#18 Wisconsin (2-1) at Iowa (3-0) Game Week

[Cincydawg]

If Wisconsin loses, it is a blow of significance obviously, but Iowa could lose two still.

It's a Big Game for both.

[ELA]

I didn't care for the 2 system. You lose a nonCon game, and your season was effectively over. Like 2008, when OSU lost to USC, and went directly into rebuild mode; benching the defending Big Ten champion for a freshman QB. Of course they wound up winning the Big Ten anyway, but it wasn't because they gave a crap about the 2008 season.

This is the exact mentality I hate.

[Brutus Buckeye]

You and me both.

Auto-bids for Ccg winners would all but eliminate it. Or at least fend it off until the end of October.

[FearlessF]

If Wisconsin loses, it is a blow of significance obviously, but Iowa could lose two still.

It's a Big Game for both.

every game is a big game if you have a shot at the conference championship

[ELA]

You and me both.

Auto-bids for Ccg winners would all but eliminate it. Or at least fend it off until the end of October.

The mentality being NC or bust.  I know there's no putting the toothpaste back in the tube on that, so you've got to modify it to make more games matter.  That includes the G5.

[Brutus Buckeye]

Yeah, with auto-bids the Conference Titles would be everything, and you wouldn't worry about the post season until you get there. The nonCon schedule would probably improve as well since it would behoove a team to play tough games in order to prepare themselves for conference play.

[Anonymous Coward]

When there are auto-bids for the Ccg winners, the regular season will be of the utmost importance.
Unless of course you are longing for the days when a singular loss effectively eliminated you from contention. But I don't believe that you meant that, since you consider pre-BCS to be better for the "regular" season than BCS.

Much of what made the pre-BCS "best" at valuing the regular season is that the regular season wasn't chiefly about the future national champion but about the conference races. Those races have been diminished in several ways over the last 20 years. For one, rematches are now a semi-common feature of the sport's various (conference or national) championships. For another, some major conferences know by the beginning of November that they almost certainly will not have a representative in the NC-apalooza. And the psychology has changed to call those games insignificant.
To an extent this may have been worse in the BCS than the CFP era (because each CFP is inclusive of more than 2 conferences and, once, the BCS was inclusive only of one), but perhaps the bigger damage of the CFP era, which outweighs that, is that whereas the BCS was to some extent a sidelight or at least shared the stage with the traditional big bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta), the new systems ruins that doubly. First, it occupies two of the bowls (not one, like the BCS before 2006 or zero, like the BCS between 2006 and 2014), which increases the odds that those bowls will house non-traditional matchups. Second, when the CFP is not occupying the Rose, for example, leaving it free to grab PAC and Big Ten reps, it's unlikely that both of those reps were their conference champion, further diminishing that game.

Meanwhile, I do agree that if the CFP grows to include all P5 CCG winners, that our game will be better at respecting the regular season than the current state. Even then, however, rematches will remain a feature of the game, the CFP will be central to the sport instead of just another story along with the conference races, and games like the Rose will continue to deteriorate from being anxiously awaited across the season to a shell of itself.

[847badgerfan]

Perfect place for a playoff conversation.

[Mdot21]

I think I like Iowa in a game that has a weird ass score. 11-10. Night game in Kinnick- some weird shit is bound to happen on that field.

[ELA]

Perfect place for a playoff conversation.

It's not really a playoff discussion as much of a "why is this game not a bigger deal" discussion

[Brutus Buckeye]

I was just helping temp pad the post count in the threads that he starts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect place for a playoff conversation.

But isn't it? This is all in support of UW/Iowa because a guy on ESPN expressed the game as irrelevant and that's a sad (and sadly pervasive) problem, albeit predictable given the state of the sport, hence the conversation.

[Brutus Buckeye]

If Iowa runs the table, they are in. Even from that vantage point, it is far from a meaningless game. 

[847badgerfan]