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Tourney

Gator Aider: Who To Root For - Week 1

Written by Chris Canada
Thursday, 03 September 2009
As part of our commitment to Gator football, the Gatorsfirst.com team will provide a weekly update on which teams we should be rooting for each week, and how it affects the Gators. At the start of the season it's pretty simple as we'll be rooting for teams that we play against. But as we approach the end of the season, we'll be rooting for teams in games that usually don't affect our ranking... This week we don't play anyone in the SEC. Therefore we should be rooting for everyone on our schedule to win this week (sans Charleston Southern). The reason for this is because it invariably affects our strength of schedule, which is calculated as part of the computer rankings. It also puts an inkling in voters minds that the Gators may have a quality win over a team that beat so-and-so. Teams On Our Schedule South Carolina over NC State Troy over Bowling Green Kentucky over Miami (OH) Tennessee over Western Kentucky Georgia over Oklahoma State LSU over Washington Florida St. over Miami (FL) Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas play FCS schools, so their records do not factor into BCS computer rankings. Obviously a loss by one of them would hurt greatly. FIU has a bye week. If we're strictly talking about Gator football, we should be rooting for each of these teams on our schedule. Let me point out four games in particular. South Carolina got a big win tonight over NC State on the road. This is good for conference ranking, and helps the Gators. We meet in November in Columbia. The LSU game against Washington is not even going to be close, but any win over another BCS conference is good. The Georgia game against Oklahoma State is one of the premeir SEC v BCS Conference games this season. It's a big headliner of the opening week and another way to show SEC superiority. A win by Georgia affects the Gators greatly, as pollsters will look to this game early to judge the SEC v Big XII. The last of this bunch is Florida St over Miami (FL). Most Gator fans would like to see some natural disaster happen during this game. However for BCS standings sake, Florida fans should root for FSU, as hard as that may seem. Now, I grew up in south Florida as a Canes fan, and then went to UF for 7 years. You could imagine the hatred I have for FSU. I'll be rooting for Miami, as I'd rather see them go 0-12 than help the Gators. However, root for the Seminoles is ONE time... Other SEC Games Alabama over Virginia Tech Mississippi over Memphis We should root for both of them because we are probably gonna meet one of them in the SEC championship game as the SEC West representative. We should specifically root for Alabama over Va Tech because a win over another BCS conference team enhances the conference rankings int he computer polls. Plus it always looks good in front of the voters. Other National Games of Interest Oregon over Boise State Oklahoma over BYU I think you have to go with the both OUs here to prevent the &BCS Busters& from possibly taking BCS bowls away from SEC teams. Even though Oregon and Oklahoma have opportunities to win out, you gotta think that they'll slip up against the USC's and Texas's of their respective conferences.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 September 2009 )

Discuss (2 posts)

allenyde

Gator Aider: Who To Root For - Week 1
Sep 04 2009 20:25:34

The one thing I know is we want either Alabama OR Ole Miss to run the table and beat LSU, and for LSU to beat the other one. That way at the end of the year we would play an undefeated Bama/Miss team in the SECCG, and would have beaten a 10-2 LSU who's only two losses are to two top 5 undefeated teams.

#2522

goose

Re:Gator Aider: Who To Root For - Week 1
Sep 04 2009 23:02:04

Allen has a fantastic point.

This is a weekly feature Chris feels strongly about, and I think it's very interesting. Because obviously for SOS purposes the best thing is for every other team to be 11-1 while you are 12-0. This isn't a reality, unless you're like me when I was Navy n NCAA 04 and had played Gamecube instead of studying for my classes. Then I lined up as many top teams from different conferences as possible, and sometimes played the entire preseason top 10 just to beef up the opponent's record.

Conference games obviously negate this. USC has probably been hurt a little by this because of the round-robin. But if they played a random 8 it could be better or worse than the round-robin.

Anyway, back to Allen's point, we definitely want the conference races to play out in our favor. Unforntunately, LSU is the wildcard, Ole Miss has Houston Nutt (aka no chance of being undefeated), and Alabama will possibly face the year 3 letdown a lot of new coaches face.

The cooler thing to me, as the races go along, will be to see how the other bowl races play out.

I feel that our goals are 1. SEC title 2. National Title 3. BCS Bowl 4. Best bowl possible 5. bowl eligibility

Goal 3 takes a big hit by Boise State's win last night, they don't play anyone even decent from here on out. Which means I officially have them on 'East Carolina Watch' where ECU scored the huge victory to open the season, thought 'they just had to roll through the season' and lost several games. Anyway, somehow I think winning the first game means Boise State has less of a chance of going undefeated. Does that make sensE?

#2523

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