes in the top eight.
  
  
• The highest-ranked champion of a non-AQ conference will receive an automatic berth if:
  
  
  
  • It is ranked in the top 12, or
    
  • Ranked in the top 16 and higher than at least one AQ conference champion.
    
  
  
• No more than one such team from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference shall earn an automatic berth in any year. However, a second team from one of these conferences may qualify as a BCS at-large.
  
  
• No more than two teams from any one conference may receive berths in BCS games unless two non-champions from an AQ conference finish as the top two teams in the final BCS standings, in which case they will meet in the National Title Game while their conference champion will play in their conference's BCS bowl game.
  
  
• The third-ranked team will receive an automatic berth if it has not already received one, if it is a member of an AQ conference, and provided that its conference has not already earned two automatic berths, if there is room.
  
  
• If the third-ranked team did not require a berth using the previous provision, then the fourth-ranked team will receive an automatic berth if it has not already received one, if it is a member of an AQ conference, and provided that its conference has not already earned two automatic berths, if there is room.
  
  

[*]After the automatic berths have been granted, the remaining berths, known as "at-large" berths, are filled from a pool of teams who are ranked in the top 14 and have at least nine wins. The actual teams that are chosen for the at-large berths are determined by the individual bowl committees.
If fewer than 10 teams are eligible for selection, then an at-large team will be any Football Bowl Subdivision team that is bowl-eligible, has won at least nine regular-season games, and is among the top 18 teams in the final BCS Standings, though any at-large team ranked in the top 14 will be guaranteed a bid over at-large teams ranked lower than 14th. If fewer than 10 teams are eligible after expanding the at-large pool to the top 18 BCS-ranked teams, then the at-large pool will continue to be expanded by four additional positions in the BCS Standings until 10 or more teams are eligible. No team ranked lower than 14 has used this rule to earn an at-large bid, although several teams ranked lower than 14 have received a bid for winning their conference, as the rule was not in place in the early years of the BCS.
All AQ conferences except the AAC have contracts for their champions to participate in specific BCS bowl games. Unless their champion is involved in the BCS National Championship game, the conference tie-ins are:

• Rose Bowl – Big Ten champion and Pac-12 champion
  
• Fiesta Bowl – Big 12 champion
  
• Orange Bowl – ACC champion
  
• Sugar Bowl – SEC champion
  

The American Athletic Conference champion takes one of the remaining spots.

Iowa Wins BCS National Championship with 21-20 victory over #2 Alabama.

Write up to come.

Fun Fact For Ya, lol

Maybe its a strange coincidence (or is it), but every season I've won the National Championship (NCAA11-Syracuse, NCAA13-Virginia and now NCAA14-Iowa) my MLB happened to win LB of the Year during the season I won the National Title and only those years.

In his introductory press conference, Coach Steel Pitt spoke about how the goal wasn't just to win some game but to have the Iowa Hawkeyes win a National Championship.  Well, two years into his campaign he has accomplished that goal.  The #1 Iowa Hawkeyes defeated the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide 21-20 in Glendale, Arizona to capture the BCS Trophy and be crowned champions for the 2014 season.  The road to the championship was tough and pulling off the victory over the mighty Crimson Tide was even tougher.

The amazing thing about the Hawkeyes run is that they've done so with such uncertainty at the QB position and that unstable nature was on display once again in the National Title game.  Iowa would once again have three different QB's take snaps and none due to injury.  The game started out rocky for the Hawkeyes as they received the opening kick and proceeded to watch starting QB Jake Rudock throw interceptions to end the team's first two drives of the game.  The Iowa defense was able to hold the Tide to a FG after the first pick but couldn't stop QB Alec Morris from finding TE Brian Volger in the end zone after pick #2 as Alabama jumped out to a 10-0 lead. 


The first of two INT thrown by QB Jake Rudock which led to his benching.


Insert freshmen QB Jason Wade. 


Wade once again came into the game cold and fired up the Hawkeyes offense.

The true freshmen, just as he's done several times before, came into the game, settle the team down and got the offense moving.  Coach Steel Pitt brought Jason Wade into the game and went exclusively to the no huddle attack for the rest of the game.  With Wade as a legit threat to run the ball, it opened up holes for RB Damon Bullock who found success on the ground against the #1 run defense in the country.  Wade led the Hawkeyes on back to back scoring drives to end the half, both culminating with Damon Bullock taking it in for the score, as what started off treacherous for the Hawkeyes ended with them taking a 14-10 lead into the locker room.


RB Damon Bullock finished 87 yards rushing and 3TD.


Alabama received the opening kick and quickly showed everyone why they've been the class of college football over the past 6 years.  They marched right down the field and regained the lead when QB Alec Morris connected with WR Amari Cooper on a 22 yard TD strike.


QB Alec Morris found a wide open WR Amari Cooper in the end zone to give Alabama a 17-14 lead.

Wade and the Hawkeyes no huddle attack, however, was still flying high and true freshmen directed a third straight TD drive that once again saw RB Damon Bullock carry the ball over the goal line for the go ahead score.


Bullock's third TD of the game gave the Hawkeyes the lead for good.

Up 21-17 in the fourth the Hawkeyes defense made a huge play and intercepted Alec Morris giving Iowa the ball with the lead and a chance to push that lead to double digits.  However, the true freshmen made a true freshmen like play and threw his first INT of the season on the very next play.  With new life Alabama once again made their way down the field.  A pass to Amari Cooper here, a run by Kenyon Drake there and suddenly the Tide were in Hawkeyes territory.  The Hawkeyes defense stepped up big time and sacked Alec Morris on third down forcing Alabama to kick the FG with 3:06 remaining.


Davis' sack of Alec Morris forced a FG attempt and allowed Iowa to keep the slim 21-20 lead.

Coaches often talk about the 4 minute offense when you have the lead and you need to run that final four minutes off the clock without giving the ball back to preserve the lead.  Well, Coach Steel Pitt would have reason to be very proud of his team's 3 minute 6 second offense as the Hawkeyes' offense received the kickoff and proceeded to get first down after first down.  Having called two timeouts already and facing a 1st and 10 the Alabama defense needed a stop and needed one bad.  RB Damon Bullock, who thoroughly outplayed his RB counterpart TJ Yeldon, took the handoff and followed his pulling lineman off the left edge and scampered 25 yards for the first down and icing on the National Championship Game. 


Damon Bullock scampered 25 yards for the first down and allowed Iowa to run out the clock.

The Crimson Tide lone timeout was not enough to stop the Hawkeyes from running out the rest of the clock while taking a knee.  The Iowa Hawkeyes are your 2014 season National Champions.

FINAL SCORE

#2 Alabama Crimson Tide 20

#1 Iowa Hawkeyes 21

Wow, great game for the championship. Congrats Pitt.

Looks like this is the end for me, I got a PS4 and traded in my PS3. It's been fun fellas

Anyone heard anything from Buckeye? I may go ahead and play CPU today, and then if he shows we can throw out the results.

Greetings from T-Town. 

We'll keep this short as Pitt already provided a wrap up of the BCS championship game. We feel pretty down about losing the championship especially after jumping out to a 10-0 lead, but we'll regroup and try again next year. We are losing a lot of talent but there's plenty left in the cupboard and good talent coming on board. 

Roll Tide Roll!

Any word on when we're going to advance? We're waiting on OVU but he bowed out of the league.

Steel posted he was gonna be out of town thru Monday. So I assume the advance is tomorrow.

Dynasty History updated thru Season 2

I will advance the week tomorrow (Tuesday).

Season 2 User Awards updated in the Sportscenter section.