WRT the "weather effect", WARNING: Football analogy continued, but I'll get to the point. In this year's bowl season, consider that Michigan, a "cold-weather" team, defeated "warm-weather" Alabama, Nebraska took out Tennessee, and Virginia Tech, which runs a very "cold-weather" style game (like most teams northeast of the SEC), led Florida State after three quarters. The point is, even if the "field" is stacked against a team, said team can pull out a victory, either through luck, talent, or both. I was not at PennBowl and cannot work from actual knowledge of the questions, but I know how a team can run through a round-robin with a better record than its opponents but then just hit a patch of bad luck in the playoffs. For instance, my Virginia team finished first in our bracket at last year's TRASHionals, but we lost our first game of the playoffs (to a good team that finished fourth in the other bracket, no less) as well as 2 of the remaining 3 games to finish way out of contention for the title. Now it seemed to us that the questions did diverge from our strenghts and knowledge bases, but those things happen, and maybe we weren't the best team overall and as such, we were due to take a fall in the final rounds. I'm sure that had I been a member of Michigan A, Illinois A, or Maryland A (or even my old Virginia team, which lost in the quarterfinals...congrats guys!), losing in the first round would still be galling me today (mostly because of my competitive nature). My heart goes out to them, but credit should be given to those teams that were able to pull off the upset, as they apparently made the best of their one shot at the big guns. In any event, I seriously doubt that any effort was made to sabatoge the top seeds, as odd as the results may seem to competitors and outsiders. Thanks for getting this far, Brian
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