Playoff Chaos?

[java]

It certainly looks possible to me. 

Your thoughts?

 

[okiehorn]

Don’t see much gonna happen unless ohio st gets the W... Georgia wins so ya put them in.... don’t know if Ohio st will get in with the W or not....bad bad loss to Iowa 

 

[Adferrum]

Really depends on the Wisconsin - tOSU game IMO.

As much as it hurts to say it, OU is a safe bet. 

Georgia should be in based on how they handled Auburn so far. 

Winner of Miami and Clemson gets in either way. If Clemson wins, they are #1, if Miami wins, OU will be #1

If Wisconsin wins, they are in. If they lose, then it might get iffy. If they get trounced like 2014 then tOSU might get the #4 seed, otherwise most likely they will give that to Bama. I hope that Wisconsin and Clemson will win, leaving us with:

1 - Clemson
2 - OU
3 - Georgia
4 - Wisconsin

 

[java]

If tOSU wins, and Miami wins, I think we may have a controversy with Alabama sitting at #5. 

The SEC is down, and their noncon doesn’t help. Alabama doesn’t belong there this year. If they did, they would have beaten Auburn. 

 

[tejasrulz]

If Wisconsin and Clemson win, it should be this in my opinion:

1 - Wisconsin
2 - Georgia
3 - Clemson
4 - ou

I rate ou lowest, not just because I can't stand them, but they did lose at home. Clemson had a bad loss at Syracuse. Georgia lost on the road and Wisc went undefeated.

 

[java]

Good reasoning, ruiz.  Clemson looked good on their first drive. 

 

[java]

Wisconsin looking pretty good. 

 

[605Longhorn]

Since Wisconsin lost, I really do not want Bama to get in the playoffs.  They placed 3rd in the SEC and it looks like they will get in.  This drives me crazy.  

 

[Adferrum]

wtf, its bama. 

 

[java]

What?

 

[Epictetus]

ESPN staff keeps repeating that the committee disregarded all politics and simply put in the 4 best teams. 

Flashback to pre-BCS era... 

 

[java]

Let the outrage begin!  

The playoff committee left out two conference champions-2 sections of the Country. 

One of the commentators said yesterday that if the committee did this, it would hasten realignment.  The ESPN talking heads are trying to put lipstick on this pig, but it doesn’t fly with me. 

Superconferences, now!  Need a reason, collusion and incompetence.

These ESPN guys are full of crap  Do not tell us that noncon matters-never again  

 

[Epictetus]

I heard over and over today that the 4th spot went to Alabama because they were the best team. Of those closest to filling the #4 spot.

But no one explained the criteria for "best team." Coach Saban kept referring to their "body of work."  

ESPN put this on a screen:

Strength of Schedule
11th, USC
36th, Ohio State
40th, Alabama

vs FPI Top 40
5-2, USC
4-2, Ohio State
3-1, Alabama

And of course, Alabama won neither their division nor conference.

The so-called playoff is going to be a hard sell from now on. Admittedly the Big 10 and Pac 12 beat each other up and the champions had 2 losses, which didn't help their case, and Ohio State took a drubbing from Iowa.

But the point is, if deciding the finalists is not about winning out your conference, then it takes away from the whole concept of playing a game on the field and the scoreboard meaning anything. "We lost early but wasn't a bad loss. You lost mid-way and by a lot of points. Well, we only lost the last game but our resume speaks for itself." 

Shall we grant the championship ahead of time to the "best team"? Or wait until after all games are played and retroactively give the trophy to the "best team" regardless of the scoreboard?

The criteria for selecting Alabama shows the college game has no true steering organization. No formula in place that you play to from the opening game. As you do even in Texas High School. And in the NFL. If it's this arbitrary by room full of suits, I had just as much fun with the old AP, (UPI) and Coaches Polls. Just go undefeated and rule the roost.

But don't pretend "my arbitrary" is better'n "your arbitrary."

 

[Epictetus]

Using Google "distance" pages...

Tuscaloosa, AL to Athens, GA is 274 miles, takes little over 4 hours to drive. The distance and time is like Austin to Jasper.

Athens, GA to Clemson, SC is 74 miles, takes about hour and 25 min to drive there. About like Austin to Waco, give or take.

So three of the four finalists would fit between Austin and Shreveport, Louisiana.

I imagine Colin Cowherd will talk about the 'regional' aspects of the Final Four on his show tomorrow. He has before. It's a national audience, and the networks and sponsors will be trying to appeal coast-to-coast to an audience to engage in OU and three teams whose campuses you could fit in the east half of the State of Texas.

Drove by Clemson on the way to Durham, NC a summer ago. All you see is a sign that says Clemson off the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere. I just happened to look over driving by. We did clip top of Alabama on the way , stopped at a drive-in store, got a look-see at license plate covers, bumper stickers. 'nuff said.

So, all of the midwest, west & nor'west, and northeast are gonna be glued to their sets come New Year's.  And don't forget, this is a rubber match for Clemson and Alabama, and Alabama's fourth straight trip.

 

[Adferrum]

I heard over and over today that the 4th spot went to Alabama because they were the best team. Of those closest to filling the #4 spot.

But no one explained the criteria for "best team." Coach Saban kept referring to their "body of work."  

ESPN put this on a screen:

Strength of Schedule
11th, USC
36th, Ohio State
40th, Alabama

vs FPI Top 40
5-2, USC
4-2, Ohio State
3-1, Alabama

And of course, Alabama won neither their division nor conference.

The so-called playoff is going to be a hard sell from now on. Admittedly the Big 10 and Pac 12 beat each other up and the champions had 2 losses, which didn't help their case, and Ohio State took a drubbing from Iowa.

But the point is, if deciding the finalists is not about winning out your conference, then it takes away from the whole concept of playing a game on the field and the scoreboard meaning anything. "We lost early but wasn't a bad loss. You lost mid-way and by a lot of points. Well, we only lost the last game but our resume speaks for itself." 

Shall we grant the championship ahead of time to the "best team"? Or wait until after all games are played and retroactively give the trophy to the "best team" regardless of the scoreboard?

The criteria for selecting Alabama shows the college game has no true steering organization. No formula in place that you play to from the opening game. As you do even in Texas High School. And in the NFL. If it's this arbitrary by room full of suits, I had just as much fun with the old AP, (UPI) and Coaches Polls. Just go undefeated and rule the roost.

But don't pretend "my arbitrary" is better'n "your arbitrary."

Wouldn't it be super ironic if both Bama and UGA would get blown out by Clemson and OU? 

Because IMO the real problem is as follows: Since you only play 3 games out of conference (or in the SEC case 4 if I'm correct), your strength of schedule depends pretty much on your conference. So effectively by include two teams from the same conference you are saying that this conference is better than the two others you excluded. Yet, your only point of comparison between the conferences are the first couple of games that you played out of conference. But, teams get better or worse during the course of the season so even that point might be flawed. 

But effectively you are saying that the SEC is better than the BIG10 or PAC12: Bama best out of conference win was against Fresno State who ended up unranked (after being #25 last week). There best conference win is against #17 LSU a team that got handled by Mississippi State and lost to Troy. The only top 10 team they played, they got manhandled (#7 Auburn). The rest of the OOC schedule: FSU (a mediocre 6-6), Colorado State, Mercer - not your typical power houses. 

Just take a look at Ohio State: they lost to #2 OU and to unranked Iowa, the game that in the end killed their play offs hope. While that second loss is really bad, they have beaten 2 other top 10 teams in #6 Wisconsin and #9 Penn State. The rest of the OOC schedule consists of Army and UNLV.

In my opinion USC should have gotten more of a look by the committee. There OOC schedule: Texas, Western Michigan, #14 Notre Dame. They lost to ND and to #18 Wazzu, so two top 20 teams. yet their best wins are two times against #13 Stanford. If you say they are missing their statement win, the same has to be said for Bama. To me, that means you value the SEC schedule more than the Pac 12 or the Big 10 schedule. I would have liked to see that played out on the field and not justed assumed by the committee. If can't find the tweet on the out of conference records, but I think the SEC went 5-7 against power 5 opponents, while the pac 12 had the best record. 

I try to look at this the most unbiased as possible because I don't have big sympathy or antipathy for all of those teams. But it seems to me that Ohio State might have gotten robbed this year (then again, they were the one's robbing in the past). 

 

[dillohorn]

ESPNBS

 

[Eastexhorn]

Do not like them but OU will put up a lot of points.

 

[okiehorn]

Do not like them but OU will put up a lot of points.

This could be true but I’m doubting it. Best defense Sooners played nationally was TCU ranked 19 in defense.... Georgia is #4... Clemson 6... and Bama 2.... might be the best offense these teams have seen as well but will sure as hell be the best defenses Baker and company walk into

 

[joeywa]

So the consensus is that tOSU losing to Iowa was the reason they didn’t get in. Oklahoma lost to Iowa State...in Norman. Yeah, ou bounces back and has looked really good, but how can the committee look at Iowa any differently than Iowa State? The process is far too subjective. Are we taking conference champs or aren’t we?  If it’s supposedly a representation of the P5 conferences, shouldn’t it be a 5-team setup with a first round bye?  USC has as much of a bitch, if not more so than tOSU. Alabama did not even win their division, let alone their conference. 

This is a horrible message the committee has sent. (Understand I don’t have a dog in this fight, and if all four playoff teams, USC and tOSU got a raging case of Montezumah’s Revenge that sidelined them all for the month of January and cancelled the playoff, I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep.)