Not so much the act of making predictions...that's what ESPN and others do.
But I'm pretty sure I saw an ESPN bracket this weekend that included Miss St, Ole Miss, FSU, and Notre Dame.
It's all well and good if you think those are the four best teams at the moment. But when the person made that bracket, they knew good and well that two of those teams would end up losing by season's end.
Basically, I think if you're going to make a bracket, you can't have both Mississippi schools in it. If both of them are in it, they can't be #1 and #2.
Meanwhile, ESPN's falling over themselves with four SEC teams in the top 5. Why? You know that they will all play each other, so it's not going to last.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
E$ecPN needs something to talk about, plus rankings are still pretty speculative at this point and based on past performance and history. A few more weeks and it will work itself out. I expect conference champions from ACC, $EC, Big 11 and PAC-12 will be the 4 teams as long as each has 1 loss or less.
Can we really keep making fun of them by calling them the Big 11, when they're up to 14 now?
Well they still call themselves the Big 10 and they have 14 so making fun of their math skills is more of a requirement than an option...
I agree with that...especially since to be a member of that conference, you also have to be in a really elite academic group.
So basically, the literal smartest conference in college athletics can't even count?
I'm also trying to work in a joke on their East division using their new moniker of B1G. Typing up a blog post the other day, I noticed that you could call it the B1G East.
So Rutgers is king over there?
They were for about a week, until they visited the 'shoe.
I doubt we would get into the playoff after beating FSU in Charlotte...but that's just my opinion
You are way more optimistic than me as the only way we make it to Charlotte is if we play in the Belk bowl (or whatever it is called meow) imho...
Well, this just takes place of the bowl projections...
Nailed it. These two play each other in the last game of their regular season. IF both are ranked #1 and #2 going into that game, what are the chances the loser ramains in the top 4 after the conference championship games? Keep in mind the loser won't be going to the SEC Championship game and could easily be jumped in the poll by another team who benefits from playing an extra game (their conference championship).
Also Ole Miss still has to play at LSU (at night) and vs. Auburn in Oxford (I'll be there!)
Mississippi St. still has to play at Alabama.
We are still a long way from seeing two Mississippi teams play each other undefeated.
But some crazy stuff usually happens and ends up helping an SEC team. We will see.
I'd say low, but we're dealing with ESPN and the SEC. See 2011 LSU vs. Alabama.
There were decent predictions prior to the season starting. As in, people would pick 4 teams from 4 conferences. Now, they seem to be throwing that out. And the way the math works, there's really no way for a conference to get two teams in unless one conference is total dogcrap and doesn't have a team with fewer than 3 losses.
YES It annoys me so much that these analysts can't go 10 minutes without throwing a bracket up.
What gets old is the assumption that when a team loses, then they're out. Oregon lost and it's all 'welp, Oregon lost, they're done.' Then when they look better and win and it's, 'Oregon right back in the thick of it.' I know they can't just let it play out because there's by my count about 23 24/7 cable sports networks now that have to fill all that time up, but I just roll my eyes at it.
That's why I want a playoff system when it's very clear how to get in, and be knocked out.
Totally sick of it. I didn't like this committee idea to begin with but I foolishly did not anticpate as much talk as has been.
My favorite part about the committee is how everyone was crying for a "clear and direct method of selecting the top teams" so they decided to have a committee of people in a back room deciding who's in and who's not.
I have said the same thing all along. I had no problem with the BCS formula. I wish that would have been kept in place and simply expanded to 4 or 8 teams.
I was actually just all for a computer program that was publicly known. Everyone knows then what it takes to get in, and who will get in based on the results. Clear and consistent. Fascinating how many people didn't understand the human factor was what made it inconsistent.
The computer program has to be designed by someone which means somewhere, there's a set of guidelines to be followed and a mathematical equivalent to a non-mathematic result on the field. Someone has to come up with what that means. How do you decide the value of various components to be able to rank a team? What carries more weight, being undefeated? Being a conference champion? Greater margin of victory? Strength of Schedule? How do you factor in injuries to the equation regarding when you win and when you lose? Some things just don't have numbers and have to receive the eye test. The problem is only that the current eye test system has too limited of a field, not that it is inconsistent by any means. People complain constantly about the fact that RPI is taken too seriously for March Madness, but those complaints are largely ignored because of the number of teams that play in it.
True, someone decides the formula- my key is that it's consistent. The same formula for every team, every season. Not a bunch of people in a closed room.
Right, and in theory the formula would be disclosed. Everyone would know what teams are ranked where and why.
It controls for things like using "is the team named Notre Dame?" as a ranking criteria...
And yet that formula will still be imperfect because someone will always fall through the cracks. It's easier when there is a standard similar to March Madness (all conference champs are in) and then there's room for the human element to cover those who are deserve to be in but don't meet the basic criteria. We can sit here and argue about how we think it should be done as has happened non-stop since the CFB Playoff was announced and even before that with the BCS, but there's really no perfect answer and someone will always be unhappy no matter whether we have 4 teams or 16 teams. The 17th and 18th teams will complain just as much as the 5th to 7th place teams about being left out.
Cowherd made some good points about this the other day. He said how he only trusts a plane on auto-pilot if there's an actual pilot in the cockpit that can take over if something wonky happens.
It's like with football. The computers are fine, but they're a little clinical sometimes. You need a human element to account for some things that can't be accounted for by math.
In 2000, if there was a playoff, I want to believe that the committee would overrule the computers and put VT into the final four. Our only loss was to Miami (who would have been in the playoff already), and we were playing without Vick. You gotta believe that the committee and ESPN would be salivating to get another championship with Vick playing.
In 2007, the human element put 2 loss LSU into the title game. And it made sense. Both of their losses came in 3OT, which is as close to a tie as you can get in college football.
I just fear that the human element is going to be swinging things too far the other way now. Older, more storied teams, or teams from the hot conference will get more weight and benefit of the doubt.
of course.. we all know they will come up with a magical formula to include 3 sec teams and the best non sec team.
The fact that Mississippi State is still ahead of FSU baffles me. Mississippi State's biggest win was Auburn. Turns out the LSU and Texas A&M wins are garbage because both those teams aren't that good. FSU beats #5 Notre Dame, #15 Oklahoma State, and #22 Clemson and still stays at #2. $EC bias in full swing. It's becoming a joke
Nevermind the fact that the win against #22 Clemson was with their back-up QB.
I can't speak for Miss St, but FSU came very close to losing against Ok St, Clemson, Notre Dame, and NC State.
True, but in the $EC losing to a good/top team gets you to go up in the rankings, so...
Just for fairness, I would like to point out that Oklahoma State was not ranked in week 1 when they played FSU, nor are they ranked now. They lost that #15 ranking after TCU took them to the woodshed.
After going back and looking at the numbers, I can say it's not a case of SEC bias. Mississippi State has the more impressive resume.
Basically, it comes down to this:
Miss St has scored more points on average: 41.83 to 37.85
Miss St has allowed fewer points on average: 20 to 21.57
The only time Miss St has trailed in a game was during their first possession against Texas A&M.
FSU has trailed in four games: Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, and Notre Dame.
If there's any bias, it's expectation bias. FSU dominated everyone they played last year, and was expected to do the same this year. Mississippi State didn't do squat last year, and was expected to do the same this year. So, when FSU is just barely winning games, and Mississippi State is steamrolling the SEC, things are going to flip.
I posted the full breakdown here: http://cfarena.blogspot.com/2014/10/tale-of-tape-1-vs-2.html
If their playoff predictions weren't just a seeding of the AP Top 4 it wouldn't be so bad. I mean, does it really take that much effort to just look at the Top 4 and see two teams that play each in the last game of the season and rule one of them out due to the loss? Then put the #5 team in?
I mean 4 of the Top 5 teams are in the SAME DIVISION for Pete's sake. How dense can you be to think that 3 of them are going to be in the playoff when they all have to play each other?!
Current top 8:
1 Mississippi State 6-0
2 Florida State 7-0
3 Ole Miss 7-0
4 Alabama 6-1
5 Auburn 5-1
6 Oregon 6-1
7 Notre Dame 6-1
8 Michigan State 6-1
Right now, it's trending towards the SEC West winner, FSU, and Oregon as the top three spots. I could see some argument about Notre Dame or Michigan State as the fourth team.
I'll let Coach Mora answer that for you.
I understand the frustration with the SEC and the love they get, and I fully agree that having Miss St and Ole Miss in the playoff bracket prediction is essentially pointless. However, somehow amidst all the love the SEC gets (which, they have objectively earned, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves) people don't even realize how much their hate is misdirected and how much it's based out of envy. The SEC west is legitimately unfair this year and I would argue is better than any other entire conference and I think a potentially deserving playoff team (or 2) from the west will be left out as a result. So count your blessings and be thankful that when we do field a great team we don't have to play Bama, Aub, Miss, Miss St., LSU, Arkansas, and a&m in the same season. Arkansas as an "easiest conference game" is a scary concept.
I'm not denying how good that division is. However, since they are all in the same division, they already have their own mini-playoff during the regular season.
Now, if we had a playoff system with 8 or more teams with several wildcard spots, I would not be surprised to have the SEC West filling all of them up.