From: ronnie@uts.amdahl.com (Ronnie Townsend)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
Subject: Re: Lies, D**n Lies, etc (Re: PSU is Overrated!)
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:46:07 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Oct13.165322.18324@morrow.stanford.edu> COWAN@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu (Paul L. Cowan) writes:
>In <92287.074450KRB104@psuvm.psu.edu> KRB104@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>:  
>:    Penn State is one of the top programs in the country who consistently win
>:  over top 10 teams, right!!!!  WRONG!!!  A.P. reports that in the "Joe Paterno
>:  Era", PSU is 10-41 against teams that ended the season in the Top 10.  Now
>
>Just for curiosity sake, did the AP compare this with any other team over the
>25 years that JoePA has coached? What is, say, Miami's record since 1967? 
>In '68 and '69 Penn State's principal rivals for No.1 were Ohio State, USC and
>Texas. In the '70's and early '80's they were 'Bama, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, 
>lately it's been Miami, FSU and Washington. The point is there have been alot
>of teams that have been near the top for several years running, but only 
>Michigan and Notre Dame have remained consistantly near the top as often 
>over the last 1/4 century as JoePa's teams. (Sorry, I have no statistics on
>this, just memories).

Whoa there dude...  What on Earth are you talking about?  Joe *has* had his 
share of 7-4 and 8-3 teams as I recall. Now this is not necessarily a "bad" 
year but certainly not in the MNC hunt either. Remember the 0-3 start a few 
years back.  Switzers worst teams at OU were no worse than 7-4 and "the Bear"
never sunk below 7-4 either. Hell Tom Osborne has yet to finish worse than 9-3
at Nebraska. My point is that the continuity PSU has enjoyed was enjoyed by 
all the great college coaches during their tenures. Bear Bryant retired, 
Switzer was run out of town in Norman because he was wild-man (a trait I happen
to admire) Woody Hayes and Bo got old.  JoePa simply has been around longer 
than most of the current great coaches. Can you imagine FSU doing any worse 
than 7-4 under Bowden? Or Miami losing more than 2 games under anybody?  Holtz
has likewise built a default 8-3 program at Notre Dame, not really all that 
hard to do but it is a fact. Don James, will eventually begin to lose the 
recruiting war to Bill Walsh in California and his program could slide... 
assuming Walsh sticks around long enough. Until then UW will lose no more than 
3 a year. 



aroun

>
>JoePa has always developed his teams in 4 or 5 year cycles. He has a young 
>team that loses to the top teams for a couple of years, then they mature
>and when they get some breaks they win the big games (except against Maryland,
>where they always win 8^). I have seen some teams able to avoid such cycles
>Texas in the early 70's, Barry Switzer's Okla teams. Now Miami is in that
>pattern. But clearly no one has sustained it for 25 years.
>
>I would also be curious to see PSU record against top 10 teams in years that
>PSU also finished in the top 10. My guess is that most of the 41 losses 
>occured during PSU's down years.
>
>One other factor skewing the interpretation of the above statistic: Beating
>a team like PSU is a big help in becoming ranked in the top 10.
>
>The bottom line is the business of polls, "top 10", "National Champion" etc. 
>is B.S. JoePa has advocated a playoff system since he began coaching. 
>In the "championship" games that he was able to arrange within the bowl 
>system where No.1 faced No.2 he is .500 (2-2). That's not perfect, it's not 
>as good as Barry Switzer, but it ain't nothin' to cry about either, and he 
>did it with one of the cleanest (also not perfect) programs in the NCAA. 
>

The interesting thing about this is that I don't believe Paterno would have 
ever won a championship if there had been a playoff. He did not have the 
best team in the country in either of years they won it. In either year, 
Oklahoma or Nebraska would have overpowered him.    By they way, I just 
remembered that Clemson won the MNC in 1982 so I'm still trying to figure
out where that one guy got two in the 80's for JoePa? 

-- 
Ronnie
-------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not cynical... I just don't believe in anything....


Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college