Anyone else surprised that Zibby is turning pro now?

Anyone else a little concerned about him getting injured?
KL | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 9:26 pm | #

Hopefully Weis will inform TZ--and all his players--of the difference bewteen a great college football player and a great pro football player.
c-stone | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 10:58 pm | #

Do any Irish fans think it's fair that ND gets an automatic bid to a BCS bowl so easily?
beta_gator | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 11:01 pm | #

I dunno. Is a top 8 BCS standing easy to attain? And I thought the old rule was winning at least 9 games and being in the top 12 in the BCS. Where did top 6 come from??

Re: Zibby fight...I was there and it was very cool to see him box (albeit for maybe three minutes total). I'm not concerned about him getting hurt. He's a tough guy.
Joe | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 11:13 pm | #

I don't think it's any easier for Notre Dame to get an automatic bid to the BCS than for, say, Florida State to get one.

Think of it this way: In order to land in the top 8 of the BCS and earn the automatic bid, Notre Dame has to outperform 109 Div. 1A teams. Conference teams have to outperform a maximum of 11 teams (and some teams, like West Virginia, only have to outperform seven.)

Or think of it this way: To earn an automatic bid, Notre Dame can only afford to be worse than 7 teams in the country. With 10 slots in the BCS games, that seems even overly restrictive. On the other hand, if we assume that two conference champs per year are going to rank in the teens (or even the twenties), ND's requirements are just about right.
NDVermin | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 11:15 pm | #

Any info about Brandon Hoyte from the Pro Days? BlueGold was covering his preparation, but you lovely BGS men didn't include him...does that bode ill? PS--Mark LeVoir's stats are ridiculous, and hopefully Shelton will make $$$ from the good head on his shoulders.
BerkeleyDomer | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 11:37 pm | #

I still can't believe an 8-4 FSU team went to the BCS. What a joke.
Brad | Email | Homepage | 03.27.06 - 11:52 pm | #

Joe--the top 6 comes from the rule that any team which finishes in the top 6 of the BCS automatically receives a BCS bid. In this, ND has been no different than any other team--Utah got into the BCS 2 years ago because they finished 5th, while Texas finished 6th, shutting out Cal. This past year, for all of Oregon's whining, ND finished 6th and OSU was 5th, so there wasn't even a choice--ND and tOSU received the automatic at-large bids.

The Top 12 finish and win 9 games rule you're thinking of is to qualify for selection, not to receive an automatic bid. Unfortunately, most people make the same mistake and think ND gets an automatic bid under those circumstances, and run around complaining about how "unfair" ND's "special rules" are. The rules aren't any different for us compared to any other non-BCS conference school. Navy qualifies to be eligible for a BCS selection if they finish #12 in the BCS standings with a 9-3 record as well. The difference is that Notre Dame will get selected at the #12 spot, whereas almost any other team will not. There's no question that if qualified, ND will be selected by one of the BCS games, simply because of how much money we bring in. In that regard, it's "automatic", but it's not an "automatic bid" like people seem to think.

It's ridiculous for people to point at ND and say "unfair" when the BCS protects undeserving conference champions like FSU (and Pitt the year before). Conceivably, a team could go 6-5 with the majority of those losses out of conference, win their conference championship game, and be in the BCS. Take, for instance, Colorado, "winners" of the Big 12 North. They went 5-3 in conference, 7-4 overall prior to backing into the Big 12 Champ game. Had they beaten Texas, they'd have been in the BCS at 8-4--the same as FSU. BUT--let's look at their schedule. Their first two games were OOC wins against Colorado St. and New Mexico St. Losing those two games wouldn't affect them in the conference race, so they actually could have been 5-6, Big 12 N champs, and with a win over Texas in the conf Champ game (we'll say Vince Young and 20 other team members were sick that day), would have automatically qualified for a BCS bowl at 6-6, no out of conference wins.

Improbable? Yes. Conceivable? Absolutely--who thought FSU would beat VT? People can whine about ND's "special rules" all they want, but there aren't any, or at least there weren't prior to the new BCS changes. I'm not sure how the new game changes things. Hopefully somewhere in the new rules they explain the difference between "qualifying", which means you're eligible for selection, and "receiving an automatic bid", which means you don't have to be selected. #6 or better? Congrats, you're in, whether you're ND or Utah. #7-12? Look, Oregon, we're sorry--but if you're 7 and ND's #12, the Bowls will still pick ND. That's life--deal with it.
Nate | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 1:06 am | #

Notre Dame doesn't necessarily have it easier than any other team in the nation. Like everyone else is saying, Notre Dame doesn't have the automatic conference bid to fall back on even if you lose 4 games in a year. Notre Dame has to play great all year long and 2 losses could end it for them. 3 losses definitely will. We don't have the option of losing 2 or 3 non-conference games, then going 6-2 in conference and then being able to qualify to play in a conference championship game. Notre Dame has to play consistently and win throughout the entire year, and cannot let up a bit, or else they miss out. But yes, we do receive better consideration if we are eligible for the BCS games, but that's only because we're automatic money for the BCS bowls.
Scott | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 2:05 am | #

Well actually, Nate, I could definitely see a situation in which Oregon (at #7 hypothetically) could get selected over a #12 Notre Dame. If Oregon had a compelling story, or maybe an incredible athlete that everyone wanted to see, or (and I know it sounds crazy) Non-conference foes who aren't in Div. II or aren't INDIANA and beat them, they could definitely be chosen over the Irish. Oregon didn't get selected this year for a variety of reasons, one of which was doubts over how good of a team they were. They played ONE good team in USC, and got their asses handed to them. I'm sorry, but the PAC-10 is always weak other than USC lately, and if Oregon had went out and played a Michigan like they did a few years ago, or a Miami/Auburn/Florida, and had won they could have bettered their chances. Everyone who cheers on conference teams whines about their conference being too tough, but Michigan plays ND for a NonConf every year, OSU plays Texas, etc. If you have a good team you need to go out and prove it, otherwise yes, ND is going to be selected due to fan base everytime. If OSU had lost another game last year to Michigan, its still possible they would have been chosen because they played some tough teams.
Brad | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 8:01 am | #

BerkeleyDomer - Those results were from the first ND Pro Day on March 8th. Hoyte didn't perform at that Pro Day, but rather the second one that was held just last Thursday. According to this article, there weren't many scouts there to see Hoyte work out.
Pat | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 9:13 am | #

What are the thoughts on Matt Shelton not re-running his 40? Was it good or bad for him to not run a 3rd 40?
atepesm | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 10:52 am | #

The way it was this year, and has been for the past several years, is that if you were from a non-BCS conference, you had to place in the top 6 to get an automatic bid, but if you were from a BCS conference and did not win your conference, you had to place in the top 4 to get an automatic at-large bid. That is why this year Ohio St. and Notre Dame had to get the automatic bids by finishing 4th and 6th respectively in the BCS standings before the bowls, but Oregon got shut out at the 5 spot. Not sure how the top 8 finish automatic bid for the Irish changes things for other non-BCS conference teams or for BCS conference teams that do not actually win their conference.

As for pointing to ND as the sole reason for the top 6 or top 8 finish clause in the BCS, Notre Dame certainly had some influence on this, but I think people forget pretty quickly that Congress and the DOJ were investigating antitrust issues a few years back regarding the BCS and this provision was introduced as a compromise for non-BCS conference schools. The sole reason cited for this investigation was: you guessed it, the automatic bids for BCS conference champions, regardless of record or rank at the end of the season. Once again, it was up to the conferences, not ND, to decide what the BCS was going to be, and they VERY easily could have made it a system to place the top-ranked 8 or 10 teams in these bowls. Of course, as well all know, they chose not to.

That is why I just tune out whenever the Oregons of the world start whining and have no qualms about ND's position in all of it.
Jon | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 11:11 am | #

It is simple. Take the top 8 teams in the AP. Screw the conference champions. That's just BS to sell one more game of tickets. If you are not in the top 8, you are not going to be national champions. No. 1 plays 8; 2 plays 7 and so on.

Three games and you have concensus National Champions. If you don't like three games, take the top 4 teams and it's two games to the NC. Simple and fair... so it'll never happen.
Yago | Email | Homepage | 03.28.06 - 5:21 pm | #

Yeah, I worry about him getting hurt, but if Weis gives him the thumbs up, so be it. He had a point about Jeff though. If he throws out his shoulder, will he be able to catch as well as he did last year? Just risks they take. If Zibby does go NFL though, I bet boxing will be one of the first bars in the contract.
chilli311 | Email | Homepage | 03.29.06 - 4:32 am | #

Looks like Zbikowski will be fighting again soon, this time at Madison Square Garden: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com...w.ap/ index.html
Eddie | Email | Homepage | 03.29.06 - 6:09 am | #

Some have complained that Notre Dame would get into the BCS anytime they're in the top 12, but in 2002 they were ranked 9th and didn't get in. Iowa was only ranked 5th in the BCS, so the Orange Bowl was under no obligation to take them, but did so because Iowa was the more deserving team. (Although I will say that the 2000 ND team had no business being the Fiesta Bowl)
John | Email | Homepage | 03.29.06 - 8:29 pm | #