my argument is that if he is the best player in college football, he is regardless of whether he wins or loses this weekend. I think it is ludicrous to say that if he loses this weekend he somehow becomes not as good as Luck, who is the next front runner for the award and who would happen to also play on a 1 loss team. as far as Auburn being considered the best team by most, check the two main polls, Oregon is number 1 in both, and significantly, so clearly most people favor Oregon as the best team, so Newton isn't the best player on the perceived best team. he is the best player on the perceived second best team, and I am willing to bet Oregon is favored against Auburn in the BCS game. the BCS computer calculates Auburn ahead of Oregon, but I am confident you did not mean the computer when you said most people. as far as his maturity, what I see is a kid who is so talented that he can play great regardless of the situation.
While I agree with you in principal unfortunately because college football has the stupidest way of determining it's champion that should he later be found ineligible that would have screwed TCU, possibly South Carolina, and LSU out of a potential national title* . Now that being said LSU and South Carolina both lost other games but sometimes that one loss sidetracks you and you fall into other losses. With TCU they didn't do anything wrong but very few people really care. If they think he's good to go then they'll have to deal with the consequences down the road but right now let's just get through this weekend before we deal with what if's.
On that first part you're just arguing with yourself. No one said he shouldn't fall back in the Heisman race if he loses this weekend, but he will. That's just the way people vote for this thing. I'd bet if you asked any non-Heisman voters what they think they'd say that an undefeated Cam Newton and a 1 loss Cam Newton deserve the trophy equally. The bad part is that Heisman voting history won't exactly agree. Oregon may be tops in the minds of pollsters, but in my opinion the general consensus of the country tends toward Auburn. Could be just an east coast thing, but I feel pretty good about that statement. And Cam Newton isn't Bo Jackson, he's not so transcendent a player at the age of 21 that he's immune to off the field concerns. Very few players have that, and even less have ever faced a negative media campaign the likes of which Cam has went up against.
What general consensus? The national polls represent just that -- a national opinion. Whatever opionion you are exposed to solely on the east coast is merely a regional opinion, and there is no rational way you can claim a regional opinion is more indicative of the national consensus than a national opinion is. The polls empirically represent a national opinion. There is no empirical evidence that backs up your assertion, so for you to attempt to defend it reveals you don't even have a honest interest in what the national opinion is.
The SEC is better than the PAC 10. That's not the nation's opinion. That's a national fact. Watch some college football - you may learn something.
Now I can't speak for the consensus of the country but I can tell you that Vegas does think Oregon is a slight favorite. About 3-4 points which really isn't much. The reason Vegas exists is because the public is stupid. If I was betting the game and I probably will I'd take Auburn and the points only because I don't think you can bet against the SEC in title* games. If that makes me an idiot so be it but I have seen enough of each team to see that Auburn has found ways to win close games while Oregon (much like Boise) hasn't had many close games but the Tigers seem to have that destiny factor.
nobody is talking SEC vs Pac 10, we are talking the opinion between Oregon vs Auburn. try to develop simple reading comprehension, you may learn to follow simple conversations. not to mention you still created a ridiculously flawed argument -- just because a conference as a whole is better than another doesn't mean the weaker conference's best team isn't better than the stronger conference's best team. your dependency on jumping to such a ridiculous conclusion, which is clearly the argument you are attempting to make, only further reveals how weak your argument is.
All I know is that South Carolina can beat Auburn but I don't see Oregon St hanging with Oregon unless there is some fluke.
Oh, what happened, you realized that your other arguments were failures so you went back to arguing semantics? Throw the word "arguably" in there before best team and my post doesn't change in the slightest. Try finding a decent opinion and arguing it rather than hiding behind an English lesson. You should also really worry about your own reading comprehension and understanding of debate. Maybe you forgot this: "my argument is that if he is the best player in college football, he is regardless of whether he wins or loses this weekend. I think it is ludicrous to say that if he loses this weekend he somehow becomes not as good as Luck, who is the next front runner for the award and who would happen to also play on a 1 loss team." Considering that was not even close to the discussion of this thread, I'm quite baffled as to why you even said it. You were arguing against the Heisman voters, not Mr. E who was simply stating what would likely happen (based on a common perception of the way Heisman voters think), not what should happen.
you don't even know what a semantic argument is to even accuse someone of depending on it because nothing I was disputing of your position was based on meaning of words. disputing your assertion that a regional opinion better reflects the national opinion than a national poll isn't a semantic argument because regional and national cannot be used interchangeably so we aren't disagreeing on the basis of their meanings and usage. my argument points out how ridiculous it is to claim a regional opinion better reflects the national opinion than a national poll. what is semantic about that when regional and national have clearly different meanings? even using arguably, you have no evidence to back up your position, thus it is your position that is a failure. I have multiple national polls that are taken t a statistically relevant quantity to represent a larger body than simply the respondents, and those polls all favor Oregon as the better team nationally. when you feel like actually attempting to dispute that with empirical facts, by all means, please present them. otherwise your continued defense of your argument is without merit and is a failure of an argument in every sense. and just to clarify in case you still aren't certain what a semantic argument is, nothing I just typed is even remotely dependent on a definition of a word that can be of dispute.
actually, I was arguing in defense of the Heisman voters who could use any peripheral factors they choose to deem him not deserving of the Heisman trophy. Mr. E acknowledges in his argument that a loss could maybe knock him out of the running, thus without that loss they have no reason not to award him. but once you acknowledge and accept peripheral factors, such as a loss, can be considered in the voting even if they do not reflect whether he was the best player or not, which he is, than the voters certainly can refuse to vote for him even if he goes undefeated, and by doing so they will be stating that the surrounding controversy is just as important a factor in their decision as a loss. I don't think it is any less reasonable to punish him for the actions of his father as I do punishing him for the team losing -- in both cases he is still the best player in the country.
Oh man, you're like a creepy baby of yisman and nyjunc. Semantics because you take individual words and focus entirely on that rather than arguments. The idea of whether Auburn is the best team in the nation has nothing to do with the topics being discussed, but you took my use of the term "best team in the nation" and went on a pointless tangent. To argue semantics means to focus on the specifics of what words mean, and not on the actual issue. You took off on best team so hard that you completely ignored what the discussion was really about, I'm assuming because you have no actual knowledge of college football other than was a poll says. BTW, yes, you are STILL arguing semantics, because now you're just talking about what semantics means instead of the original topic of the post, which is now TWO layers of pointless discussion away from where we presently stand. Congratulations, you just dopple-failed. PS, before you look it up, dopple means "two" and fail means "you suck".
Except that one is based on the precedents of the voting process and the other is based on nothing. Mr E (and everybody ever) knows that the voters usually goes for winners. Not all peripheral factors can be put in the same boat, and until it's proven as a factor it won't be. In fact, the committee tends to be pretty understanding of guys with less than perfect fathers...
except his father didn't do anything that related to his eligibility. all I am saying in any of this is this: Cam Newton is the best player in the country, whether he wins or loses this week. if he doesn't win the Heisman, it will be because they don't want to award it to him because of what his father did, regardless of whether he wins or loses. I don't think it is a lock he wins even if they win this weekend because of the outcry about the NCAA's decision which defies any pragmatic sense in regards to policing and enforcing eligibility because it gives a clear hiding place for athletes. that's too many because's but I want to get this typed and get out of my office. yes, the SEC is a better conference than the Pac 10, but Oregon is considered the best team by the National polls, which is a good indicator of a national opinion. anything else, I don't care about.
That's fine with me. Might his father's actions cost him a shot at the Heisman? Absolutely, but what Mr. E was saying was that, based solely on precedent and not opinion, a loss this weekend COULD affect his chances. Is it right? Absolutely not, but that is a possibility. My gut goes against that happening, largely because James and Luck would split west coast votes and any WC winner would have to carry that region. The SC guys did it with competition, but those guys were national celebrities. Gerhart won the west coast vote last year by the biggest margin of any region, but was a distant 2nd most other regions. If it wasn't for Suh and McCoy in the southwest splitting votes and pushing everyone else down, he might have won the whole thing (he finished 4th there) because of how huge his WC lead was. As for the decision made by the reinstatement committee, yes, that was a mistake, but all the NCAA does is make terrible mistakes so no one should be surprised. They'll be right back to suspending kids for minor infractions in no time. ** I will add that losing the conference title game didn't keep Eric Crouch or Jason White from winning the award, but it made both of those races incredibly tight. Crouch barely beat out Grossman and Dorsey, and White beat Larry Fitzgerald by 100 points. That's more good news for Cam.
Like going after Dillon Baxter for receiving a ride in a golf cart after practice from a fellow SC student. Now granted that student is connected with an agent but seriously SC had to suspend this kid because of a golf cart ride. BTW USC AD Pat Haden had some interesting things to say about the Newton thing. http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/usc/la-sp-1202-usc-football-20101202,0,2907671.story There are some similarities in the Newton/Bush thing but I don't really know if you can compare. The Dwight Dasher story is pretty funny but he was suspended for 4 games over 1500 dollars but he apparently was also gambling which is a big no no.
