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How Not to Deal with Arguments - By OU Fans

Here's the relevant link.

I'm getting a bit tired of the repeated "arguments" OU fans are spouting, which are more so accusations of Horns fans for being "self-serving," "irrational," and "arbitrary" when we are merely arguing the current status of the BCS.

I think CCmachine does a good job with this site, but his arguments were getting a bit irritating.  Pay attention to our exchange; he not only fails to address my argument, he gets angry when I point that out and exits the discussion altogether.  Nice.

So for OU fans, allow me to clarify a few things:

1.  Horns fans are not "punishing" Tech for losing by a ton and/or OU for winning by a ton.

I'm getting increasingly amused (and annoyed)  at how many OU fans are accusing us of using self-serving arguments and for "punishing" other teams like OU, as if we're the ones who control the BCS.  The fact is, Tech is out of any scenario of a three way tie break, even if OU and Texas win by 1 point each in overtime and Tech wins by 200 points.  We're just making a conclusion based on the BCS standings right now.

I can't count how many times I've been accused for arbitrarily tossing Tech to the wayside, punishing Oklahoma for winning by 50, etc.  I promise you, if I had the power to "punish" teams and affect the BCS standings, I'd blow up the whole system and institute a playoff.  Unfortunately, I, nor any other Texas fan, do not have that power, so we're making arguments as the BCS standings are shown to us.  Does that mean we always agree with them?  Of course not; I think it's ridiculous that Alabama does not have every #1 vote right now, for starters.  However, fair or not, Tech got dropped heavily by the pollsters and didn't have an overly strong computer ranking to begin with, and thus, they cannot win a three way tiebreak against OU and Texas.

"We" are not punishing anyone.  The BCS is.  Go get mad at them.

2.  If you want to pull Tech into the equation as a legit contender in a three-way tie, argue a case for them in the case of a three way tie.

I posed this challenge and ccmachine proceeded to "answer" it by posing the scenario of OU losing and Tech winning.  Uh... that's not a three way tie.  OF COURSE Tech requires OU to lose.  That's exactly our argument; Tech can't win the South unless OU loses and they win, which is obviously not a three way tie any longer.  The challenge is to argue that Tech has a chance if all three teams win to preserve the tie because that's when the BCS standings become relevant to the tiebreak.  I'm starting to get incredibly exasperated how many OU fans are not understanding this very simple concept.  Obviously, if the three-way is broken, the BCS standings no longer matter in the tiebreak and we will not be talking about this any longer.

I feel like I'm repeating my self way too much in the above paragraph, but it's apparently difficult for people to grasp the idea.

3.  If Oklahoma fans cannot construct a realistic case for Tech to win a three way tie (again, let me emphasize the "three way tie" part for all OU fans), then it is not Texas fans who are being self-serving.  OU fans are being the self-serving ones for bringing in a team that they know does not have a chance because they desperately need that team to bolster their case.

To illustrate, the race for a higher BCS ranking looks like this rather than an equal, three way tie:

OU fans want to make it like this:

 

As you can see, it is not Texas fans who are trying to be "self-serving."  Oklahoma fans have no interest in making this an equal three-way discussion.  They merely want to drag Tech in on their side for the sole purpose of bolstering their case against Texas.  Subsequently, I've heard no case whatsoever from OU fans that Tech has a good argument in a three-way tie.  To the contrary, OU simply wants Tech to piggyback on them until after the potential BCS tiebreak, in which they can toss Tech to the wayside and forget about the Red Raiders.

If you have a case for Tech in a three-way tie, we're all ears.  If that is so, then we'll be happy to deal with additional arguments regarding Tech's overall resume.  Otherwise, stop the accusations that Horns fans are arbitrarily excluding Tech in a three-way tie; Tech is excluded by the BCS, not us.

(You may notice I've said "three way tie" or something similar about a billion times, since people seem to conveniently ignore that important part.)

At any rate, this is one reason (not the only) why Texas fans think we have the better resume.  We have a head-to-head argument.  Oklahoma has to bring in a third party to try to counter, a third party they know is not an equal opponent in this fight.  Thus, as a previous poster here pointed out, the curious logic for OU is similar to this:

Rock > Scissors > Paper, therefore Rock > Paper

And they want to reject this:

Paper > Rock

Make sense?  You tell me.

edit:  As you can see, I wish to challenge PB as the resident master at Microsoft Paint.

All comments, FanPosts, and FanShots are the views of the reader-authors who create them.

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Nice work Shadow. I applaud your MS Paint skills.

I saw your argument over there with CCmachine. He’s got a good site, and he appears to be a fine gent, but he is obviously dueling a strawman at this time.

proud to swim home

by learned hand on Nov 27, 2008 3:52 PM CST reply actions   0 recs

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