I thought they were overrated going into playoffs and they were on a downswing headed in. Then they lay an egg yesterday.
I would love to see PSU beat USC tomorrow to cause a little thought on if they should have been in there instead.
Another thought, I wish we would have played them again this year. I think we could have beaten them if the played us the way they played Clemson.
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I believe the score indicates that anyone could have beaten them if they played the way they played against Clemson.
Easy hoss, let's not forget, UVA also has a football team.
do you have more than one source for that info?
Without any stats back this up, I routinely feel like the Big 10 is the most overrated conference in the country
Year in, year out, the problem with the "xxx is the best conference in the country" (usually SEC) is that the perception is based on 1) 3-4 OOC games where xxx conf team won and 2) no bad losses to weak G5/FCS. This year Wiscy winning a de facto home game vs LSU (a team with 0 offense), anOSU beating OU in their place while OU suffered a Houston loss hang over and 3) Mich beating Colorado was the essence of the perceived dominance of the B1G.
At least when the SEC is getting the accolades, you know for sure Bama is in fact good and the SEC West has been very good for the past 5 years or so, including Bama, LSU, Auburn, aTm etc being willing to play decent teams from other conferences and consistently winning those games.
The ACC is starting to get some cred for its performance vs the SEC. Clemson beating Auburn has only added to that perception.
It would be great to see the NCAA instill a schedule system that provides more match ups, to give a better read on relative conference strength, but that's unlikely to ever happen.
There should be a points system based on year end record of opponents and games against P5 and conferences.
Beat a P5 team get 5 points no matter what
Beat a P5 team with 10 wins get 8 points
Beat a P5 team with 9 wins get 7 points
Beat a non P5 team get 3 points
Beat a Conference team get 5 points
Something like this, so you don't have this bullshit 2 loss team playing a conference championship game when you feel the 1 loss team is better. Ohios State would have been in instead of PSU.
This is probably not too far off of what the ACC has been discussing to over come the travesty of Clemson having to play UNC, last year and VT this year (could have had a Clemson-FSU and Clemson-Louisville rematches, instead).
I don't think they should abandon divisions, though I would enjoy abandoning them and having a rotating schedule through every team in ACC.
Divisions shouldn't be abandoned, the stupid crossover rivalries should. I hate playing BC every year and would much rather have a different Atlantic Division opponent instead.
Just so we're clear, I wasn't suggesting that it was a good idea. Though I agree with getting rid of permanent cross over. FSU-Miami is the only negative to doing so, but you could redo divisions to fix that.
And Clemson/GT, and UNC/NC State, and Pitt/Syracuse. Apparently, those are things.
However they do it, divisions need to be reconfigured, but they could come up with one way that maintains the permanent crossover rival.
I like that last option the most. I wouldn't like losing GT but Clemson and NCSU feel like more natural yearly matchups for us than say UNC and Duke. We would still play Miami, Pitt, and LolVA every year. Louisville I could take or leave, I guess it would be good to have another tough matchup but that division would already be plenty stacked.
But do they have to be cross over? The permanent cross over is what causes the once a decade reg season game between some teams (e.g., VT-FSU, VT-Clemson).
Put Clemson and GT into the same div. Same for UNC/NCSU and Pitt/Cuse. I suppose the powers that be would want to maintain VT/LOLUVA too. I get that there are rivalries that the conf will want to maintain. If the schools don't want to go to a 9 game season, then we need to get over the idea of the dream ACCCG match up of FSU-Miami. B1G worry about that with Mich-anOSU and no one whines about it.
Keeping the crossover would be the compromise for the crowd still hoping to see a FSU-Miami ACCCG.
Agreed, but it means that we have the same situation as now. They won't have a permanent cross over for some teams and not others.
Thanks for sharing the article! I enjoyed reading that and think he put forth some great ideas for realignment. I personally like the last option (Rivalry Week) the best, but the problem with that is that the new Atlantic division is absolutely STACKED (VT, Miami, Clemson, Pitt, Louisville...Wake is really the only "sucker" b/c NC State is a decent team), and the new Coastal gives FSU a pretty easy path to the ACCCG. A very close second for me was the "overhauled Coastal/Atlantic option. I think you could make a strong argument for either of these options, and I'd like to see this done, but you know, #GoACC...
I agree with you on preferring the Rivalry Week option out of all these options. (I would call it something like the "Rivalry Crossover" option.) I think the issue of the new Atlantic being stacked could be offset by just switching Louisville and BC. The writer even says those two are interchangeable.
That would make the generally stronger teams in each new division as:
Coastal: FSU, Louisville, UNC, GT
Atlantic: Clemson, VT, Miami, Pitt
With the remaining teams as:
Coastal: Duke, Syracuse, LOLUVA
Atlantic: NC State, WF, BC
So to me just switching Louisville and BC seems to make it fairly balanced.
Ah, thanks for point that out, I missed that when I read the article originally. And yes that seems to fix the problem of the new Atlantic being stacked. Actually, I love how that shakes the teams out and think it's a much better format than we currently have. I would LOVE to get to play Clemson every year, I'm meh on playing FSU year-in-year-out.
I know I'm (probably) in the minority here, and I most certainly understand why, but I would love to see the ACC add in WVU. We'd get the Black Diamond game back as well as the Backyard Brawl which is a VERY underrated rivalry IMO. It'll never happen, but I for one think it'd be awesome. Although I do know full well the amount of crap we received from WVU fans throughout the rivalry...I just miss playing them. Cross out the fans acting like total dipshits and it's a fantastic rivalry. Pure dreaming on my part.
Really hope we can get ND to join and then steal another team ?Texas? and have a 16-team ACC with 4 regional pods. Then have 2 pods form one division, 2 another, and rotate each year. That way, you maintain a few regional rivalries but play all the teams in the conference a lot more often.
It might just be a case of divisions need to be adjusted every few years.
Crossover rivalries aren't stupid just because OUR crossover rivalry sucks. Crossovers allows NCSU vs UNC, FSU vs Miami, etc. I do agree with you that maybe some of the crossover rivalries or even the divisions themselves should be shuffled.
The various computer rankings already do a more sophisticated and less arbitrary job of this. The good ones are generally a pretty good reflection of things by the end of the season.
Edit: Answered the wrong topic.
Existing models have very weak ability to do truly assess. Sagarin says his models aren't even reasonable to examine until mid way through the season. If pushed, he'd tell you that while it's as good as can be done, the models aren't nearly as accurate as if there was a true cross conference mix of games, to include.
Here you go
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/12/19/14004990/college-foo...
I'm mixed. I would kind of enjoy PSU winning just to really rub it in that they should have been in the playoff instead. But seeing them lose would also be really enjoyable because either way the flaw in the subjectivity that is the committee would be even more blatantly obvious because the "best conference in America" would see their top 3 teams lose. The schadenfreude is tasty.
I still hold out hope for a W Mich W over Wiscy too, making it their top 4 teams that lose. Would be a glorious ending to the B1G season.
I want to see WMich get pummeled.
Not a big fan of oars?
For the people that thought WMich should have been included in the playoffs for going undefeated. Although, I think we can see just from watching Bama and Clemson, that no team was probably going to beat them those nights.
I'm not sure what to say about how the playoff teams should or shouldn't be decided. I just know I'm happy that everyone who kept insisting that Ohio State was "so obviously better than everyone else" and you could "just tell" they were better can piss off now.
FSU got butt rammed by Oregon...but they deserved to be there. So did Michigan St. Just because you get creamed doesn't mean you didn't have a claim at the spot. This is confirmation bias.
You may notice he never said OSU didn't deserve to be there. He's just happy that everyone who insisted OSU was sooo good because "eye tests" can shut up and eat crow because they got man handled by a lowly one loss ACC team
I gotta disagree. The difference is it actually IS debatable whether OSU deserved to be there based on the games that were played even prior to the playoffs.
In the case of FSU and MSU in prior years, people knew they probably weren't as good as some of the other teams in the playoffs, but their inclusion wasn't controversial in any way. Both teams had actually won their conferences and had better records than the conference champions behind them.
Like how FSU hadn't lost in like two years and were the defending champs?
Side note, I still think FSU not being the 1 seed was a mistake. If there was ever a case of "earning" something, that was it. Imagine if FSU had the home game and the late-coming Alabama had to travel across country? May have ended a little differently.
That's a good point. If anything FSU got snubbed because of the "eye test". Personally I think they just walked over what was a soft ACC schedule that particular year, but no one could have really known that prior to picking the seeds.
The committee has criteria to follow. The way it is structured, there is a rebuttable presumption that conference champs will make up the final 4. Any non-champ selected must be "unequivocally" one of the four best. The committee thought OSU met that standard. In my opinion, the only team that would meet that standard this season was Bama. We may never know but I bet they at least informally revisit how they made their selection this year.
I was unhappy that anOSU made it in over PSU. Penn State won the damn conference and proved they were the better team when it counted.
I was also disappointed that Washington made it in with one of the weakest schedules in the Country. I do think that anOSU did deserve to be in the playoffs more than Washington.
Penn State had two losses though and their win over OSU was close and at home. Don't see how their resume is better at all.
I think USC has a very good shot at beating Penn State. They've played really well down the stretch, Sam Darnold looks like he's got the goods at QB and they have some very good skill players on offense.
I think the most obvious thing about that game was that tOSU reallly misses Herman. Barrett was phenomenal as a Fr with him, he got Cardale Jones humming for 3 games. He leaves and the last 2 seasons the QBs both regressed. I expect you'll see an new OC in Columbus next year
100% Agree. The offense with/without Herman is night and day. Herman has a real knack for discovering another team's weakness, coaching up his players, and executing a great game plan. Can't imagine what he's going to do at Texas when he can get top talent again.
A conference championship needs to be a pre-requisite for playoff entry. Anything else is just a popularity contest.
1000% agree. That, and also people guessing (mostly inaccurately) which conferences are better than others. OSU is in just as much because of how good the big ten is supposed to be than anything else. And clearly the big ten is trash.
Strongly disagree. Penn State lost two games and got obliterated in one of those losses to a conference foe.
At least Washington, Clemson and Ohio State's losses were relatively close, and they only had one blemish each as opposed to two. The CFP is supposed to reward performance over the whole season, not just who gets hot down the stretch.
Win your conference or stay home. Anything else is subjective and prone to bias.
If you want to have a subjective component then keep 5 major conferences and drop the weakest champion from the next round of the playoffs (could place a premium on non-conference schedule and performance). But at least there's a clear criteria for eligibility.
The ACC has had more than 1 season where a 3+ loss team beat a 1 loss team, in the ACCCG (e.g., 4 loss FSU beating 1 loss VT, in '05). So in those years, you would want the 4 loss team in the play off? What happened to the play off determining the "best team"?
"If you want to be the best you need to beat the best - Michael Scott" - vtfly
If you lose a conference championship to a 3+ loss team, you probably didn't deserve to compete for "best team" anyway. With 5 conferences and 4 spots, you probably just lose your conference the spot in that scenario and it goes to the 5th conference. If it happens in 2 conferences, just send the highest-ranked "underdog" team that won the conference championship, because honestly I'd rather watch a team like that compete than a higher-ranked team that just choked or failed to even make their conference championship.
It's not as perfect as the 8-team playoff but I think it would make things easier with the current system. I think the one thing Ohio State and the B1G made clear this year is that we need a more defined, less-arbitrary criteria for making the playoff.
So had VT won the ACCCG this year, you are ok with OU and UW being in the play off?
Yes. I think it would have made everything a lot simpler. If Ohio State wanted in, they should have beaten Penn State (and Wisconsin). If Clemson wanted in, they should have beaten VT.
Instead, we got a whole bunch of crap about why a team that got smoked 31-0 in the playoff was arbitrarily better than not one, but two other conference champions. That's a major problem with the system.
PSU wouldn't have done any better and likely would have done worse.
Edit: And the reasoning for anOSU wasn't arbitrary. They had a better record than the conf champs that were left out. They even dominated one of the two.
Lol. This is garbage
Yeah, they're looking stellar in the Rose bowl.
Bama won an NC without winning the SEC. They got a rematch after losing by 3 to LSU. Won the NCG 21-0. Which team was better?
Yep, Alabama was the best team in the country that year and they won the NC emphatically. They should have the trophy.
Irrelevant, they won their conference. OSU didn't.
Clearly not, since PSU wasn't in the CFP and OSU was.
Current system is majorly flawed. OSU is a great example of why, as was OU last year (Big X?? has no CCG).
Oklahoma would have likely won their CG game if they had one, how is that relevant to this conversation, they won their conference just without divisions? If the B1G didn't have divisions they would have split the championship and tOSU would have been a conference champ.
It's relevant because CCGs need to be the first round of the playoffs. Otherwise they're nothing more than a popularity contest.
Winning your conference is a cool part of the FBS college football season, which includes 128 teams. They are there as a measuring stick and are meaningful regionally, for recruiting, and as an accomplishment/measuring stick for your program. Not every team is going to compete for an NC every year, conference championships allow your team to have other goals or have goals if you lose a game or two and are removed from NC contention. Since the playoff all of the sudden "Conference Championships are meaningless" just because they don't AQ you, but that's NEVER how college football has been.
Sounds like your argument is, "that's how it's always been," therefore that's how it should be.
I sure as shit don't want college football to turn into the NFL.
In my opinion, that fear is unfounded.
college football is nowhere near turning into the NFL...I just don't get that argument. It doesn't make any sense. The NFL has 32 teams (to the NCAA's 128) and
1612 playoff spots (to the NCAA's 4). They are never going to be anything alike. Your fears are ridiculous.The NFL only has 12 playoff spots, but your point still stands.
thanks..fixed
I just don't get it. You're admitting that conference championship games are a measuring stick but then you reject that as a premise for selecting teams to the playoff?
The BIG 10 was over inflated this year. I imagine that we can at least agree on that, yes?
Consider then, that the reason OSU was in the playoff was because of their over inflated reputation and over inflated SOS and over inflated quality of wins. I think it's fair to say that, given what we know now, the BIG 10 representative never stood a chance in the playoff anyway, regardless of who it was. So what is the harm in placing the one BIG 10 team which actually won the league in the playoff? The results would be the same. Penn State likely would have lost to Clemson and then it's a moot point.
If Conference Championships are a MEASURING STICK and you decide to ignore that I just don't see the point of having a playoff at all. The playoff isn't about MEASURING the best teams and then pitting them against each other, apparently. It's more about GUESSING based on INFLATED, INACCURATE perceptions created by NAME RECOGNITION, and MEDIA POLLS to create match-ups that might look good on paper but have no real basis otherwise.
Not to split hairs but "a premise" yes, as in one of the criteria. "The premise" as in the overarching criteria above all others: no. I don't think that anyone would argue that if all other things were equal, conf champ should get the nod. In the OSU-PSU case, all other things weren't equal. PSU got blown out by 39 and lost to a decent, but not great Pitt team. That has to matter in this, when anOSU's only loss was a close game on the road vs a top 10 team.
I disagree that it has to matter. PSU won the championship and beat OSU head-to-head... that matters more and isn't subjective.
Yes they are a measuring stick, but the divisions make them a pretty shitty determinant sometimes, like this year. The only teams with one loss in conference, were in the same division, why would Wisconsins or Nebraska deserve to play for the championship game? They BOTH had two conference losses (or more) and they BOTH lost to Ohio State head to head. I HATE that divisions (loosely based on geography) put the strongest teams all in the same division and then gave a shittier team (Wisky, Nebraska) a chance to win the conference while Michigan and Ohio State, who both beat Wisconsin and were quite obviously better teams sat on the sidelines. This kind of nonsense is why the conference champion requisite is silly. You probably hated 2011, I LOVED it, because throughout 2011 LSU and Alabama made it clear they were the best two teams, and the NC was a rematch between those two teams and the better team won. Neither Alabama nor LSU could have lost to Iowa State that year, you'd be crazy to think that. There was just a difference in quality between those two teams (who sent like 50 guys to the NFL) and anyone else.
A place we agree, the B1G is overrated, I have long been a proponent of this, but Michigan and Penn State's resurgence were good for the sport so the media understandably hyped up the conference. I just never bought it based on what I know to be true about those teams and their strengths and weaknesses.
A place we will likely differ, I don't think valuing Ohio State's win at Oklahoma is inflated, inaccurate, or just name recognition. I think 11-2 Oklahoma was a very strong offensive team with an average defense and a ton of talent, and they proved to be a quality team throughout the year. I think Pitt was a majorly flawed team with a GREAT offensive coordinator and a good running back that made them a giant killer, but there is a reason they lost 5 games. They aren't a great team, they beat Penn State straight up and there is no reason not to factor that in.
You aren't wrong, but the following exercise is illuminating:
Change the names on the two teams' resumes and consider whether the selection committee would have chosen OSU again. I think they would. Can you imagine if OSU was the conference champ and beat PSU head to head and OSU wasn't included?
That.... Is a terrific point, HOAT
But Penn State would have had 3 top 10 wins in this situation one being OOC on the road at Oklahoma. Ohio State would have lost to Pitt and Michigan by 39. I think it would have gone to Penn State in this scenario just as it went to Ohio State. Let's not pretend like Penn State is some small school getting beat out by traditional power Ohio State. Penn State IS a traditional power too.
this is the subjective bull-shit that we're arguing against. If you make it clear to teams that they have to win their conference to even have a shot the best teams will end up in the playoff. In the rare case that a conference is won by a not-so-great team there will be other conference champions to pick from. We have 5 power conferences and there is always an outside shot for an undefeated G5 team to make some noise if two of the P5 conferences have down years.
The problem with looking at resumes and "top 10 wins" is that it's all subjective and mostly inaccurate. The rankings are based on subjective pre-season polls by media members and name recognition. In rare cases (Bama) they are right but more often than not the rankings are completely off-base. The only way to really truly value a team's worth is how they do against teams in their league. If they're really that good they'll win their league. If they win their league they earn the right to play against the best teams from other leagues and prove who really is best. Forcing teams to win their conference in order to play in the playoff will get the best teams into the final 4 every year and you won't end up with 31-0 blowouts because of inflated SOS and deeply flawed opinions on conference strength.
How easily everyone seems to forget that the BIG10 was widely regarded as the best conference in America only to fall flat on their face when they had to play against actually decent teams.
This man gets it.
For the record that 31-0 blowout was a product of a horribly unfavorable matchup for Ohio State and Tim Beck's complete and utter unwillingness to attack the Clemson defense properly.
I would say that early in the year they are subjective and inaccurate, but they are usually pretty reliable after every team has played 12 games. Not sure how you could support this claim statistically.
College Football has always had a subjective element, and with so many different teams it makes sense. Like I said, if you would like to watch something where the regular season is less meaningful, losses mean less, and teams with questionable records make the playoff, go watch the NFL. Because that isn't college football.
The CCG requirement doesn't make the regular season less meaningful at all, it just puts greater emphasis on conference play. If anything, you could argue that it de-emphasizes OOC games. But keeping 5 CCGs and dropping the weakest champion can remedy this by using strength of non-conference schedule and performance as a tie-breaker.
de-emphasizing OOC is bad. Those are usually some of the most exciting games of the season. Tough shit if you can't handle them. Penn State lost to unranked 8-5 Pitt on the road, tough shit, play better or you'd have only one loss and nobody would be having this argument. Ohio State went on the road and knocked off 11-2 B12 and Sugar Bowl champion Oklahoma. One of these teams made the most of the regular season, the other didn't even against an inferior opponent.
I feel like you just read the first two sentences of my post and stopped.
I don't buy the argument that requiring a conference championship win in order to make the playoff devalues any part of the regular season. Teams have to play well all year in order to get to their playoff game. And OOC games are still important because that is the only way to measure which conferences are doing better against other conferences.
Think of it like this, Penn State's loss to 8-5 Pitt could be looked at as a bad loss to a bad team. Or, it could be looked at as a middling ACC team beating a Top 3 Big 10 team. It gives the viewing public a little insight and it could be a sign that maybe the ACC is better and deeper than the Big 10. But everyone ignored the fact that the ACC might actually be better than the Big 10 and then all of a sudden, after bowl season. lo and behold, the ACC actually is (probably way) better than the Big 10.
The regular season is always going to matter in college football because there are so many teams. In the NFL it doesn't but this isn't the NFL...it's not even close. College teams have to win every single time they are on the field or they could miss a shot at the championship (see: State, Ohio) so I absolutely disagree that the championship requirement does anything to devalue the regular season. If anything, it makes it more important. Otherwise, teams like OSU (blue bloods with name recognition) could schedule a bunch of soft OOC games and cruise through a week-but-over-inflated Big 10 but lose one game to another Big 10 team which played a tougher schedule but doesn't have the same name recognition and get chosen for the playoff. By removing the requirement to win your conference to make the playoff you actually dis-incentivize teams like OSU from playing tough teams. If they can just beat up everyone on their weak schedule they'll get benefit of the doubt and earn a spot on name recognition and an inflated 11-1 record.
You have to have conference championships in order for the regular season to be meaningful.
Perhaps I've missed something, but I haven't seen anyone say a conference champ requirement devalues the regular season. The counter point to the conference champ requirement is that it means a single game may unduly reward teams. If the requirement is in place, what happens if 2+ conf champs have 3 or more losses on the season? A 1 loss team from their conference, that the champ may or may not have played cannot even be considered, while teams with 2 or more additional losses make it into the CFP. How does that serve the intention of the CFP/NC goal?
Chris said
what? How?
Conversely, a single game may unduly award teams if you don't make a championship win a requirement. OSU only got in because they beat Michigan. That is a single game, is it not? Unduly awarding OSU, amirite?
They also won 11 of their 12 games. including other big wins, like Oklahoma, so it's not just one win. But okay.
I do think the regular season is being made less meaningful if a 9-3, 8-4, 7-5 team gets into the playoff.
That would certainly be equivalent to throwing out the regular season.
nobody is talking about 9-3, 8-4, or 7-5 teams making the playoff...you're completely making that up. The regular season is not going to lose meaning by making championships a requirement for the playoff....if anything it makes the regular season more important.
We are talking about that, because in an AQ scenario we could end up with that situation.
How the hell could 9-3 champion getting into the playoff because of an auto-bid over an 11-1 team who lost to an undefeated team who shared the same division make the regular season more important? Sure it made it more important to the 11-1 team who happened to be in a division with an undefeated team, but it made it LESS important since a team lost THREE games and will get an AQ bid for winning their conference over an 11-1 team who was better during the regular season. This situation is not out of the realm of possibility.
How is that making things up? If a conf championship is a requirement that trumps everything else, it certainly could happen. It also means that if two teams from the same conference are among the 4 best, then both would never make it into the CFP. There are consequences of the requirement that you pose and they aren't trivial.
neither of you guys seem to understand how brackets work....
if two of the best teams are from the same conference ONE of them is going to advance to the playoff. If both of those teams go to the playoff ONE of them is going to beat the other en route to the championship. What's the difference in beating that team in the regular season (or conference championship game) and beating them in the single elimination playoff? None. And with the subjectivity that is rampant in CFB (right, wrong or indifferent) the "two best teams" might not actually be the best teams due to conference perceptions. If those two best teams play each other and one of them wins they move on and the other one is at home for the rest of the playoff. I don't understand how you guys can't see that. The conferences are just extensions of the playoff. If 3 of the best teams are in one league the best of those 3 will advance and if those 3 teams really are the best in the country the one which advances will end up winning it all anyway and the result is the same. Without the subjectivity of it.
You seem very, very hung up on conference perceptions, but here's the reality: Until this season, the SEC has been the OBJECTIVELY best conference in America for 15 years. Since 2000, they hold a winning record over EVERY OTHER CONFERENCE and have won 9 of the 15 national championships in that timespan. That is why they built up the perception, because they kept reinforcing it. While I agree with you that this year the B1G perception was overblown, I don't think this has been as consistent of an issue as you believe.
I'm not arguing that the SEC isn't (or hasn't been) the best conference
I'm arguing that the best team from each conference should get a shot. If Alabama and LSU are the two best teams in the country but Alabama beats LSU in the regular season that's too bad for LSU and they shouldn't get another shot at a championship.
If there is anything we've learned from CFB it's that most teams aren't going to win 10/10 games against any given opponent.
So the best measure we have is conferences. Teams which survive the slog through their conference schedule and win their conference championship deserve some award for that.
Further incentivize those teams to perform well against a tough OOC by making SOS and OOC performance criteria for making it to the playoff. There are still more conference champions than spots at the table so every year someone is going to be left out. That should be determined by perceptions and supported by OOC performance by league. Leagues who play "soft" OOC schedules get docked and leagues who play "tough" OOC schedules will be granted some passes for a loss or two.
In the end you're going to pit the best against the best...and the best of the best will win more times than not.
For starters, the regular season isn't a "bracket", for the CFP, so the way "brackets work" has nothing to do with this.
By your logic, if the two best teams in the country meet in week 3, the loser of that match up is eliminated from the CFP, but an 8-5 champ from another conference champ can make it into the CFP? That makes no sense at all, unless the CFP is a literal extension of conference championships (which it isn't).
The goal of the CFP is to identify the 4 best teams in the country for a play off, to determine the season champ. Conference championship is one of many criteria by which "4 best" is determined.
4 best is something that is an impossibility to ensure.
Especially, if you artificially restrict selection by requiring a conference championship.
"4 Best" is an aspirational goal. No one said it could be done perfectly, each year.
Beating Mich isn't the only reason they got in, though beating them while PSU got boat raced by Mich certainly contributed.
Blowing out OU in their place was a huge plus (vs PSU losing at Pitt). Blowing out Nebraska was also a big plus.
So the ledger stands at 3 major pluses for OSU vs 2 major negatives for PSU. Add in, a close W for PSU vs OSU and winning the B1GCG nets PSU at basically break even while OSU has 3 major pluses. It's not about a single game. It's about the full season.
Incidentally, winning a league championship is also about the entire season. Teams need to win games against the teams in their league. It's not about single games. The idea that PSU only made it into the championship game because of one game is just plain wrong. PSU isn't some 7-5 team which lucked it's way into a championship. They improved over the year and won games they needed to en route to a 10 win regular season and earned a spot in the conference championship game by beating a favored OSU team.
You guys are creating this narrative that requiring championship wins to make the playoff is somehow going to result in a bunch of 3 loss scrubs making it to the playoff and devaluing the regular season yet you have no substantive evidence to support those claims. OSU was a good team. PSU was a good team. The only real difference between them is that PSU won the championship. They deserved a spot at the table and they were shafted.
FWIW, if the playoff consisted of 8 teams (I'm not trying to restart the debate on whether or not it should be 8 teams...this is just hypothetical) I bet we'd all agree that both PSU and OSU would be in the conversation for spots at the table. I don't see how that would be a bad thing.
In the 8 team situation I still don't think there needs to be AQ bids. The 5 P5 champions would be in the top 8 UNLESS they were 9-3 or worse *(some exceptions for team chaos would be allowed in this scenario because there are no hard requirements that could allow 3 loss teams a shot)*, which would eliminate what I'm trying to avoid, and allow conference champions to be in this. If it were an 8 team playoff this year, with no AQ, all 5 conference champs would be in. The AQ I'd be okay with would be giving the best G5 team a shot if undefeated, OR if conference champions get AQ bids it be qualified by a loss minimum/win requirement/ranking requirement.
It LITERALLY isn't. A season consists of 12 games. Winning a league championship is about 9 of the 12 games. That's 75%. Not 100%. 75%. That is not the entire season by any way that you want to define it.
those other 4 games are still critically important. Because between the Power 5 and Group of 5 there will be way more championship teams than places at the table. So your big fear of a 7-5 conference champion which won all of their conference games but lost all of their OOC games de-legitimizes that conference as a whole and that conference doesn't get a representative in the playoff. In your (unlikely) scenario that a team loses 25% of their games but wins all of their conference games that team will be left out because, undoubtedly, there will be at least 4 other league champions which won at least 75% of their OOC games.
Not necessarily. Even if it works out that way, does a 9-3 team deserve to be in over a 1 loss team that beat the champ of another conference, in their place?
You enjoy seeing more schedules like Washington because that's what will happen.
No it won't. That's why Baylor got left out. Bad OOC will just make you the lowest ranked X-loss team. You can do it, you just have a small margin of error.
If only conference champs can get it every team will go to that schedule. Teams will worry about their conference games only.
Oh. Right agreed. Although conversely they might go like college basketball and play big opening games because they know it will have no affect on their postseason chances, but will test them. Likely the 3 FCS team route though.
Again... not if there are 5 champs to choose from and OOC schedule and performance is used as the (subjective) tie-breaker.
exactly....you can't ignore OOC games. There are fewer spots at the table than there will be conference champions. Make it clear that the teams who play the hardest OOC schedules AND win their conference championships get more points towards playoff eligibility.
Except when you want to ignore Pitt loss vs Oklahoma win
clearly ACC > Big 12
The problem with making a conference championship a prerequisite to the playoff isn't with comparing two teams with the same number of losses. Its comparing a 1 loss team to a 2 loss team, where the 2 loss team loses to a tough OOC team, while the 1 loss team plays no tough OOC games.
Take a hypothetical, If Oklahoma had finished the season 11-2 with a win in a CCG. Do they get in over Washington? Can't really say for sure. What if they played a nobody instead of Ohio St and finished 12-1?
The question ADs are going to ask themselves is whether playing a tough OOC is going to help or hurt their chances at the playoff. Right now there is incentive to build the best overall resume, making a conference championship a requirement reduces that IMO.
All of you
via GIPHY
You mean like last year, where MSU beat OSU close and won the division. MSU got in because they had one loss. PSU has two. Don't give me any of that OSU bias nonsense. They would have jumped MSU if that was true.
And you're talking like PSU isn't a name brand. ESPN was foaming at the mouth to talk about their resurgence.
Two loss OSU wins the conf champ game and 1 loss PSU with a blow out win at OU? PSU would be in the CFP. Where things may have differed: OSU may get the nod over UW. In reality, PSU vs UW is the issue, not PSU-OSU, since UW was the #4 seed.
Honestly I'm fine with a 4 loss conference champ getting in to the playoffs. I think they'd still determine the best team. Selecting four out of five eligibles would also likely drop a 4-loss conference champ from the final rounds of the playoff. I'd also like to point out that having a 4-loss conference champ is extremely unlikely. And personally, I'd rather have a 4-loss conference champion win the national championship than have playoff participants selected by popularity or a popularity biased system.
I agree. Either they lose early (thus the playoff accomplishes it's goal) or they win the whole thing and whichever conference they are from is clearly head and shoulders better than all the other conferences
This comes on Sundays, you should watch that instead.
By the way, the one on Sundays is dropping ratings while college football remains strong.
The NFL has plenty of it's own problems. I still think conference championships should be a requirement for the playoff. I don't understand why so many people on here don't agree. The ACC (and VT by extension) stands to gain far more from that requirement than not.
Because better teams could be left out. I don't want an 8-4 or even 9-3 team making the playoff. They didn't earn it when they lost 3-4 games. That is one of the most important and unique things about college football, that every game counts. If you want .500 (or worse) teams making the playoff, you can just direct your viewing and fandom to the NFL. I'll be here enjoying watching the most high stakes sport in the world from start to finish.
This reminds me . . . who should have gotten in over Michigan State last year?
Lol he dodges this question so hard. He's such a proponent of "best" that he devalues the only tangible thing we have to objectively say who is better: conference championships.
The big thing that I think you're hung up on is this far fetched idea that .500 teams are going to win conference championships every year. It's so unlikely to happen that your fear of devaluing the playoff is absurdly unfounded. Penn state still won 10 games. They are not a terrible team and I'm certain they would have made for an interesting playoff game.
If your argument that championship wins shouldn't be a requirement for making the playoff because there is a chance that a 4 loss team could win their conference (in two leagues at the same time) then you might as well never wake up in case the sun doesn't rise. It's absolutely ridiculous. Conferences have championship games pitting teams against each other who have proven themselves against each other over the course of the season. It's going to be very rare that a 4 loss team will make it that far, let alone win it.
Part of the beauty, I suppose, of having only 4 spots with 5 power conferences and then G5 leagues to pick from is that the committee can still pick a conference champion for the playoff over other conference champions who may have 3 losses or more. It's unlikely that with 5 power leagues and the group of 5 teams that the committee will have a tough time finding 4 champions with reasonable resumes
We did it in 2008 and FSU did it in 2005 off the top of my head. Neither of those teams were playoff worthy.
...which is why the playoff would have consisted of the SEC, B1G, Big 12, and Pac 12 Champs in a year like that. Easy.
Sure, but like I said, it's rare. Not every league is going to produce 4 loss champions. Having more than 4 leagues to choose from for 4 spots affords the committee to select other conference champions.
No, they earned it when they won the rest of their games and beat the other teams in their division and the CCG opponent.
Umm, this wasn't true when Villanova won the NCAA tourney with a 25-10 record, so why would it be true for football?
Cuz basketball and football are completely different
Not when it comes to this discussion.
If college football teams played 20 plus games every year this wouldn't even be a discussion
You don't end up as conference champion if you only "got hot down the stretch". Conference Championship are the only thing that determined by the whole season from an on the field perspective and to ignore that for playoff berths is short-sighted.
Not ignored, just shouldn't be the determining factor, when the conf champ's record isn't as good as another team from the conference.
I completely disagree. Because if that's the case, then why have conference championship games at all? Just call the team with the best overall record the conference champion.
I actually think it's clearer than ever that conference championships are basically a money grab at this point. Did anyone need to see Bama play one more game to know they were the best in the SEC? Or Washington in the PAC-12? The Big 12 is instituting a championship game even though every team plays each other already!
This argument that a conference championship game is all that meaningful in the first place is pretty weak in my opinion, and it's why I'm glad the selection committee didn't cave to include Penn State.
This is an interesting viewpoint. The entire sport is a money grab. I don't see how championship games are any more of a money grab than bowl games...
I think it actually makes the most sense for B12 to have a championship game. Fixes the TCU/Baylor situation; the LSU/Bama rematch could have been solved in-conference if they were in the same situation.
Everybody plays everyone else, but suppose the H2H was in week 1? Winner manages to go undefeated while looking like garbage in the process; loser ends up with that one early loss (perhaps due to injury) but absolutely dominates the rest of the schedule. Let them play again in neutral or opposite site conditions.
With Oklahoma/Ok State being the de facto Big 12 championship game, the conference is moving it earlier in the season to potentially avoid back-to-back matchups.
Although, I would love for some final week matchup to become the same championship matchup, and so the Big 12 moves that game, and another matchup does the same thing the following year.
Basically, the Big 12 would be playing whack-a-mole in trying to prevent rematches.
Same reason that we moved to a play off: Money.
I was thinking of USC in the "getting hot" scenario - started 1-3 but won their last 8 games.
By the end of the season, I think they were clearly playing some of the best football in the country but their poor start doomed them from any CFP conversation.
When in doubt, blame the kicker:
If I ever get to the point where living vicariously through my alma mater's football team leads me to lash out at college kids like this after a poor performance then just take me out behind the woodshed and put me out of my misery.
Fuck that guy.
Really this nozzle is ragging on the kicker after a blow out loss? At least the Specialist has some sense. After Clemson the football team be like.
](https://postimg.org/image/q76xmyorh/))
We cannot deny that guy's pussy hurts.
I bet he tweets recruits.
This is embarrassing, but I heard similar vitriol directed at our players in the stands during the first half of the Belk Bowl, sadly.
I know it's not the norm, but it still sucks that people get that way.
At least if it's in the stands, there's only an infinitesimal chance of it going public. Unlike the Internet.
So, tell me again which BIG10 team deserved to be in the playoff?
Penn St.
after last night I agree with you, both penn state and usc would have been WAY better playoff contenders than their conference counterparts.
Probably the team that won the championship game, and had a chance to win their game in their bowl.
So are we all generally in agreement that PSU should have been in the playoff instead of OSU? I mean, I know they lost the Rose Bowl but at least they scored...7 times. I think we can put this debate to bed and move on, right?
No, now if you say PSU AND anOSU should have been in maybe. PSU lost 2 games. That fact won't change.
PSU also won the Big 10. That fact that won't change.
PSU also beat OSU head to head. Another fact that, interestingly, won't change.
And? Oklahoma won the Big 12 should they have gotten in? If Tech had won ACC should they?
I think winning your conference should be a requirement for the playoff. The nice part is that there are more conferences than spots at the table. So in the rare case that a 3+ loss team wins their conference there will way more likely than not be 4 other conference champions with 2 or fewer losses which will have plenty worthy resumes for being in the playoff.
"if Tech had won the ACC"
Let me just stop you right there. Tech didn't. The system worked. Clemson won the league by beating VT and rightfully earned their right to play in the playoff....you can't go around beating your chest with unlikely what-ifs as viable arguments against making conference championships a requirement for a seat at the 4 team table. That is just ridiculous. VT did not win the ACC. That shouldn't even be mentioned. It will work. Crap teams don't stumble into conference championship games and win them very often. When they do, there will be 4 other completely deserving conference champions to choose from.
This is a silly argument, because the transitive property doesn't work here.
Sure, Penn State beat Ohio State head to head.
But Ohio State beat Michigan head to head.
Also, Michigan beat Penn State head to head (and crushed them, FYI, which you keep overlooking).
The only team with 1 loss overall? The one who got in the playoff, while the ones with 2 losses didn't. The system worked.
yeah, they system sure worked.
PSU and OSU played bowl games. One of them ended up losing 31-0. The other lost 49-52 on a last second FG. I'll let you decide which team was in the playoff.
I also find it interesting that you think it's a silly argument since it is literally the argument people have for keeping PSU out of the playoff. Because they lost big to Michigan.
For all your harping against subjectivity, you have to realize how silly it is for you to emphasize this point.
it's a point I thought you might understand
clearly I was mistaken
No, I think it's a fair point to make. Despite the difference in quality of the teams, tOSU didn't look great. I think tOSU had a terrible matchup in Clemson, and I saw that game going poorly for them, being very confident Tim Beck would stubbornly not adjust his offense. Penn State played pretty par for the course (fairly creative offense, pretty average defense against the pass) football and benefitted from a very fortunate series of events where they scored on four consecutive plays or something absurd. Eventually, they lost to the team that overall seemed better all game.
That said, my point is you can't bring in a subjective measurement (that helps you) in an argument where your primary point has been arguing against subjectivity.
Penn State scored 7 touchdowns. OSU scored 0 points.
That is pretty darn objective.
Penn State beat OSU. Also objective.
Penn State won the Big 10....Objective.
OSU is better because they only lost 1 game (to PSU)...subjective
PSU sucks because they lost to a middling ACC team...Subjective (based on the idea that the BIG10 was the best conference in America which has been pretty clearly disproved)
OSU is clearly the best team in the BIG 10 because of their record...This is mostly objective...but you have to look at CONFERENCE record because OOC games differ for teams and they don't give clear apples-to-apples comparisons. Throwing out OOC games you see that OSU and PSU both had 1 loss in conference. Michigan lost twice, so they're out. PSU beat OSU head to head so logic would suggest they should be in. Objectively.
But subjectively, Penn State lost OOC to the ACC. That could mean 1)Subjectively they are a worse team because they lost one more game than OSU or 2)Objectively, the Big 10 isn't as good as the ACC.
You would have absolutely eviscerated any argument that the ACC was better than the Big 10 before bowl season. But now, when you look at it, you probably agree that the Big 10 just isn't very good and the ACC probably actually is better.
Objectively the OOC results fairly accurately predicted that the ACC was better than the Big 10.
Objectively, the conference results fairly accurately awarded Penn State as the conference champion.
College football was still exciting and the regular season very much mattered. OOC should be an indicator of how a conference is as a whole. If the eventual champion of a league loses to a middling team from another league that just might be an indicator that one of those leagues is better than the other. But it took bowl season for most people to figure that out because we're so rooted in subjective garbage.
No, I never thought the B1G was the best conference, not sure why you feel the need to tell me what I think. I think the Pitt loss was bad because I watched Pitt play a bunch of times and know they are a flawed team, regardless of what conference they play in.
Exactly, college football was exciting and it had nothing to do with AQ'ing conference champions. I think people focus too much on conference prestige and not on the individual talent/quality of individual teams. I think bowl records are an okay measurement of conferences. But bowls, outside of the top ones, don't usually make even matchups out of similar conference foes. We played in the ACCCG game and played an SEC team that finished 4th in their division and was 7-5 and won. Louisville was 9-3(7-1) in conference and played LSU who was 7-4(5-3) (they cancelled an FCS game) and lost.
I also find it funny that everyone is obsessed with the ACC's bowl record this year, but everyone still thought the SEC was being propped up after they set the record with a 9-2 bowl record, last year.
I think he's saying that conference results should be more important than an "eye test" performed by some voters, which is how the matchups have been determined in the past, and which tend to reward conventional favorites.
I agree with him. Conference champions should be in the playoffs, perhaps in an eight-team structure with three at-large teams. Eliminates a lot of complaints with the current format.
The question before the committee (and I thought and still think they failed) was not whether OSU was probably better than PSU based on some broad body of work, it was whether they were "unequivocally one of the 4 best teams in the country".
My argument is that only one team in college football this year met that overriding criterion, and that was Alabama. By any measure, objective or subjective, Alabama was clearly in the top 4. Every other team, champ or otherwise, had a significant flaw in their resume'.
OSU lost to their conference champ. To suggest they were unequivocally better than that team is in my opinion, ludicrous. The only way they get in is to be unequivocally better than at least 2 other conference champs. A two loss OU team that they beat? Perhaps. Anyone else? No way.
In my view, the Committee ignored their charge this year and acted just like the group-think beauty contestant judges they were intended to replace.
The answer has been "no, we're not in agreement" since the discussion started.
Ahh I see we still have the same people arguing the same subject with the same stats for the 3rd damn week in a row....
Its times like this when I wish the Collapse button would not just collapse the comments, but also absorb all follow-up comments under the one being minimized. Hopefully we get to 1k TKPC members so Joe can work on implementing it.
don't pretend like you've never gone on absurdly long debates yourself. You don't have a whole lot of room to take the high-and-mighty approach
as someone who's only absurdly long debates have been of utmost importance (Chipotle vs. Moe's), I'm gonna get high and mighty and say to you and Chris and the rest of you all: let it go, you're clogging up the site.
Are you team Moe's or Chipotle, because I will stop if you are the same as me. ;)
edit: in all seriousness, I realize this debate has happened several times over the last few weeks and isn't going anywhere. It's just very obvious that VPI and I do not like to back down, and my morning at work being very slow isn't helping.
slow morning for me too
I don't think we'll ever agree and I'm not going to change the committee so it is what it is. What I think it should be isn't and what you think it should be is. So you will come out on top either way, I guess.
That being said, I don't have to like it.
True, and if it isn't clear, I enjoy discussion with all (maybe not all, gotta account for the shockwaves and hot take political opinion guys) TKP'ers and agree with you on a great deal of other things.
I enjoy a nice healthy debate as well! And I generally agree with you on most things too. And I'm no stranger to dishing out a few legs...so here you go! :)
here's a hint
We're on the same page.
Exempting these last three; I haven't opened this thread to a comment that wasn't already collapsed since yesterday.
Does someone need to break out the butthurt spray?
He has heat stroke and the trainer is lowering his core temperature.
](https://postimg.org/image/vjx5n7rh9/))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVbP2S17Pfk
Ewwww liquid nitrogen sepository.
If ever there was proof positive that there is no need for a 4 team playoff - let alone an 8 team playoff - this year is it.
I can't disagree with this at all.
But I want to make it clear that the reason that the playoff didn't work isn't because "playoffs won't work"
the playoff didn't work because of the way it was structured. It was destined to fail by the way it was designed. The whole argument for getting the playoff in the first place was to eliminate the subjective human element in the selection process. There should never have been a playoff committee.
There can never be a true objective playoff structure so long as there is a living breathing committee
I prefer the BCS system to this garbage of a playoff system we have now but I still think a true playoff would be superior to both systems.
Playoffs aren't a bad thing. This particularly structured playoff is, though.
haha..fair point. Have a leg. I will speak of it no more
If this wasn't explicitly stated elsewhere, I think we'd be better off with the BCS in a 4 team playoff situation. Most years of college football that I can remember, the top 2 were pretty obvious and most people thought it was pretty fair. In the few years where there are multiple teams who maybe deserved a shot, it was usually just the #3 team, maybe the #3 and #4 team at the absolute most, so the 4 team playoff with the BCS would have solved pretty much all the issues.
OSU won it all as the 4th seed in 2014.