Honestly, I'm praying that it happens. Not because I think 3 B1G teams are deserving, but because that would be the catalyst to completely overhaul the system to an 8 team playoff with conference champions getting an auto-bid. The B1G sending 3 would piss off every other Power 5 conference to the point where at least some changes would happen this summer.
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Disagree there. If a Power 5 conference champion comes out at 6-6, something went seriously wrong with that conference that year, but they still deserve a seat in the playoff. They'll just end up as the 8-seed and will get absolutely thrashed by the top seed in the playoff in the opening round.
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Unless they end up running the table and winning it all thereby exhibiting the success of the playoff system. I don't think its ever happened before in hoops but every year they talk about the possibility of a team that started the season poorly but could run the table in the conference championship then run the table with an auto-bid to the tourney. Talk about a Cinderella story.
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They weren't garbage, but they probably weren't making the NCAA tournament without winning the ACC tournament. They were a 6 seed in a tournament where each region fielded 12 teams, with the top 4 seeds all getting a first round bye.
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I mean Syracuse had a mediocre season last year and arguably didn't deserve a bid (I personally think they got in on name recognition) but they made the final four.
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But, what if 3 of the 4 best teams are actually in the B1G? I don't know if they are, but in that case, wouldn't you want it to be the best teams in the playoff, instead of choosing a champion via the B1G championship game?
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No. All of these B1G teams will have already played each other. It basically makes the regular season meaningless to put them all in. They might as well just award the B1G Championship with the National Title. I'm so tired of hearing this "best team" term thrown around. It's so entirely subjective.
To further add to this for the last time (because this has been debated ad nauseum) I don't buy the argument that giving automatic bids to conference champs devalues the regular season. In a narrow sense, yes maybe one loss may not have quite the same devastating effect to your season. But we're already seeing that, with multiple playoff teams having gotten in with 1 loss (and possibly a two loss team this year). I think it adds far more value to the regular season in the big picture, where the conference races become far more important with a playoff bid on the line for every team. In this case, one conference loss could potentially ruin your shot at the playoff. I'm tired of conference standings and championships being devalued over this insane "best team" argument. No one wants to see three B1G teams who have already settled things on the field do it all over again because "they're the best teams."
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I'm not convinced that we deserve a spot in a 4 team playoff if we win on Saturday. We have two really bad losses and are certainly not a top 4 team. Automatic bids IMO bring college football closer to the NFL, which is pretty boring on a week to week basis. Thoughts?
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agree, although, the playoff system must be revised. Teams with poor schedules/teams that beat one good team and are now 10-2 (a-la Penn State) should not get in the playoff with teams that are clearly better, but struggled in certain games. An 8-team playoff or even 16 would fix this problem. (It would fix Chaos)
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Who said that we deserve a spot in a 4 team playoff? The argument was based on an 8 team playoff, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me if we beat Clemson. Further, how do you figure we have "two really bad losses"? I'm not trying to be a homer but for our losses:
1) Tennessee was a different team early in the season with a healthy roster. They beat a Florida team who is apparently good enough to be #15 and were still ranked themselves until the choke job against Vandy
2) Syracuse was a reasonably bad loss but I will say they were certainly a better team before Dungey was injured.
3) GT was 8-4 with every loss being in conference to a team that was ranked at some point and finished 8-4 or better (Pitt, Miami, Clemson, UNC). They destroyed Vandy by 31 points. Guess how many points Vandy lost by in their other 5 losses, which were all SEC conference games, combined? 33. So yeah, as much as i hated losing to GT and we were favored, it was not a "bad loss."
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You make a good point. I will concede 1 bad loss, 1 mediocre loss (GT), and 1 expected loss. I guess the final score of the GT game was better than it actually felt being there watching it unfold. 21-0 at half was awful and it never really seemed to get better from there even though the final was 30-20. It was also at a critical point in the season which made it worse at the time. Looking back though I guess it wasn't as bad as it felt. Also, my bad on the 4-team/8-team thing.
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So, just to simplify things...do you, or do you not think the 4 best teams in the country should be in the top 4 playoff spots? Just a yes or no answer.
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4 best teams is subjective. If it's made abundantly clear to teams that they have to win their conference to have a shot that clears everything up. The best teams will win the games they need to in order to earn a spot at the table. It's. That. Simple.
It's also never going to happen that way....oh well :/
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If it's completely subjective then conceivably the 4 best teams could in fact be in the same conference. losing to each other in the same conference doesn't automatically mean they would not run the table in any other conference, or come in last. It is as you say subjective.
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if the four best teams are in one conference, and that conference's champion gets to the playoff that team should win the whole thing. The ultimate goal is to crown the best team. Everything else after that doesn't matter. If you're the second best team in the country, but in the same conference as the best team, that's just bad luck. If you want to be crowned Champion at the end of the year you should start by winning your conference. I don't have any sympathy for the best teams that didn't win their conference.
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crowning the best team and selecting the top 4 teams are not the same though.
I get your point, and that's fine. Just in the logic of what you're saying it could be that the top 4 teams in the country could actually be in the same conference. As you say it is subjective because everyone doesn't play each other. Just because BAMA ran the table in the SEC doesn't mean that the #2, 3 and 4 best other teams in the nation are not also in the SEC.
whether you want to allow them into the playoffs is also subjective, and for you the rule is winning the Conference championship.
I realize I am being overly fussy about the logic. Just throwing less than .02 cents worth to the convo. carry on
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you're projecting something into my argument that I never said. I've never said that the 4 best teams should play. I agreed that it's possible the 4 best teams could be in the same conference. Setting the rule that you have to win your conference as a pre-requisite will get the best team into the play-off. If they're truly the best team, they'll win the whole thing anyway.
If you're the best team in the country and you beat the second best team in the country on the way to the playoff that sucks for the second best team. But, at the end of the day, the Champion is the only team anyone remembers. You don't see many teams boasting about all of the times they lost the championship game. You see teams rolling out the number of Championships they've won. The playoff should give the best team from each league a shot to win the whole thing. It's not possible for every team to play every other team so you have to break it into leagues anyway. It's just a bracket. Win the games in the regular season to get to your conference title game and then win that to get to the playoffs. I don't see a problem with it. I don't care if the 4 best teams are all in the same league. That's going to be rare anyway.
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He's saying that if you got beat by the best team in the country this keeping you from winning your conference, why should you get the privilege of playing them again to prove you're better over someone else who won his conference.
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The playoffs should be designed to pit the best team from each conference against each other. There may be years when the second best team in one conference is better than the best team in another conference. Too bad. They should have been better.
The problem with "the best four teams" is that the subjective nature of that charge inherently leads to the annointment of teams as being better than they are. Conventional wisdom says that the sec is the best conference in cfb. So preseason rankings will favor those teams and give them an unfair advantage at a playoff run. It creates imbalance which tarnishes the sport as a whole.
The playoffs can only be successful if you actually set a precedent that each team has to win its league in order to guarantee a spot. If OSU, PSU, and Michigan are the best teams in the country this year and all three get a playoff spot that skews the rankings and perception in the favor of the big 10 for years to come. It impacts recruiting and scheduling.
It is going to result in a much larger imbalance in cfb than we have today. Instead, those teams have to play each other to determine which will represent the league in the playoff. That team gets to face off against the best that other leagues have to offer. If those three teams truly are the best, then surely the best of them will run through the best of the others.
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IMO the problem is that the current construct devalues the conference championship. Ohio state is the classic example that style points and the "eyeball test" are all that matters today. They get in instead of PSU even if PSU wins the B1G. Screw losing head to head against the conference champion, we have Kirk Herbstreet!
If you are going to castrate the conference championships then why have conferences at all? Let's throw all the teams in the hat and draw schedules blindly.
Absurd? Ok let's turn it over to the 4 biggest programs and let them decide who plays who.
Conferences give structure, build rivalries, and need to be part of the equation.
I say "you are one of the top4 teams in the country but lost to your rival? Tough shit, do better next year!"
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I just don't understand how the terms 'national champion' and 'best team' became so conflated. I am fully cognizant of the fact that the best team doesn't always win. There is no objective way to quantify the "best team" in the country. We can, however, establish a clear set of criteria for how we determine a 'champion' that all teams are aware of before the season begins. The best teams may not always win, but we will have a clear system of determining a champion. If the 'best team' can't win their conference or have a resume worthy of a wildcard spot, too bad and better luck next year. The game isn't won on paper.
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Ok, well OSU clearly has a resume that puts them in the top 4. They aren't gonna win their conference. Shit happens, the great thing about having playoffs, is that you can not win your conference and still have a chance if you are good enough. In fact, that was the reason a playoff system was conceived!
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Right, and if each conference champion was guaranteed a spot, I would have no problem with all three wildcards being from the same conference. At least there is some clear, objective primary standard for entry to the playoff. And if you slip up and are barred from your conference championship (like OSU) you then can get a spot based on resume. Everyone wins, and conference races matter!
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I have a huge issue that if PSU wins the championship and doesn't make the playoff and the committee puts anOSU in. They have said all along that championships matter and that act would the ultimate betrayal of that statement.
I don't care if the B1G ends up having 2 teams in the championship. Based on appearance, they might have been the strongest conference this year. They can have PSU (#4) and anOSU (#2). Let PSU play Bama for the right to move on. If they get slaughtered, so be it. But if they won the damn B!G they earned the right to get slaughtered on national television. They won the games they needed to to get there.
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The flaw in this logic, is that in literally every other playoff system that exists, conference (or division in the case of professional sports) champions are guaranteed a spot at the table.
What your advocating is preventing a conference champion from getting a spot to the benefit of another team in said conference. That is not why playoffs exist in any other context.
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They're not. It's not just that the bottom of the B1G stinks, but the middle of the B1G stinks too.
What it does illustrate is that contrary to peanut gallery conventional wisdom, adding Rutgers & Maryland was a good thing for the B1G. By adding 2 patsies, the B1G made it more likely to get multiple teams more highly ranked, not less.
The addition of 2 weak programs has enhanced the B1G football brand because the media - and most fans - look at W-L's and the top of the conference as the measure of a conference. Neither the media nor fans care that the ACC Coastal had 5 of its 7 teams with 8 or more wins and that it was the most competitive P5 division top to bottom.
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But, what if 3 of the 4 best teams are actually in the B1G?
My thought is that you don't pick the 4 best teams, you pick the 4 most deserving. You should be able to pick the four teams without watching a game. You look at their resume, and 4 best resumes get in. So if the 4 most deserving teams are in the B10, then so be it.
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I think so, but I'm not positive... If you want to argue that the Conference A runner up is better than the Conference B winner, I'll listen. But if you want to argue that your conference runner up is better than your conference champion, despite a head-to-head loss.... Well, sounds like your conference needs a better way to select its champion.
I also wonder what everyone would be saying if OSU and PSU switched records/positions (meaning OSU was 11-2 with a B10 Championship, win over PSU, loss to Mich, but PSU was 11-1, with wins over Mich and OkU). OSU is such a powerful brand, with an undisputed top 5 coach, annual top 5 recruiting classes and a flashy offense. PSU is reeling from sanctions, and has struggled with its on the field (and off the field) identity over the past half decade. As a result, I think a lot of people (subconsciously/absentmindedly) give OSU the benefit of the doubt ("they lost a flukey game in 2014 against VT, and came back to win it, no reason they can't do it again"). This is an unfair advantage that OSU has IMO.
Finally, I think that most people, when ranking teams, perform an exercise where they say "well, Team A and Team B didn't play, but based on what I've seen, I think Team A would win most games against Team B, so I'll rank Team A higher." This isn't how teams should be selected; they should be select based on what they have already done, not on what we think they could do.
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If that's the case, then there shouldn't be ADs on the committee, it should be former players/coaches/people who know the game. Not politicians with an agenda.
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you may not be, but I'm curious why you hate this idea?
IMO I just don't think an 8 team playoff will happen...at least not any time soon. $$$ talks and I just don't think it makes economic sense to have an 8 team playoff...you're basically asking a handful of fan bases to travel up to 3 weeks in a row. Doing it twice (like now) is already asking quite a lot. For political reasons, it wouldn't surprise me at all if you continually saw teams in the playoff which have strong traveling fan base reputations (which doesn't hurt us, necessarily)...I don't think anyone associated with the CFP wants to see any playoff games look like ACC CGs played in Florida. They want packed houses and their voting will reflect that.
So politically, economically, I just don't think 8-team playoffs are in the cards. That being said, I think it's necessary. I think to do it justice the playoff requires elimination of the arbitrary (mostly subjective) ranking system and adoption of the NFL playoff framework. Teams need to win their divisions, and then their conferences, in order to get a seat at the table. That covers the power 5. Then there should be 3 "wildcards" or at large bids. Those will be a little more controversial, sure, but at least the top half of your seeds will have teams that got there on a premise everyone understands and isn't subjected to arbitrary rankings.
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I think expanding it to 8 teams is a bad idea. I don't think there are 8 teams every year that are worthy of competing for a national championship. I don't like the committee aspect of it, but 4 is the right number. 8 is too many. Not every conference champion deserves to play for a title.
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I don't agree with the premise that there aren't "8 teams every year that are worthy of competing for a national championship"
What's going to happen this year (and last year, and likely for years to come) is that there will be at least a team or two left out with a legitimate argument to compete for the championship.
I don't see the harm in letting teams who don't deserve a shot compete (if they don't deserve it, they won't win it) especially when the alternative is shutting out teams that do deserve a shot
I don't think an 8 team playoff will work because of economic issues. But I disagree that it would be bad because it might let teams that don't deserve a shot into the tournament. That's just silly. Letting teams that don't deserve to be there is way better than disallowing teams that do deserve to be there.
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What's going to happen this year (and last year, and likely for years to come) is that there will be at least a team or two left out with a legitimate argument to compete for the championship.
doesn't matter how many are allowed into the playoffs there will ALWAYS be teams with legit gripes about not qualifying.
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that kind of voids the argument that 8 team playoffs would be bad because it would mean teams with no business being in the playoff are there....which is the argument I disagree with....so I guess you're supporting my point in a way
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yeah I agree with that. I am more leaning toward bar's post below about devaluing the season. I don't think a 2 loss or potentially a 3 loss team should qualify for the "best of" tournament.
As you said above, you should win your conference. Well here you would have multiple teams from multiple conferences that didn't win their conference yet still able to be considered the #1 team in the country.
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multiple teams from multiple conferences that didn't win their conference yet still able to be considered the #1 team in the country.
there are so many things about this sentence that don't make sense to me
how can multiple teams be considered #1?
how can teams claiming to be #1 not win their own league?
With so much debate about which conferences are the best and worst how can any team really truly be considered #1 when we can't even agree on which conferences are the best?
Just as an example: the SEC has been propped up by the success of Alabama for the last few years. They have been slipping but they still get high rankings and "quality loss" tags because of name recognition alone...Because SEC is King. Except, they had a terrible record against other P5 conferences this year. So, really, the SEC isn't as good as they seem. But we wouldn't know that if 4 teams from that league got into the playoff because they were all "better" than all the other teams from other leagues.
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If a 2 loss regular season team ranked #8 in final rankings gets to the playoffs and then they have a chance to win and do they will be considered the best in the country. Yet the didn't win their conference, or could be in some case didn't even go to the conference championship game. That's a problem.
current rankings:
1. Bama
2. OSU
3. Clemson
4. Wash
5. Mich
6. Wis
7. Penn
8. Colo
So 4 BIG teams, 2 Pac12, 1 SEC and 1 ACC. In an 8 playoff scenario the 4th best BIG team could win out and be the "best."
I disagree with that. As you said, if that were true then they should have won their conference. 8 teams is too many. 4 teams is the correct number. there will always be teams with legit gripes no matter what.
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current rankings:
1. Bama
2. OSU
3. Clemson
4. Wash
5. Mich
6. Wis
7. Penn
8. Colo
I believe the popular format is P5 champions+3 wild cards (or highest ranked G5 + 2 wild cards).
In that scenario, you'd have the following teams in (based on these rankings and the favorites winning)
Bama
Wisconsin
Clemson
Washington
Oklahoma
OSU
Michigan
PSU (or W. Michigan, presumably)
Say there are upsets (except for Bama, because, really?)
Bama
PSU
VT
Colorado
Ok State
OSU
Clemson
Washington (or W. Michigan)
So yeah...don't know where I was going with this. Except that an 8 team playoff means all conference champions can get in and the remaining 3 spots are subjective. With the current rankings (which I don't think would be the case after championship weekend or if there was a different playoff structure), you would end up with half the teams being from the B1G and everyone would still be pissed. At least 63% of the spots would be determined by a hard and fast formula and anyone who falls short would have to make a case for being chosen subjectively (eye test)
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are you saying that there are always going to be teams with a gripe for not getting into the playoff?
okay, I don't think that changes whether it's 4 teams or 8. So what gives?
Even if we say that 4 teams is the correct number (and I've already conceded that we're unlikely to ever see a 8-team format) I still believe that conference champions should get those spots.
It becomes a very slippery slope otherwise. When you set the precedent that teams can get to the playoff by being ranked high even if they lost their conference then you set the stage for teams over-hyped by arbitrary pre-season rankings getting to the playoffs by playing a relatively easy schedule in a conference that perhaps is top heavy and doesn't actually present many challenges but the public believes is very deep to get a shot at something they probably don't actually deserve because they lost to a team which played a tougher schedule and won their respective conference.
Now I'm not saying that's the case this year, but here's a hypothetical.
Let's say that VT is ranked top 10 pre-season in 2017 and we cruise through a pretty weak Coastal division save for one flukey loss to a decent-but-not-great Miami team (who also lost to FSU) and we miss the ACCCG because Miami owns the tie-breaker but we're ranked in the top 4 because of a couple dominating performances after our loss
Let's just assume Miami wins the ACCCG. Does VT deserve a shot at the playoff in that situation (VT is 11-1 and Miami is 10-3[8-1] after winning the conference)
I don't think so....I think you have to be able to win all the games you need to in order to get to your conference CG. If you do that, and then win your conference, you deserve a shot at the playoff. Otherwise, I think it's unfair to give other teams an edge by ranking them highly in the pre-season, watching them beat up on inferior opponents in a mostly weak division, and not punish them for a close "flukey" loss since they've demonstrably shown they can hang tons of points on lesser opponents otherwise.
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4 team playoff doesn't include all conference champions.
8 team playoff will include conference champions that are clearly not as good as many P5 teams.
So the selection of who goes into both of those scenarios is highly subjective, no matter it is based only on conference champions or rankings.
The problem with 8 teams for me is more devaluing the regular season and opening it up to teams I don't think should be in consideration to play for the national championship.
But limiting the 4 team playoff to only conference champions is also subjective. Your premise, if the best 3 to 4 teams are all in the SEC then their champion should be all other conference champions is understood. But football is about personnel and scheme match ups. Sometimes great teams have trouble with not great teams simply because of that. Clemson lost to Pitt, yet we beat Pitt. Does that mean we are the clear winner versus Clemson? No, I don't think so. Because it's subjective.
But let's say we do win against Clemson and become conference Champs. Under your line of reasoning, do we go to the playoff? We are a champion, after all. We have a legitimate gripe against other conference champions that we belong yet we would be ranked lower than most other champions I suspect, and many other non-championship teams. But under your reasoning if you win you have a right to sit at the table. How do you select which P5 conference champion gets in over the other?
If the answer is by Rankings, then why not just go by Rankings in the first place and select the best teams regardless of conference championship?
And what about non-P5 conference champion teams? They would NEVER get a seat at the table in an only conference champion 4 seat playoff. So then you go to the 8 team playoff, where we are back to devaluing the regular season.
Finally, lets say you only allowed conference champions into playoffs. No matter 4 or 8 teams. What happens if BAMA wins 8 years in a row? Or Clemson? Then you are in real jeopardy of seeing the best talent going to the dynasty programs that control those championships. Bama could easily do it. They already get the best talent, and they are already dominating the conference (and nation). Can you imagine if the rules were that only the conference champion could move on, how much more talent would funnel to them?
That would be devastating to the rest of the conference. There must be some allowance for parity.
Sometimes the best teams are in the same conference. that will happen and they deserve to be there playing for the National Championship. Because an upstart 3 loss VT program (while I would love it) that beats Clemson, most likely doesn't belong there.
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Division 1 FBS College Football has, by far, the most bizarre and convoluted means of organizing its postseason. The playoff committee has sought to pick "the best 4 teams" to determine "a national champion." Literally no other NCAA Sanctioned sport at any level has anything close to that. It's a fool's errand to try and match the best team with the national championship. And only FBS Football attempts to do that.
Take basketball for example. Do I think the team that wins the tournament is the best college basketball team in the country? No, but they are the champions. If we allowed each P5 conference an automatic bid, and the committee picked 3 wildcards, I don't see how anyone has a gripe. You know at the beginning of the season that you must win your conference to have the bid, and if you don't, make sure you schedule well OOC and win some big games to have a solid resume. Having wildcard bids can act as a safety measure for that occasional and rare cinderella team that wins their conference. If the others are truly so much better, we should see it play out on the field.
In no way is anyone saying that VT belongs in the playoff. But it would make the regular season a hell of a lot more exciting if every team KNEW a clear path to the playoff in winning their conference. I just think the playoff has completely devalued conference championships. No one knows what the criteria for making the playoff actually is, it's just some bs beauty pageant where the most sexy teams get in, regardless of whether or not you actually win anything of any objective consequence. I don't want to see OSU with their legs propped up on the table laughing at the B1G Championship this weekend. They lost when it counted, and they should sweat it out to see if they get in at large. If the 'best teams' and resumes matter most, then why do we even have conferences at all?
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Fernley, I like you and I respect you but I just flat out disagree with you on this.
but even conference champions are subjective.
This is actually the exact opposite of subjective. You can't subjectively choose a conference champion. It's about as objective as it gets. Conference champions are indisputable. They win the games they have to in order to get to their championship game and they win that outright for the championship. What about that is subjective?
4 team playoff doesn't include all conference champions.
right...which is why I think 8 team playoff is necessary
8 team playoff will include conference champions that are clearly not as good as many P5 teams.
Well, for starters, saying that conference champions are clearly not as good as many P5 teams is a fallacy. The only way to really clearly tell is to play the game on the field. A conference champion can only be that by winning games on the field. Everyone is so caught up in how teams look on paper and what their ranking is (which rankings are far from adequate, as evidenced by ranked teams losing every week to "lesser" opponents) but the only objective way to determine which teams are best is by how they play on the field. Conferences afford the opportunity for teams to play each other to determine which teams are best. It's only fair, then, that the best teams from each conference (as decided by conference championships) get to play against the best teams from other conferences. It takes the rankings (which are seriously flawed) out of the equation.
as has been said over and over....it's not about trying to find the "best 4 (8) teams" because that is subjective...especially with a human committee that doesn't exactly make their decision making transparent (Like how the hell was aTm ranked 4th in week 6?!?!). It's about setting a precedent that if you want to play for a championship you have to play well in the regular season, win all the games you play against your conference foes, make it to your title game, and win a conference title. The beauty of the 8 team playoff with 5 power conferences is that it leaves 3 spots for at-large bids which will give three teams who didn't win their conferences but subjectively deserve a shot the opportunity to play for the championship. That makes everyone happy. Under that scenario, the power 5 conference champions get an opportunity (and rightly so, IMO) and if you feel that OSU and UM are worthy (everyone seems to think so) they too get a shot. Best of both worlds.
The problem with 8 teams for me is more devaluing the regular season and opening it up to teams I don't think should be in consideration to play for the national championship.
If you can explain to me how this devalues the regular season I'd like to hear it. I just don't see it. By objectively taking conference champions the committee forces teams to focus on winning their conference title. That means that every single one of their 8 conference games is extremely important. I think it actually makes the regular season more important. Now it's not just a popularity contest based on arbitrary rankings doled out by some committee shrouded in mystery. Teams have to win games. How does that devalue the regular season?
If you're going to say that it devalues non-conference match-ups I'll submit to you this: With 3 at large bids (which admittedly will have to be selected subjectively) it makes SOS and non-conference wins even more important. It creates a scenario where teams absolutely have to win those games in case they lose to an in-conference opponent and miss their opportunity to play for their respective championship. Now those teams which miss their championship games (OSU, UM) but have played really well otherwise get an outside shot at winning a bid for the last 3 spots at the table. All of a sudden, those other 4 non-conference games become extremely important. Win. Win.
But limiting the 4 team playoff to only conference champions is also subjective. Your premise, if the best 3 to 4 teams are all in the SEC then their champion should be all other conference champions is understood. But football is about personnel and scheme match ups. Sometimes great teams have trouble with not great teams simply because of that. Clemson lost to Pitt, yet we beat Pitt. Does that mean we are the clear winner versus Clemson? No, I don't think so. Because it's subjective.
this is actually an interesting point. I think this supports my argument that the regular season is so important. Teams that take care of business and win their division deserve a shot. Pitt couldn't do that. They squandered opportunities against intra-division foes despite their triumph over Clemson. By forcing teams to win their leagues it makes one-game-seasons irrelevant. Pitt beat Clemson (one-game-season) but Pitt couldn't win enough games to get to their own conference title game. The point of a play-off system is to increase the sample size so that the teams with the best records against their counterparts advance. The best teams lose games. It happens. The worst teams win games. It happens. But the best teams will win more often than not. That's why they get to play for their conference titles. Clemson lost to Pitt, but won the rest of their games. They deserve to be where they are. VT lost some head-scratchers for sure, but we won the games we had to over the teams in our division. We got some help but all that really tells me is that the Coastal Division isn't home to one of the 4 best teams. I would be shocked if VT would even get to the championship game even if they beat Clemson. Because the best teams win more often than not, we'd have to beat 3 really good teams in a row. I don't see it happening. But if we beat Clemson we should get a shot.
But let's say we do win against Clemson and become conference Champs. Under your line of reasoning, do we go to the playoff? We are a champion, after all. We have a legitimate gripe against other conference champions that we belong yet we would be ranked lower than most other champions I suspect, and many other non-championship teams. But under your reasoning if you win you have a right to sit at the table. How do you select which P5 conference champion gets in over the other?
I sort of already answered this. Yes I think VT would deserve a shot if they win the conference. What is the point of the regular season or championship game if it doesn't even matter in the big picture. Of course the champion deserves a shot. Consensus is that Clemson would roll us. If Clemson is worthy of their #3 ranking and a playoff berth they should beat us on the field. That's objective. Now I think that this system requires an 8 team playoff system because the 4 team format leaves one of the 5 power conference champions on the outside looking in. My entire argument is predicated on the necessity of the 8 team format which, honestly, I just don't think we'll ever see, sadly.
If the answer is by Rankings, then why not just go by Rankings in the first place and select the best teams regardless of conference championship?
The answer is Schrodinger. It can't be rankings, but it has to be rankings in the current 4-team format. That's why it is absolutely necessary to have an 8-team format. It removes the subjectivity of choosing 4/5 conference champions. It makes it absolutely clear that if you win a P5 conference championship you're in. If you miss out, barely, then subjectivity could help you get one of those at large bids, which is what we have right now anyway. It forces the regular season to be extremely important for teams which might fall short of their league title.
And what about non-P5 conference champion teams? They would NEVER get a seat at the table in an only conference champion 4 seat playoff. So then you go to the 8 team playoff, where we are back to devaluing the regular season.
again, I don't see how an 8-team format devalues the regular season. In fact, I think it enhances the importance of the regular season. Please explain to me how the regular season is in any way devalued by an 8 team format.
Finally, lets say you only allowed conference champions into playoffs. No matter 4 or 8 teams. What happens if BAMA wins 8 years in a row? Or Clemson? Then you are in real jeopardy of seeing the best talent going to the dynasty programs that control those championships. Bama could easily do it. They already get the best talent, and they are already dominating the conference (and nation). Can you imagine if the rules were that only the conference champion could move on, how much more talent would funnel to them?
Dynasties will happen no matter what. I really don't see how any scenario makes it better or worse than any other. Right now you're basically saying that you have to be ranked really high to get to the playoffs. I'm saying that you have to objectively win the games you need to in order to get to the championships. Neither really has any bearing on which teams succeed under either format. Alabama is going to be a juggernaut regardless. They have to play against the best teams in the SEC to get there. The best teams in other leagues have to play against the best teams in their own league to get there. The best teams should emerge from each league. If Alabama is beatable, they'll lose to the best teams that the other leagues have to offer.
Sometimes the best teams are in the same conference. that will happen and they deserve to be there playing for the National Championship. Because an upstart 3 loss VT program (while I would love it) that beats Clemson, most likely doesn't belong there.
I agree that a 3-loss VT team probably doesn't have very good odds of winning 3 games in a row against the best teams from each conference. But Cinderella stories happen and they're exciting and fans love to follow the under-dog and root for them. A 4 team playoff with Bama, OSU, UM, and PSU is just boring. Most of those games have already happened this season anyway. We're just watching reruns at this point.
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No worries man. I respect you loads too. and Thanks for the chat. No hard feelings on my side.
I totally understand the points you're making. It's interesting on how the perspective is different. In fairness, I think your premise works just as well as any other and I don't have any dog in that fight to argue otherwise. As i mentioned above I was more interested in the logic of it.
I think no matter which way you go everything is subjective. Yes conference champions are not subjective in that they won their conference, but I think it is subjective to say all conference champions are better than all non-conference champions from other conferences. I know you didn't specifically say that but by only allowing conference champs into the playoff, it's pretty much how it is.
But no matter. Either way, I would prefer it to remain a 4 team playoff. However, I will agree that if you make it 8, then it should be only conference champions and I think it needs to P5 and 3 champs from lower conferences. Keep it a tournament of Champions. That could work. You have to win or your not in, as you said.
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Thanks for the chat. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. I don't really believe there's any chance of the playoff expanding to 8 teams. There's going to be controversy every year regardless. It's an imperfect system. But that's the nature of try to decide which of 128 teams is the best with only 12 to 15 games for each to play.
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there will ALWAYS be teams with legit gripes about not qualifying
The only way that this is not true is if there is a set qualification flow chart. For example, no one gripes in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. because there is a very clear-cut recipe for making the playoffs. Therefore, if there is a recipe that takes human bias out, there cannot be any gripes. Not sure that is the direction CFB wants to go, but it is a solution.
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I think the solution for the economics is that the first round of the playoff is held at the higher seed's home field. Yes, this will mean that it conceivable that Wake Forest could theoretically host LSU (in 2047). But the home stadium will be filled by the home crowd, the next two rounds of the playoffs go to the normal bowls.
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you may not be, but I'm curious why you hate this idea?
It devalues the regular season and really makes OOC games just exhibition games.
$$$ talks and I just don't think it makes economic sense to have an 8 team playoff...you're basically asking a handful of fan bases to travel up to 3 weeks in a row. Doing it twice (like now) is already asking quite a lot.
If we go 8 teams, I'd want both the finals and semifinals be home games.
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I can see how it can turn OOC games into exhibition games...but I think that can be addressed
However, I disagree wholeheartedly that it devalues the regular season. I think it makes the regular season that much more important.
The way it is now, pre-season rankings, name recognition, and conference perception are the most important factors to getting to the playoff. Teams that start the season ranked and then win most of their games will remain highly ranked at the end of the season. Even teams that have lost didn't move anywhere in the rankings by virtue of their name recognition and ranking. That hardly seems fair to me and if Michigan and/or OSU get into the playoff it sends the message that being ranked highly and winning most of your games is more important than winning your conference. That's just backwards.
If teams HAVE to win their conference in order to even have a shot then that forces them to play well and treat each regular season game as a championship game. That is the exact opposite of devaluing the regular season. To help mitigate the use of OOC games as exhibition games I think the top 4 spots should go to the P5 league champions from leagues with the best OOC records against other P5 leagues and the other 4 spots should be at large bids based on records and SOS. That creates an environment where it's important for every team to win each game they play in.
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No, it makes the OOC games your chance to make the statement "Just because I lost an untimely game that kept me from competing for the conference championship doesn't meant I'm not worth letting into the playoff."
See: Michigan, 2016.
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With eight teams you can give 1st round high seeds home fields. Good economics, and incentivizes OOC play. Auto bids for weak Conference Champs would not get the high seed. I think Div. 1-AA and Div II make it it work with even more teams. This is a good model and if I am a betting man, this is where we end up in the 4 -5 years.
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Honestly I won't be happy until we have a 16-team playoff where all 10 conference champions get a chance. Bring it up to the standard of literally every other sport, and every other level of college football.
FBS football is the only division of any sport where winning your conference doesn't guarantee a shot at a national championship (with few exceptions, such as the Ivy League excluding themselves from the FCS playoffs). College football is much bigger than college basketball, but March Madness seems to get way more attention than the FBS "championship" structure, and I think that needs to change.
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that sounds awesome....but I just don't think it's feasible in the current climate. To do it, and do it successfully, I think would require some major overhauls to the entire system and that's not likely to happen. Again, $$$ talks. I honestly don't think an 8-team playoff is ever going to happen and that frustrates me because I think for the playoff to be done properly it's necessary to have an 8-team format at a minimum. The 4 team playoff was a stunt by the NCAA to satiate the growing hordes of fans pining for a playoff system. But it doesn't do the playoff system justice and we're just encountering the same problems we had in the BCS which made fans want the playoff in the first place. Since it hasn't been done correctly it's ultimately going to fail the same way the BCS did.
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I told my sister's boyfriend if he screwed up I'd smash his knee caps with a cast iron frying pan. Guess it worked, they got married. I'd venture to say that pronouncing it "Vah Tech" is on par with screwing up. Try the frying pan.
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Other people might have different thoughts, but to me I think it just sounds dumb. The state of Virginia is never referred to as "Vah". Our state's name is Virginia. Similarly Georgia Tech is not called, "Gah Tech" (or at least I don't think I've heard announcers call it that). Our school's name is Virginia Tech, so VT, VPI, Virginia Tech or some correct variation of our name is what we deserve to be called. It's a respect thing for me.
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Unfortunately, I have now hear LaTech from Dan Rubenstein on The Solid Verbal. He doesn't say VaTech as far as I've heard, but I could see people running with that, especially when our argument is "You never hear anyone say XaTech"
I also always have to think for a second because I think he's talking about LaTeX
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I get writing the abbreviation VA Tech, but why pronounced the VA as "VAH" if you wouldn't do that for any other state? It's obnoxious and sounds stupid. I also dislike "V-Tech" but mostly because it sounds like we offer certifications for plumbers (no offense to plumbers, just not what Tech is) or make every single one of my kids toys that I want to break with a hammer to make them stop beeping. VT, VPI, Virginia Tech, Hokies, all of these are easy enough to say, so why not say them? It's not like announcers say "Well obviously the Crimson Tide is the best team in college football this year. I don't see anyone upseting 'You of AAL' in the playoffs."
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So i'm not a fan but honestly this never bothered me too much, although i hear a lot about it on here recently. When I lived in Virginia Beach people said "Vah Beach" so that's the same thing. When i was in school ('97-'02, aka the golden years) it was said then too and i really didn't hear any complaints about it.
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Someone else said it, but we are playing with house money on Saturday night. Big underdogs, not playing for a playoff spot, no one expected us to be here... I think they boys can let loose and play free with nothing to lose.
That is how I will watch the game as a fan this weekend. Excited if we win, but not disappointed if we lose. This season has already been a great first year under this new staff!
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Troy Mike can eat a bucket of dicks. He obviously has done zero research. New head coach? Yes. All new coaches and totally new regime? No. I still don't think we win this game but I really hope that lack of respect fires up the team as much as it does me. Fucking douche canoe...
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Got the names wrong there... Troy was the one who said to put the money on VT, Mike Brenner was the dickhole who said Clemson would hang 50 with ease and we shouldn't even show up
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Apparently neither of them is Troy. Those guys names are Mike Brenner and Peter Loshak. Troy must have been on the phone with them previous to or after the video.
I edited the post. Apologies for the name mixup but not the sentiment.
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Fornelli (who almost picked our division exactly right in preseason) picks us outright: Underdog of the Week
No. 23 Virginia Tech (+10) vs. No. 3 Clemson: The Hokies are unpredictable. One week, they're going on the road and beating North Carolina by 31 points in a hurricane. The next, they're heading up to Syracuse and losing by 14 inside a dome. They're just a team that has a high ceiling as well as a low floor, which is what makes them dangerous heading into this game. I actually picked Virginia Tech to win this game straight up, but it wasn't based as much on the matchup as it was that I believe something chaotic will happen this weekend, and the Hokies are the most chaotic team I know. So even if Clemson wins this game, I believe Tech is going to make this one far more dramatic than anybody expects it to, so I'll take those 10 points. Virginia Tech 37, Clemson 34
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Off topic, but why in the actual hell do people consistently use "mainstream media" as a derogatory label for what should simply be called "media?" Especially considering the opposite of mainstream is fringe, which actually DOES have negative connotations.
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It comes from the perception of conservative people that the media is biased against them. Wikipedia says that
Mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence a large number of people, and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought.[1] The term is used to contrast with alternative media which may contain content with more dissenting thought as they do not reflect prevailing opinion.
The term is often used for large news conglomerates, including newspapers and broadcast media, that underwent successive mergers in many countries. The concentration of media ownership has raised concerns of a homogenization of viewpoints presented to news consumers. Consequently, the term mainstream media has been widely used in conversation and the blogosphere, often in oppositional, pejorative, or dismissive senses, in discussion of the mass media and media bias.
According to philosopher Noam Chomsky, media organizations with an elite audience such as CBS News and The New York Times, successful corporations with the assets necessary to engage in original reporting, set the tone for other smaller news organizations which lack resources by creating conversations that cascade down to smaller news organizations using the Associated Press and other means of aggregation. An elite mainstream sets the agenda and smaller organizations parrot it.[1]
This term basically was co-opted from a merely factual term into an insult because of the perceived bias and has turned into what it is today.
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Oh, I understand all of that. My complaint is that it's been adopted so widely as such, without even a modicum of thought given as to what the words actually mean. It just comes off as willful ignorance developed by conditioning people not to think for themselves. Especially when it's coming up in a sports blog. Especially when the "mainstream media" seems to include SportsBookReview.com.
And just to be clear, this is in no way a political criticism, but solely an intellectual one.
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Thekeyplay is a medium specifically for Hokies. The media referenced were not Hokie specific, but cover sports or cfb in general. That's all 'main stream media' means in this context. It's actually used quite frequently, and not necessarily derogatorily, on this and similar sites with very specific audiences.
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Then the title should be "national media," not "mainstream media," which definitely has a connotation associated with it. I suppose I could change it, but then things here start to make less sense, and it's not really generating any controversy, per se. Just poor word choice.
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I read MSM and clicked expecting ESPN, Fox, CBS, USA Today, Times(s), Post(s), etc. That is how the term is generally used. Did not expect a sports book site. Although not geared toward a specific fanbase, I would be hard pressed to consider it 'mainstream' in the normal sense of the word.
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Comments
I would guess they are pulling for the upset so they can but 3 Big 14 teams in the cfp
ESPN thinking about three big 14 teams in the CFP:
Honestly, I'm praying that it happens. Not because I think 3 B1G teams are deserving, but because that would be the catalyst to completely overhaul the system to an 8 team playoff with conference champions getting an auto-bid. The B1G sending 3 would piss off every other Power 5 conference to the point where at least some changes would happen this summer.
Has to be a stipulation that conference winners have to win a certain number of games though. We can't see a 6-6 get into playoffs.
Disagree there. If a Power 5 conference champion comes out at 6-6, something went seriously wrong with that conference that year, but they still deserve a seat in the playoff. They'll just end up as the 8-seed and will get absolutely thrashed by the top seed in the playoff in the opening round.
Unless they end up running the table and winning it all thereby exhibiting the success of the playoff system. I don't think its ever happened before in hoops but every year they talk about the possibility of a team that started the season poorly but could run the table in the conference championship then run the table with an auto-bid to the tourney. Talk about a Cinderella story.
Thats what happened with NCSU in 1983
NCSU was a 6 seed that won 20 games in the best conference in the nation. It's not like they were exactly garbage.
They weren't garbage, but they probably weren't making the NCAA tournament without winning the ACC tournament. They were a 6 seed in a tournament where each region fielded 12 teams, with the top 4 seeds all getting a first round bye.
I mean Syracuse had a mediocre season last year and arguably didn't deserve a bid (I personally think they got in on name recognition) but they made the final four.
What if they are only in because of sanctions against better teams or they have 2 wins against FCS teams?
It happens in the NFL.
It happens in the NHL every single year too
But, what if 3 of the 4 best teams are actually in the B1G? I don't know if they are, but in that case, wouldn't you want it to be the best teams in the playoff, instead of choosing a champion via the B1G championship game?
No. All of these B1G teams will have already played each other. It basically makes the regular season meaningless to put them all in. They might as well just award the B1G Championship with the National Title. I'm so tired of hearing this "best team" term thrown around. It's so entirely subjective.
To further add to this for the last time (because this has been debated ad nauseum) I don't buy the argument that giving automatic bids to conference champs devalues the regular season. In a narrow sense, yes maybe one loss may not have quite the same devastating effect to your season. But we're already seeing that, with multiple playoff teams having gotten in with 1 loss (and possibly a two loss team this year). I think it adds far more value to the regular season in the big picture, where the conference races become far more important with a playoff bid on the line for every team. In this case, one conference loss could potentially ruin your shot at the playoff. I'm tired of conference standings and championships being devalued over this insane "best team" argument. No one wants to see three B1G teams who have already settled things on the field do it all over again because "they're the best teams."
I'm not convinced that we deserve a spot in a 4 team playoff if we win on Saturday. We have two really bad losses and are certainly not a top 4 team. Automatic bids IMO bring college football closer to the NFL, which is pretty boring on a week to week basis. Thoughts?
agree, although, the playoff system must be revised. Teams with poor schedules/teams that beat one good team and are now 10-2 (a-la Penn State) should not get in the playoff with teams that are clearly better, but struggled in certain games. An 8-team playoff or even 16 would fix this problem. (It would fix Chaos)
But I don't wanna fix the chaos. This is one of the best parts of the season!
Who said that we deserve a spot in a 4 team playoff? The argument was based on an 8 team playoff, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me if we beat Clemson. Further, how do you figure we have "two really bad losses"? I'm not trying to be a homer but for our losses:
1) Tennessee was a different team early in the season with a healthy roster. They beat a Florida team who is apparently good enough to be #15 and were still ranked themselves until the choke job against Vandy
2) Syracuse was a reasonably bad loss but I will say they were certainly a better team before Dungey was injured.
3) GT was 8-4 with every loss being in conference to a team that was ranked at some point and finished 8-4 or better (Pitt, Miami, Clemson, UNC). They destroyed Vandy by 31 points. Guess how many points Vandy lost by in their other 5 losses, which were all SEC conference games, combined? 33. So yeah, as much as i hated losing to GT and we were favored, it was not a "bad loss."
You make a good point. I will concede 1 bad loss, 1 mediocre loss (GT), and 1 expected loss. I guess the final score of the GT game was better than it actually felt being there watching it unfold. 21-0 at half was awful and it never really seemed to get better from there even though the final was 30-20. It was also at a critical point in the season which made it worse at the time. Looking back though I guess it wasn't as bad as it felt. Also, my bad on the 4-team/8-team thing.
Not an expected loss if you are talking about being a top 8 team in the country. UTjr didn't even finish ranked.
So, just to simplify things...do you, or do you not think the 4 best teams in the country should be in the top 4 playoff spots? Just a yes or no answer.
4 best teams is subjective. If it's made abundantly clear to teams that they have to win their conference to have a shot that clears everything up. The best teams will win the games they need to in order to earn a spot at the table. It's. That. Simple.
It's also never going to happen that way....oh well :/
If it's completely subjective then conceivably the 4 best teams could in fact be in the same conference. losing to each other in the same conference doesn't automatically mean they would not run the table in any other conference, or come in last. It is as you say subjective.
if the four best teams are in one conference, and that conference's champion gets to the playoff that team should win the whole thing. The ultimate goal is to crown the best team. Everything else after that doesn't matter. If you're the second best team in the country, but in the same conference as the best team, that's just bad luck. If you want to be crowned Champion at the end of the year you should start by winning your conference. I don't have any sympathy for the best teams that didn't win their conference.
crowning the best team and selecting the top 4 teams are not the same though.
I get your point, and that's fine. Just in the logic of what you're saying it could be that the top 4 teams in the country could actually be in the same conference. As you say it is subjective because everyone doesn't play each other. Just because BAMA ran the table in the SEC doesn't mean that the #2, 3 and 4 best other teams in the nation are not also in the SEC.
whether you want to allow them into the playoffs is also subjective, and for you the rule is winning the Conference championship.
I realize I am being overly fussy about the logic. Just throwing less than .02 cents worth to the convo. carry on
you're projecting something into my argument that I never said. I've never said that the 4 best teams should play. I agreed that it's possible the 4 best teams could be in the same conference. Setting the rule that you have to win your conference as a pre-requisite will get the best team into the play-off. If they're truly the best team, they'll win the whole thing anyway.
If you're the best team in the country and you beat the second best team in the country on the way to the playoff that sucks for the second best team. But, at the end of the day, the Champion is the only team anyone remembers. You don't see many teams boasting about all of the times they lost the championship game. You see teams rolling out the number of Championships they've won. The playoff should give the best team from each league a shot to win the whole thing. It's not possible for every team to play every other team so you have to break it into leagues anyway. It's just a bracket. Win the games in the regular season to get to your conference title game and then win that to get to the playoffs. I don't see a problem with it. I don't care if the 4 best teams are all in the same league. That's going to be rare anyway.
You logic is flawed beyond belief. Shockingly actually, like first time watching college football shocking.
You basically confirmed that no, the best 4 teams should not always be in the playoffs.
He's saying that if you got beat by the best team in the country this keeping you from winning your conference, why should you get the privilege of playing them again to prove you're better over someone else who won his conference.
The playoffs should be designed to pit the best team from each conference against each other. There may be years when the second best team in one conference is better than the best team in another conference. Too bad. They should have been better.
The problem with "the best four teams" is that the subjective nature of that charge inherently leads to the annointment of teams as being better than they are. Conventional wisdom says that the sec is the best conference in cfb. So preseason rankings will favor those teams and give them an unfair advantage at a playoff run. It creates imbalance which tarnishes the sport as a whole.
The playoffs can only be successful if you actually set a precedent that each team has to win its league in order to guarantee a spot. If OSU, PSU, and Michigan are the best teams in the country this year and all three get a playoff spot that skews the rankings and perception in the favor of the big 10 for years to come. It impacts recruiting and scheduling.
It is going to result in a much larger imbalance in cfb than we have today. Instead, those teams have to play each other to determine which will represent the league in the playoff. That team gets to face off against the best that other leagues have to offer. If those three teams truly are the best, then surely the best of them will run through the best of the others.
Very well stated.
IMO the problem is that the current construct devalues the conference championship. Ohio state is the classic example that style points and the "eyeball test" are all that matters today. They get in instead of PSU even if PSU wins the B1G. Screw losing head to head against the conference champion, we have Kirk Herbstreet!
If you are going to castrate the conference championships then why have conferences at all? Let's throw all the teams in the hat and draw schedules blindly.
Absurd? Ok let's turn it over to the 4 biggest programs and let them decide who plays who.
Conferences give structure, build rivalries, and need to be part of the equation.
I say "you are one of the top4 teams in the country but lost to your rival? Tough shit, do better next year!"
I just don't understand how the terms 'national champion' and 'best team' became so conflated. I am fully cognizant of the fact that the best team doesn't always win. There is no objective way to quantify the "best team" in the country. We can, however, establish a clear set of criteria for how we determine a 'champion' that all teams are aware of before the season begins. The best teams may not always win, but we will have a clear system of determining a champion. If the 'best team' can't win their conference or have a resume worthy of a wildcard spot, too bad and better luck next year. The game isn't won on paper.
Ok, well OSU clearly has a resume that puts them in the top 4. They aren't gonna win their conference. Shit happens, the great thing about having playoffs, is that you can not win your conference and still have a chance if you are good enough. In fact, that was the reason a playoff system was conceived!
Right, and if each conference champion was guaranteed a spot, I would have no problem with all three wildcards being from the same conference. At least there is some clear, objective primary standard for entry to the playoff. And if you slip up and are barred from your conference championship (like OSU) you then can get a spot based on resume. Everyone wins, and conference races matter!
I have a huge issue that if PSU wins the championship and doesn't make the playoff and the committee puts anOSU in. They have said all along that championships matter and that act would the ultimate betrayal of that statement.
I don't care if the B1G ends up having 2 teams in the championship. Based on appearance, they might have been the strongest conference this year. They can have PSU (#4) and anOSU (#2). Let PSU play Bama for the right to move on. If they get slaughtered, so be it. But if they won the damn B!G they earned the right to get slaughtered on national television. They won the games they needed to to get there.
The flaw in this logic, is that in literally every other playoff system that exists, conference (or division in the case of professional sports) champions are guaranteed a spot at the table.
What your advocating is preventing a conference champion from getting a spot to the benefit of another team in said conference. That is not why playoffs exist in any other context.
They're not. It's not just that the bottom of the B1G stinks, but the middle of the B1G stinks too.
What it does illustrate is that contrary to peanut gallery conventional wisdom, adding Rutgers & Maryland was a good thing for the B1G. By adding 2 patsies, the B1G made it more likely to get multiple teams more highly ranked, not less.
The addition of 2 weak programs has enhanced the B1G football brand because the media - and most fans - look at W-L's and the top of the conference as the measure of a conference. Neither the media nor fans care that the ACC Coastal had 5 of its 7 teams with 8 or more wins and that it was the most competitive P5 division top to bottom.
My thought is that you don't pick the 4 best teams, you pick the 4 most deserving. You should be able to pick the four teams without watching a game. You look at their resume, and 4 best resumes get in. So if the 4 most deserving teams are in the B10, then so be it.
So, lets assume that, for the sake of argument, PSU wins the B1G. Do you drop OSU from the rankings cause the didn't win their conference?
I think so, but I'm not positive... If you want to argue that the Conference A runner up is better than the Conference B winner, I'll listen. But if you want to argue that your conference runner up is better than your conference champion, despite a head-to-head loss.... Well, sounds like your conference needs a better way to select its champion.
I also wonder what everyone would be saying if OSU and PSU switched records/positions (meaning OSU was 11-2 with a B10 Championship, win over PSU, loss to Mich, but PSU was 11-1, with wins over Mich and OkU). OSU is such a powerful brand, with an undisputed top 5 coach, annual top 5 recruiting classes and a flashy offense. PSU is reeling from sanctions, and has struggled with its on the field (and off the field) identity over the past half decade. As a result, I think a lot of people (subconsciously/absentmindedly) give OSU the benefit of the doubt ("they lost a flukey game in 2014 against VT, and came back to win it, no reason they can't do it again"). This is an unfair advantage that OSU has IMO.
Finally, I think that most people, when ranking teams, perform an exercise where they say "well, Team A and Team B didn't play, but based on what I've seen, I think Team A would win most games against Team B, so I'll rank Team A higher." This isn't how teams should be selected; they should be select based on what they have already done, not on what we think they could do.
I believe in the playoff committees mission ststement, they state that their goal is to identify the 4 best teams. Not most deserving.
If that's the case, then there shouldn't be ADs on the committee, it should be former players/coaches/people who know the game. Not politicians with an agenda.
Am I the only one who hates this idea?
you may not be, but I'm curious why you hate this idea?
IMO I just don't think an 8 team playoff will happen...at least not any time soon. $$$ talks and I just don't think it makes economic sense to have an 8 team playoff...you're basically asking a handful of fan bases to travel up to 3 weeks in a row. Doing it twice (like now) is already asking quite a lot. For political reasons, it wouldn't surprise me at all if you continually saw teams in the playoff which have strong traveling fan base reputations (which doesn't hurt us, necessarily)...I don't think anyone associated with the CFP wants to see any playoff games look like ACC CGs played in Florida. They want packed houses and their voting will reflect that.
So politically, economically, I just don't think 8-team playoffs are in the cards. That being said, I think it's necessary. I think to do it justice the playoff requires elimination of the arbitrary (mostly subjective) ranking system and adoption of the NFL playoff framework. Teams need to win their divisions, and then their conferences, in order to get a seat at the table. That covers the power 5. Then there should be 3 "wildcards" or at large bids. Those will be a little more controversial, sure, but at least the top half of your seeds will have teams that got there on a premise everyone understands and isn't subjected to arbitrary rankings.
I think expanding it to 8 teams is a bad idea. I don't think there are 8 teams every year that are worthy of competing for a national championship. I don't like the committee aspect of it, but 4 is the right number. 8 is too many. Not every conference champion deserves to play for a title.
I don't agree with the premise that there aren't "8 teams every year that are worthy of competing for a national championship"
What's going to happen this year (and last year, and likely for years to come) is that there will be at least a team or two left out with a legitimate argument to compete for the championship.
I don't see the harm in letting teams who don't deserve a shot compete (if they don't deserve it, they won't win it) especially when the alternative is shutting out teams that do deserve a shot
I don't think an 8 team playoff will work because of economic issues. But I disagree that it would be bad because it might let teams that don't deserve a shot into the tournament. That's just silly. Letting teams that don't deserve to be there is way better than disallowing teams that do deserve to be there.
doesn't matter how many are allowed into the playoffs there will ALWAYS be teams with legit gripes about not qualifying.
that kind of voids the argument that 8 team playoffs would be bad because it would mean teams with no business being in the playoff are there....which is the argument I disagree with....so I guess you're supporting my point in a way
yeah I agree with that. I am more leaning toward bar's post below about devaluing the season. I don't think a 2 loss or potentially a 3 loss team should qualify for the "best of" tournament.
As you said above, you should win your conference. Well here you would have multiple teams from multiple conferences that didn't win their conference yet still able to be considered the #1 team in the country.
there are so many things about this sentence that don't make sense to me
how can multiple teams be considered #1?
how can teams claiming to be #1 not win their own league?
With so much debate about which conferences are the best and worst how can any team really truly be considered #1 when we can't even agree on which conferences are the best?
Just as an example: the SEC has been propped up by the success of Alabama for the last few years. They have been slipping but they still get high rankings and "quality loss" tags because of name recognition alone...Because SEC is King. Except, they had a terrible record against other P5 conferences this year. So, really, the SEC isn't as good as they seem. But we wouldn't know that if 4 teams from that league got into the playoff because they were all "better" than all the other teams from other leagues.
you're confusing what I am saying.
If a 2 loss regular season team ranked #8 in final rankings gets to the playoffs and then they have a chance to win and do they will be considered the best in the country. Yet the didn't win their conference, or could be in some case didn't even go to the conference championship game. That's a problem.
current rankings:
1. Bama
2. OSU
3. Clemson
4. Wash
5. Mich
6. Wis
7. Penn
8. Colo
So 4 BIG teams, 2 Pac12, 1 SEC and 1 ACC. In an 8 playoff scenario the 4th best BIG team could win out and be the "best."
I disagree with that. As you said, if that were true then they should have won their conference. 8 teams is too many. 4 teams is the correct number. there will always be teams with legit gripes no matter what.
I believe the popular format is P5 champions+3 wild cards (or highest ranked G5 + 2 wild cards).
In that scenario, you'd have the following teams in (based on these rankings and the favorites winning)
Bama
Wisconsin
Clemson
Washington
Oklahoma
OSU
Michigan
PSU (or W. Michigan, presumably)
Say there are upsets (except for Bama, because, really?)
Bama
PSU
VT
Colorado
Ok State
OSU
Clemson
Washington (or W. Michigan)
So yeah...don't know where I was going with this. Except that an 8 team playoff means all conference champions can get in and the remaining 3 spots are subjective. With the current rankings (which I don't think would be the case after championship weekend or if there was a different playoff structure), you would end up with half the teams being from the B1G and everyone would still be pissed. At least 63% of the spots would be determined by a hard and fast formula and anyone who falls short would have to make a case for being chosen subjectively (eye test)
I'm confused by what you're getting at.
are you saying that there are always going to be teams with a gripe for not getting into the playoff?
okay, I don't think that changes whether it's 4 teams or 8. So what gives?
Even if we say that 4 teams is the correct number (and I've already conceded that we're unlikely to ever see a 8-team format) I still believe that conference champions should get those spots.
It becomes a very slippery slope otherwise. When you set the precedent that teams can get to the playoff by being ranked high even if they lost their conference then you set the stage for teams over-hyped by arbitrary pre-season rankings getting to the playoffs by playing a relatively easy schedule in a conference that perhaps is top heavy and doesn't actually present many challenges but the public believes is very deep to get a shot at something they probably don't actually deserve because they lost to a team which played a tougher schedule and won their respective conference.
Now I'm not saying that's the case this year, but here's a hypothetical.
Let's say that VT is ranked top 10 pre-season in 2017 and we cruise through a pretty weak Coastal division save for one flukey loss to a decent-but-not-great Miami team (who also lost to FSU) and we miss the ACCCG because Miami owns the tie-breaker but we're ranked in the top 4 because of a couple dominating performances after our loss
Let's just assume Miami wins the ACCCG. Does VT deserve a shot at the playoff in that situation (VT is 11-1 and Miami is 10-3[8-1] after winning the conference)
I don't think so....I think you have to be able to win all the games you need to in order to get to your conference CG. If you do that, and then win your conference, you deserve a shot at the playoff. Otherwise, I think it's unfair to give other teams an edge by ranking them highly in the pre-season, watching them beat up on inferior opponents in a mostly weak division, and not punish them for a close "flukey" loss since they've demonstrably shown they can hang tons of points on lesser opponents otherwise.
but even conference champions are subjective.
4 team playoff doesn't include all conference champions.
8 team playoff will include conference champions that are clearly not as good as many P5 teams.
So the selection of who goes into both of those scenarios is highly subjective, no matter it is based only on conference champions or rankings.
The problem with 8 teams for me is more devaluing the regular season and opening it up to teams I don't think should be in consideration to play for the national championship.
But limiting the 4 team playoff to only conference champions is also subjective. Your premise, if the best 3 to 4 teams are all in the SEC then their champion should be all other conference champions is understood. But football is about personnel and scheme match ups. Sometimes great teams have trouble with not great teams simply because of that. Clemson lost to Pitt, yet we beat Pitt. Does that mean we are the clear winner versus Clemson? No, I don't think so. Because it's subjective.
But let's say we do win against Clemson and become conference Champs. Under your line of reasoning, do we go to the playoff? We are a champion, after all. We have a legitimate gripe against other conference champions that we belong yet we would be ranked lower than most other champions I suspect, and many other non-championship teams. But under your reasoning if you win you have a right to sit at the table. How do you select which P5 conference champion gets in over the other?
If the answer is by Rankings, then why not just go by Rankings in the first place and select the best teams regardless of conference championship?
And what about non-P5 conference champion teams? They would NEVER get a seat at the table in an only conference champion 4 seat playoff. So then you go to the 8 team playoff, where we are back to devaluing the regular season.
Finally, lets say you only allowed conference champions into playoffs. No matter 4 or 8 teams. What happens if BAMA wins 8 years in a row? Or Clemson? Then you are in real jeopardy of seeing the best talent going to the dynasty programs that control those championships. Bama could easily do it. They already get the best talent, and they are already dominating the conference (and nation). Can you imagine if the rules were that only the conference champion could move on, how much more talent would funnel to them?
That would be devastating to the rest of the conference. There must be some allowance for parity.
Sometimes the best teams are in the same conference. that will happen and they deserve to be there playing for the National Championship. Because an upstart 3 loss VT program (while I would love it) that beats Clemson, most likely doesn't belong there.
Division 1 FBS College Football has, by far, the most bizarre and convoluted means of organizing its postseason. The playoff committee has sought to pick "the best 4 teams" to determine "a national champion." Literally no other NCAA Sanctioned sport at any level has anything close to that. It's a fool's errand to try and match the best team with the national championship. And only FBS Football attempts to do that.
Take basketball for example. Do I think the team that wins the tournament is the best college basketball team in the country? No, but they are the champions. If we allowed each P5 conference an automatic bid, and the committee picked 3 wildcards, I don't see how anyone has a gripe. You know at the beginning of the season that you must win your conference to have the bid, and if you don't, make sure you schedule well OOC and win some big games to have a solid resume. Having wildcard bids can act as a safety measure for that occasional and rare cinderella team that wins their conference. If the others are truly so much better, we should see it play out on the field.
In no way is anyone saying that VT belongs in the playoff. But it would make the regular season a hell of a lot more exciting if every team KNEW a clear path to the playoff in winning their conference. I just think the playoff has completely devalued conference championships. No one knows what the criteria for making the playoff actually is, it's just some bs beauty pageant where the most sexy teams get in, regardless of whether or not you actually win anything of any objective consequence. I don't want to see OSU with their legs propped up on the table laughing at the B1G Championship this weekend. They lost when it counted, and they should sweat it out to see if they get in at large. If the 'best teams' and resumes matter most, then why do we even have conferences at all?
Fernley, I like you and I respect you but I just flat out disagree with you on this.
This is actually the exact opposite of subjective. You can't subjectively choose a conference champion. It's about as objective as it gets. Conference champions are indisputable. They win the games they have to in order to get to their championship game and they win that outright for the championship. What about that is subjective?
right...which is why I think 8 team playoff is necessary
Well, for starters, saying that conference champions are clearly not as good as many P5 teams is a fallacy. The only way to really clearly tell is to play the game on the field. A conference champion can only be that by winning games on the field. Everyone is so caught up in how teams look on paper and what their ranking is (which rankings are far from adequate, as evidenced by ranked teams losing every week to "lesser" opponents) but the only objective way to determine which teams are best is by how they play on the field. Conferences afford the opportunity for teams to play each other to determine which teams are best. It's only fair, then, that the best teams from each conference (as decided by conference championships) get to play against the best teams from other conferences. It takes the rankings (which are seriously flawed) out of the equation.
as has been said over and over....it's not about trying to find the "best 4 (8) teams" because that is subjective...especially with a human committee that doesn't exactly make their decision making transparent (Like how the hell was aTm ranked 4th in week 6?!?!). It's about setting a precedent that if you want to play for a championship you have to play well in the regular season, win all the games you play against your conference foes, make it to your title game, and win a conference title. The beauty of the 8 team playoff with 5 power conferences is that it leaves 3 spots for at-large bids which will give three teams who didn't win their conferences but subjectively deserve a shot the opportunity to play for the championship. That makes everyone happy. Under that scenario, the power 5 conference champions get an opportunity (and rightly so, IMO) and if you feel that OSU and UM are worthy (everyone seems to think so) they too get a shot. Best of both worlds.
If you can explain to me how this devalues the regular season I'd like to hear it. I just don't see it. By objectively taking conference champions the committee forces teams to focus on winning their conference title. That means that every single one of their 8 conference games is extremely important. I think it actually makes the regular season more important. Now it's not just a popularity contest based on arbitrary rankings doled out by some committee shrouded in mystery. Teams have to win games. How does that devalue the regular season?
If you're going to say that it devalues non-conference match-ups I'll submit to you this: With 3 at large bids (which admittedly will have to be selected subjectively) it makes SOS and non-conference wins even more important. It creates a scenario where teams absolutely have to win those games in case they lose to an in-conference opponent and miss their opportunity to play for their respective championship. Now those teams which miss their championship games (OSU, UM) but have played really well otherwise get an outside shot at winning a bid for the last 3 spots at the table. All of a sudden, those other 4 non-conference games become extremely important. Win. Win.
this is actually an interesting point. I think this supports my argument that the regular season is so important. Teams that take care of business and win their division deserve a shot. Pitt couldn't do that. They squandered opportunities against intra-division foes despite their triumph over Clemson. By forcing teams to win their leagues it makes one-game-seasons irrelevant. Pitt beat Clemson (one-game-season) but Pitt couldn't win enough games to get to their own conference title game. The point of a play-off system is to increase the sample size so that the teams with the best records against their counterparts advance. The best teams lose games. It happens. The worst teams win games. It happens. But the best teams will win more often than not. That's why they get to play for their conference titles. Clemson lost to Pitt, but won the rest of their games. They deserve to be where they are. VT lost some head-scratchers for sure, but we won the games we had to over the teams in our division. We got some help but all that really tells me is that the Coastal Division isn't home to one of the 4 best teams. I would be shocked if VT would even get to the championship game even if they beat Clemson. Because the best teams win more often than not, we'd have to beat 3 really good teams in a row. I don't see it happening. But if we beat Clemson we should get a shot.
I sort of already answered this. Yes I think VT would deserve a shot if they win the conference. What is the point of the regular season or championship game if it doesn't even matter in the big picture. Of course the champion deserves a shot. Consensus is that Clemson would roll us. If Clemson is worthy of their #3 ranking and a playoff berth they should beat us on the field. That's objective. Now I think that this system requires an 8 team playoff system because the 4 team format leaves one of the 5 power conference champions on the outside looking in. My entire argument is predicated on the necessity of the 8 team format which, honestly, I just don't think we'll ever see, sadly.
The answer is Schrodinger. It can't be rankings, but it has to be rankings in the current 4-team format. That's why it is absolutely necessary to have an 8-team format. It removes the subjectivity of choosing 4/5 conference champions. It makes it absolutely clear that if you win a P5 conference championship you're in. If you miss out, barely, then subjectivity could help you get one of those at large bids, which is what we have right now anyway. It forces the regular season to be extremely important for teams which might fall short of their league title.
again, I don't see how an 8-team format devalues the regular season. In fact, I think it enhances the importance of the regular season. Please explain to me how the regular season is in any way devalued by an 8 team format.
Dynasties will happen no matter what. I really don't see how any scenario makes it better or worse than any other. Right now you're basically saying that you have to be ranked really high to get to the playoffs. I'm saying that you have to objectively win the games you need to in order to get to the championships. Neither really has any bearing on which teams succeed under either format. Alabama is going to be a juggernaut regardless. They have to play against the best teams in the SEC to get there. The best teams in other leagues have to play against the best teams in their own league to get there. The best teams should emerge from each league. If Alabama is beatable, they'll lose to the best teams that the other leagues have to offer.
I agree that a 3-loss VT team probably doesn't have very good odds of winning 3 games in a row against the best teams from each conference. But Cinderella stories happen and they're exciting and fans love to follow the under-dog and root for them. A 4 team playoff with Bama, OSU, UM, and PSU is just boring. Most of those games have already happened this season anyway. We're just watching reruns at this point.
No worries man. I respect you loads too. and Thanks for the chat. No hard feelings on my side.
I totally understand the points you're making. It's interesting on how the perspective is different. In fairness, I think your premise works just as well as any other and I don't have any dog in that fight to argue otherwise. As i mentioned above I was more interested in the logic of it.
I think no matter which way you go everything is subjective. Yes conference champions are not subjective in that they won their conference, but I think it is subjective to say all conference champions are better than all non-conference champions from other conferences. I know you didn't specifically say that but by only allowing conference champs into the playoff, it's pretty much how it is.
But no matter. Either way, I would prefer it to remain a 4 team playoff. However, I will agree that if you make it 8, then it should be only conference champions and I think it needs to P5 and 3 champs from lower conferences. Keep it a tournament of Champions. That could work. You have to win or your not in, as you said.
Thanks for the chat. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. I don't really believe there's any chance of the playoff expanding to 8 teams. There's going to be controversy every year regardless. It's an imperfect system. But that's the nature of try to decide which of 128 teams is the best with only 12 to 15 games for each to play.
The only way that this is not true is if there is a set qualification flow chart. For example, no one gripes in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. because there is a very clear-cut recipe for making the playoffs. Therefore, if there is a recipe that takes human bias out, there cannot be any gripes. Not sure that is the direction CFB wants to go, but it is a solution.
That flow chart is almost identical to the ones for conference champions, which is why there are so many of us who value conference championships.
I think the solution for the economics is that the first round of the playoff is held at the higher seed's home field. Yes, this will mean that it conceivable that Wake Forest could theoretically host LSU (in 2047). But the home stadium will be filled by the home crowd, the next two rounds of the playoffs go to the normal bowls.
It devalues the regular season and really makes OOC games just exhibition games.
If we go 8 teams, I'd want both the finals and semifinals be home games.
I can see how it can turn OOC games into exhibition games...but I think that can be addressed
However, I disagree wholeheartedly that it devalues the regular season. I think it makes the regular season that much more important.
The way it is now, pre-season rankings, name recognition, and conference perception are the most important factors to getting to the playoff. Teams that start the season ranked and then win most of their games will remain highly ranked at the end of the season. Even teams that have lost didn't move anywhere in the rankings by virtue of their name recognition and ranking. That hardly seems fair to me and if Michigan and/or OSU get into the playoff it sends the message that being ranked highly and winning most of your games is more important than winning your conference. That's just backwards.
If teams HAVE to win their conference in order to even have a shot then that forces them to play well and treat each regular season game as a championship game. That is the exact opposite of devaluing the regular season. To help mitigate the use of OOC games as exhibition games I think the top 4 spots should go to the P5 league champions from leagues with the best OOC records against other P5 leagues and the other 4 spots should be at large bids based on records and SOS. That creates an environment where it's important for every team to win each game they play in.
No, it makes the OOC games your chance to make the statement "Just because I lost an untimely game that kept me from competing for the conference championship doesn't meant I'm not worth letting into the playoff."
See: Michigan, 2016.
With eight teams you can give 1st round high seeds home fields. Good economics, and incentivizes OOC play. Auto bids for weak Conference Champs would not get the high seed. I think Div. 1-AA and Div II make it it work with even more teams. This is a good model and if I am a betting man, this is where we end up in the 4 -5 years.
Honestly I won't be happy until we have a 16-team playoff where all 10 conference champions get a chance. Bring it up to the standard of literally every other sport, and every other level of college football.
FBS football is the only division of any sport where winning your conference doesn't guarantee a shot at a national championship (with few exceptions, such as the Ivy League excluding themselves from the FCS playoffs). College football is much bigger than college basketball, but March Madness seems to get way more attention than the FBS "championship" structure, and I think that needs to change.
that sounds awesome....but I just don't think it's feasible in the current climate. To do it, and do it successfully, I think would require some major overhauls to the entire system and that's not likely to happen. Again, $$$ talks. I honestly don't think an 8-team playoff is ever going to happen and that frustrates me because I think for the playoff to be done properly it's necessary to have an 8-team format at a minimum. The 4 team playoff was a stunt by the NCAA to satiate the growing hordes of fans pining for a playoff system. But it doesn't do the playoff system justice and we're just encountering the same problems we had in the BCS which made fans want the playoff in the first place. Since it hasn't been done correctly it's ultimately going to fail the same way the BCS did.
I still don't get how FCS can manage a 24 team playoff, but the big boys can'y do more than 4.
it's not that they're incapable. The economics of a BCS playoff is way different than the economics of an FCS playoff. It's all about that money
I wanna punch anyone who says "Vah Tech"
Vah Tech
First, that had to hurt like hell.
Second, the way the face just shifts makes it look CGI'd
I literally watched that GIF 10 times
It does look like CGI. Is his nose made of rubber?
My sister's boyfriend says Vah Tech every time. Sometimes punches to the face can't get the job done.
Aim a little lower. You can't speak for a while with a crushed larynx.
I told my sister's boyfriend if he screwed up I'd smash his knee caps with a cast iron frying pan. Guess it worked, they got married. I'd venture to say that pronouncing it "Vah Tech" is on par with screwing up. Try the frying pan.
Every time I hear someone say "Vah Tech":
Maybe it's because I'm not originally from VA but I don't get why so many hokies get worked up over this.
Other people might have different thoughts, but to me I think it just sounds dumb. The state of Virginia is never referred to as "Vah". Our state's name is Virginia. Similarly Georgia Tech is not called, "Gah Tech" (or at least I don't think I've heard announcers call it that). Our school's name is Virginia Tech, so VT, VPI, Virginia Tech or some correct variation of our name is what we deserve to be called. It's a respect thing for me.
Unfortunately, I have now hear LaTech from Dan Rubenstein on The Solid Verbal. He doesn't say VaTech as far as I've heard, but I could see people running with that, especially when our argument is "You never hear anyone say XaTech"
I also always have to think for a second because I think he's talking about LaTeX
I get writing the abbreviation VA Tech, but why pronounced the VA as "VAH" if you wouldn't do that for any other state? It's obnoxious and sounds stupid. I also dislike "V-Tech" but mostly because it sounds like we offer certifications for plumbers (no offense to plumbers, just not what Tech is) or make every single one of my kids toys that I want to break with a hammer to make them stop beeping. VT, VPI, Virginia Tech, Hokies, all of these are easy enough to say, so why not say them? It's not like announcers say "Well obviously the Crimson Tide is the best team in college football this year. I don't see anyone upseting 'You of AAL' in the playoffs."
+1 Agreed.
So i'm not a fan but honestly this never bothered me too much, although i hear a lot about it on here recently. When I lived in Virginia Beach people said "Vah Beach" so that's the same thing. When i was in school ('97-'02, aka the golden years) it was said then too and i really didn't hear any complaints about it.
Agree. Who is this I was in the Corps that timeframe too....except 98-02
Koch, I was A-01. You?
+ 1 TL to all fellow USN Helo Bubbas. My flying days are long gone, but the mighty Sea Pig was my faithful steed from '88 to '94.
Thank you for your service sir.
Check out Aaron's head nod on the second video at time frame :33
I'm gonna go the maroon and orange glasses wearing delusional route and say we whip up on some Clemson!
My thoughts on the mainstream media:
Someone else said it, but we are playing with house money on Saturday night. Big underdogs, not playing for a playoff spot, no one expected us to be here... I think they boys can let loose and play free with nothing to lose.
That is how I will watch the game as a fan this weekend. Excited if we win, but not disappointed if we lose. This season has already been a great first year under this new staff!
TroyMike can eat a bucket of dicks. He obviously has done zero research. New head coach? Yes. All new coaches and totally new regime? No. I still don't think we win this game but I really hope that lack of respect fires up the team as much as it does me. Fucking douche canoe...No. Are you?
Tears of joy. Douche Canoe is so underated in terms of word combinations.
Got the names wrong there... Troy was the one who said to put the money on VT, Mike Brenner was the dickhole who said Clemson would hang 50 with ease and we shouldn't even show up
Apparently neither of them is Troy. Those guys names are Mike Brenner and Peter Loshak. Troy must have been on the phone with them previous to or after the video.
I edited the post. Apologies for the name mixup but not the sentiment.
dickhole made me giggle
Mainstream media also gave VT a 5% chance to win the Coastal... well guess what bit**es
WE BAK???
Let me guess....the mainstream media thinks...Clemson!
I hear it's because they dominate TOP.
Well, I mean, they know their stuff.
Fornelli (who almost picked our division exactly right in preseason) picks us outright:
Underdog of the Week
No. 23 Virginia Tech (+10) vs. No. 3 Clemson: The Hokies are unpredictable. One week, they're going on the road and beating North Carolina by 31 points in a hurricane. The next, they're heading up to Syracuse and losing by 14 inside a dome. They're just a team that has a high ceiling as well as a low floor, which is what makes them dangerous heading into this game. I actually picked Virginia Tech to win this game straight up, but it wasn't based as much on the matchup as it was that I believe something chaotic will happen this weekend, and the Hokies are the most chaotic team I know. So even if Clemson wins this game, I believe Tech is going to make this one far more dramatic than anybody expects it to, so I'll take those 10 points. Virginia Tech 37, Clemson 34
Off topic, but why in the actual hell do people consistently use "mainstream media" as a derogatory label for what should simply be called "media?" Especially considering the opposite of mainstream is fringe, which actually DOES have negative connotations.
It comes from the perception of conservative people that the media is biased against them. Wikipedia says that
This term basically was co-opted from a merely factual term into an insult because of the perceived bias and has turned into what it is today.
Oh, I understand all of that. My complaint is that it's been adopted so widely as such, without even a modicum of thought given as to what the words actually mean. It just comes off as willful ignorance developed by conditioning people not to think for themselves. Especially when it's coming up in a sports blog. Especially when the "mainstream media" seems to include SportsBookReview.com.
And just to be clear, this is in no way a political criticism, but solely an intellectual one.
Thekeyplay is a medium specifically for Hokies. The media referenced were not Hokie specific, but cover sports or cfb in general. That's all 'main stream media' means in this context. It's actually used quite frequently, and not necessarily derogatorily, on this and similar sites with very specific audiences.
Then the title should be "national media," not "mainstream media," which definitely has a connotation associated with it. I suppose I could change it, but then things here start to make less sense, and it's not really generating any controversy, per se. Just poor word choice.
I tried to use it as a word that describes a major media source that is not a Hokie news source
That's how I took it. I think that is how most people would read it. Moving on.
I read MSM and clicked expecting ESPN, Fox, CBS, USA Today, Times(s), Post(s), etc. That is how the term is generally used. Did not expect a sports book site. Although not geared toward a specific fanbase, I would be hard pressed to consider it 'mainstream' in the normal sense of the word.
Dang, looks we got into the same argument on this thread as we got into on the "Hokies #23 in CFP" thread.
I'm glad I am just now realizing this, I've commented far too much on this the last three days.
It kept drawing me back in!