At first glance this doesn't make any sense at all. Is she some kind of college football super fan or something? I wouldn't expect a politician to know much about what makes a good college football team.
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yeah, condi is obviously an extremely intelligent and accomplished woman, and a big football fan, but i'm not sure she has any more understanding of college football than most of us do. that being said i'm not sure ex-conference commisioners or athletic directors do either. there will always be biases and agendas when humans are involved, even if those involved aren't conscience of it.
i hope the computer formulas are still taken into consideration along with the human polls when the committee is making these decisions.
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Agreed on Rice's qualifications. I don't necessarily think, though, that all the committee members need to be very knowledgeable about football. Having a few in there to balance out the lack of laymen might not be a bad idea.
I'd also like to see someone like Nate Silver to get in there to just make some picks based on straight numbers, or at least to bring a hard analysis into the discussion, and I don't think the football guys are really capable of doing that.
I'd also nominate Phil Steele. Guy knows his college football.
I'm also hoping they take into account off-the-field stuff, to an extent. For example, if two teams are seriously tied in their debate, consider GPA/graduation rate or ratio of volunteer hours to number of misdemeanors. Possibly even compare teams based on the number of Fullers.
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I don't wanna be that guy, but I'm gonna go ahead and state the obvious. Let me preface this by saying that I like Condi. But it's pretty obvious that she was only picked so they can say that they covered the black and female minorities. Just look at the basketball committee, there is a single black guy and a single woman on it, Condi covered both in one pick.
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I completely agree. I love how, on gameday this morning, David Pollock stated that women should not be on the committee and of course all the female ESPN sideline reporters get all self righteous and start shit talking him on twitter. You should either be a student of the game or have played before to qualify for being on the committee. Sorry, but there are probably no women that qualify given those stipulations.
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yeeeahh, no small brained self righteous woman could ever wrap her head around the nuances and intricacies of football! men went to the moon and built the eiffel tower out of steel and bronze! stick to the girl scout cookies ladies and leave the important stuff to the great minds of our time like david pollack and paul finebaum.
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Rice got her Masters at Notre Dame - that should tell you something right there. I personally don't like the idea of anyone with connections to ND being on the committee - they already have too much sway in college football as it is.
Additionally, her connections to Texas and the Big Oil folks are too numerous to count.
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I know everyone despised the BCS, but I don't understand why the BCS computers couldn't continue to make the selections for the new playoff system.
Think the BCS rankings are bad? Wait till a room full of suits with conflicts of interest and little knowledge of football start making the selections.
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That's proof of the old "Careful what you ask for..."
I'm not sure the old system was all the way there to getting it right, and still not sure the new system will get it right either. That's the problem with such a small sampling (4 out of 120 teams) to make the playoffs. I am hoping that teams like Bama will be hurt for their cupcake schedules. Always bothered me that the $EC takes a weekend late in the year to schedule softies.
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It depends how much transparency there is. If they answer questions about why so-and-so didn't get in, while so-and-so did, I think I'd be ok with it. Especially if they were consistent. I think it'd be nice to break away from polls (as they're too heavily influenced by preseason polls and assumptions), and the computers (as they provide no transparency at all there, and sometimes give bizarro solutions). I'd hate to trust the outcome of my sport to any black-box style "inputs go in here, solution comes out here, just trust us" style protocol, which is essentially what the computers are.
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Have we really been disappointed with the final 4 teams that BCS has come up with at the end of the regular season?
I understand the argument from both sides. I just worry about the integrity and openness of the selection committee. As a Hokie fan, you better hope that there is someone at the table looking out for us.
Ie: With Condoleezza Rice on the committee, you know if Stanford is on the bubble - they are probably getting in.
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Well in the basketball commitee, when a school from your conference comes up, they leave the table to keep issues like that from coming up. I'm sure they will try to emulate that as much as possible.
2010:
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If the play off would have been 8 teams I doubt there would have been much controversy, besides arguing for the sake of arguing. Very, very rarely are we talking about #8 and #9 much at the end of the season. After championship games 4 or 5 teams have really separated themselves from the pack being undefeated, with 1 loss, or proved how good they are.
Years like '07, '09, and '10 are perfect examples. Not much separation in the top 5, but nothing too interesting happening towards the bottom of the Top 10.
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Actually that whole first sentence really doesn't make sense now that I think of it. I was referring to something that is going to occur in the future as having already happened.
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I thought the same thing. I never thought the BCS was perfect, and I hated the idea of only have one game for the championship instead of a playoff. But a committee is really only necessary when you have a big field, I don't think the computers ever screwed up in picking the top 4 teams. Maybe the top 2, but in some order the top 4 was usually right.
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I cant wait for the s*** storm that follows a selection by the committee that would have been around 9 or 10 in the final BCS standings (if it still existed) as the the #4 team.
It will most likely be a historically powerful school with two losses - ie: Ohio St, or a 3rd place SEC team.
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I highly doubt that. The computer rankings are nearly worthless in the final BCS rankings unless the #2 and #3 are opposing in the polls. The committee probably wont even look at teams not in the top 5 or at most top 6 in the Coach's or AP polls.
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I wholeheartedly agree. I disliked the BCS, because having only two teams play for a championship is absurd, but I think it rarely did a bad job actually picking the two teams. Besides, having some standard ranking formula, even if it includes polls sets the rules for how to get in before the season. Now the rules, such as they are, will be subject to the whims of committee members
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I've heard Bobby Bowden floated among the names being suggested for the committee. They've talked about a rep for each conference plus a few other non-affiliated folks.
Having said that, Tranghese probably has the background needed to be an intelligent member of the committee. Beamer, when he retires. Bill Snyder. Lloyd Carr. Former coaches are good if they have integrity. Not Tressel.
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Perhaps to somewhat balance the bias (against) we could see from ol' Mikey BigEast, I saw on twitter that current Arkansas AD (and previous VT Assistant AD) Jeff Long is on the committee. Could help us, I guess.
Of course, hopefully anyone on the committee would leave any potential bias at the door, but we are all human. If it came down to a toss-up between VT and (insert some perennial CFB contender) for the 4th spot, I myself would have a hard time not showing my bias, even if put in that prestigious position.
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16 teams, the 10 conference champs and 6 at larges who can be selected by the committee with computer formulas taken into consideration. no restrictions on how many teams a conference can send. first two rounds at higher seed's home field. national semis and national title game at neutral sites. play it during december so the semis are played around or on new year's day, with the big game a week later. it would be glorious.
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More importantly, it would be insanely profitable, but try telling that to the NCAA, those brilliant guys who outsource the most profitable sports events in America. Massive mountains of money made in totally sold out home games in our massive campus stadiums filled with hyper-enthusiastic fans? No thanks, let's give it all to the fat cats at the bowl committees so that they can make us pay even more in guaranteed ticket sales at half-filled bowl games in ludicrous locations where almost all of our students and fans cannot attend. Sheer Brilliance!!!
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So, if I understand correctly, there will be no computer or poll rankings next year to select the teams. I assume the poll rankings will still exist, but does anyone know if the committee will use a computer program to help them?
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This is all to pick 4 teams, FOUR!
Three of them will be obvious and they will at worst have to split hairs between 4 and 5-
What's that job pay I do it for half that! GO HOKIES!
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Eh. Not as harsh as I thought it would be. I don't disagree with the points Pollack DID make, but out of context I think that topic spun a little out of control. Fowler didn't really help, kinda put words in Pollack's mouth. If the topic at hand was Rice, I hear Pollack's point. Weird stuff for GameDay.
EDIT: SI is following up on this, and it looks like WorldOfIsaac and I agree. I agree with pretty much all of them, but Fowler isn't clean in this, either.
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Comments
Cliff Clavin has a twitter? About college football?
ESPN will hire anyone!
Nope, but the Big East has no one to blame but themselves for falling apart.
Condoleeza Rice is in as well, apparently:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2013/10/04/condoleeza-rice-co...
At first glance this doesn't make any sense at all. Is she some kind of college football super fan or something? I wouldn't expect a politician to know much about what makes a good college football team.
yeah, condi is obviously an extremely intelligent and accomplished woman, and a big football fan, but i'm not sure she has any more understanding of college football than most of us do. that being said i'm not sure ex-conference commisioners or athletic directors do either. there will always be biases and agendas when humans are involved, even if those involved aren't conscience of it.
i hope the computer formulas are still taken into consideration along with the human polls when the committee is making these decisions.
Agreed on Rice's qualifications. I don't necessarily think, though, that all the committee members need to be very knowledgeable about football. Having a few in there to balance out the lack of laymen might not be a bad idea.
I'd also like to see someone like Nate Silver to get in there to just make some picks based on straight numbers, or at least to bring a hard analysis into the discussion, and I don't think the football guys are really capable of doing that.
I'd also nominate Phil Steele. Guy knows his college football.
I'm also hoping they take into account off-the-field stuff, to an extent. For example, if two teams are seriously tied in their debate, consider GPA/graduation rate or ratio of volunteer hours to number of misdemeanors. Possibly even compare teams based on the number of Fullers.
yup, phil steele. you could just let phil steele pick the field himself and i would be fine with it.
I don't wanna be that guy, but I'm gonna go ahead and state the obvious. Let me preface this by saying that I like Condi. But it's pretty obvious that she was only picked so they can say that they covered the black and female minorities. Just look at the basketball committee, there is a single black guy and a single woman on it, Condi covered both in one pick.
I completely agree. I love how, on gameday this morning, David Pollock stated that women should not be on the committee and of course all the female ESPN sideline reporters get all self righteous and start shit talking him on twitter. You should either be a student of the game or have played before to qualify for being on the committee. Sorry, but there are probably no women that qualify given those stipulations.
yeeeahh, no small brained self righteous woman could ever wrap her head around the nuances and intricacies of football! men went to the moon and built the eiffel tower out of steel and bronze! stick to the girl scout cookies ladies and leave the important stuff to the great minds of our time like david pollack and paul finebaum.
Condi actually served as a Provost at Stanford before she entered politics. She is very familiar with higher education.
Rice got her Masters at Notre Dame - that should tell you something right there. I personally don't like the idea of anyone with connections to ND being on the committee - they already have too much sway in college football as it is.
Additionally, her connections to Texas and the Big Oil folks are too numerous to count.
I know that she has repeatedly stated that NFL Commissioner is her dream job, so seeing her on the selection committee doesn't surprise me very much.
Here's an article from when she was Secretary of State that mentions her interest:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/condi_rice_not_interested_in_nfl_commis...
Holy crap.
And I really mean that in the nicest way possible.
I know everyone despised the BCS, but I don't understand why the BCS computers couldn't continue to make the selections for the new playoff system.
Think the BCS rankings are bad? Wait till a room full of suits with conflicts of interest and little knowledge of football start making the selections.
That's proof of the old "Careful what you ask for..."
I'm not sure the old system was all the way there to getting it right, and still not sure the new system will get it right either. That's the problem with such a small sampling (4 out of 120 teams) to make the playoffs. I am hoping that teams like Bama will be hurt for their cupcake schedules. Always bothered me that the $EC takes a weekend late in the year to schedule softies.
It depends how much transparency there is. If they answer questions about why so-and-so didn't get in, while so-and-so did, I think I'd be ok with it. Especially if they were consistent. I think it'd be nice to break away from polls (as they're too heavily influenced by preseason polls and assumptions), and the computers (as they provide no transparency at all there, and sometimes give bizarro solutions). I'd hate to trust the outcome of my sport to any black-box style "inputs go in here, solution comes out here, just trust us" style protocol, which is essentially what the computers are.
Have we really been disappointed with the final 4 teams that BCS has come up with at the end of the regular season?
I understand the argument from both sides. I just worry about the integrity and openness of the selection committee. As a Hokie fan, you better hope that there is someone at the table looking out for us.
Ie: With Condoleezza Rice on the committee, you know if Stanford is on the bubble - they are probably getting in.
Well in the basketball commitee, when a school from your conference comes up, they leave the table to keep issues like that from coming up. I'm sure they will try to emulate that as much as possible.
2010:
If the play off would have been 8 teams I doubt there would have been much controversy, besides arguing for the sake of arguing. Very, very rarely are we talking about #8 and #9 much at the end of the season. After championship games 4 or 5 teams have really separated themselves from the pack being undefeated, with 1 loss, or proved how good they are.
Years like '07, '09, and '10 are perfect examples. Not much separation in the top 5, but nothing too interesting happening towards the bottom of the Top 10.
This.
Count me as not terribly impressed with the concept that a small panel of people are going to pick the 4 best teams to play for it all.
Never been too impressed by the arguments against an 8 team playoff.
Even a 4+1 would have been a far better scenario IMO.
I like 8 too. with a 6 team you could let 1st and 2nd place get a bye, and reward their good seasons.
I might get some downvotes for being grammar police here..but here is one thing that kind of bothers me and I see it a lot on here
when people say something like "if blank blank blank would/could of blank blank blank"
that is completely wrong..and it makes NO sense.
I know that it sounds like "would of" or "could of" when you're talking but to be correct it is actually "would have" or "could have"
"I should of seen that coming" doesn't make any sense when you break it down.
"I could have seen that coming" is correct.
and I'll dismount from the soap box now.
Actually that whole first sentence really doesn't make sense now that I think of it. I was referring to something that is going to occur in the future as having already happened.
I thought the same thing. I never thought the BCS was perfect, and I hated the idea of only have one game for the championship instead of a playoff. But a committee is really only necessary when you have a big field, I don't think the computers ever screwed up in picking the top 4 teams. Maybe the top 2, but in some order the top 4 was usually right.
I completely agree.
I cant wait for the s*** storm that follows a selection by the committee that would have been around 9 or 10 in the final BCS standings (if it still existed) as the the #4 team.
It will most likely be a historically powerful school with two losses - ie: Ohio St, or a 3rd place SEC team.
I highly doubt that. The computer rankings are nearly worthless in the final BCS rankings unless the #2 and #3 are opposing in the polls. The committee probably wont even look at teams not in the top 5 or at most top 6 in the Coach's or AP polls.
I wholeheartedly agree. I disliked the BCS, because having only two teams play for a championship is absurd, but I think it rarely did a bad job actually picking the two teams. Besides, having some standard ranking formula, even if it includes polls sets the rules for how to get in before the season. Now the rules, such as they are, will be subject to the whims of committee members
Gary Busey is on the commitee! WTH. That is just ridiculous.
Having met Gary Busey, I can say with authority that you do not want him on your selection comittee. The guy really is as crazy as he seems
Times like these make me wish I could dispense a flock of turkey legs.
As a Busey fan, I take slight offense at your notion that he could not have an intellectual conversation with former Sec. of State Condi Rice
Being involved in a motorcycle accident while not wearing a helmet tells you something about his decision-making process.
I've heard Bobby Bowden floated among the names being suggested for the committee. They've talked about a rep for each conference plus a few other non-affiliated folks.
Having said that, Tranghese probably has the background needed to be an intelligent member of the committee. Beamer, when he retires. Bill Snyder. Lloyd Carr. Former coaches are good if they have integrity. Not Tressel.
Perhaps to somewhat balance the bias (against) we could see from ol' Mikey BigEast, I saw on twitter that current Arkansas AD (and previous VT Assistant AD) Jeff Long is on the committee. Could help us, I guess.
Of course, hopefully anyone on the committee would leave any potential bias at the door, but we are all human. If it came down to a toss-up between VT and (insert some perennial CFB contender) for the 4th spot, I myself would have a hard time not showing my bias, even if put in that prestigious position.
I still think it would be sweet if 1 and 2 got home field. I know there are reasons beyond just "capacity issues" why this won't happen.
bch's playoff proposal:
16 teams, the 10 conference champs and 6 at larges who can be selected by the committee with computer formulas taken into consideration. no restrictions on how many teams a conference can send. first two rounds at higher seed's home field. national semis and national title game at neutral sites. play it during december so the semis are played around or on new year's day, with the big game a week later. it would be glorious.
Boo. So winning your conference is all that matters? Why even play OOC?
That's what the 6 at-large are for to be selected by committee.
More importantly, it would be insanely profitable, but try telling that to the NCAA, those brilliant guys who outsource the most profitable sports events in America. Massive mountains of money made in totally sold out home games in our massive campus stadiums filled with hyper-enthusiastic fans? No thanks, let's give it all to the fat cats at the bowl committees so that they can make us pay even more in guaranteed ticket sales at half-filled bowl games in ludicrous locations where almost all of our students and fans cannot attend. Sheer Brilliance!!!
So, if I understand correctly, there will be no computer or poll rankings next year to select the teams. I assume the poll rankings will still exist, but does anyone know if the committee will use a computer program to help them?
Archie Manning's name is popping up as possibly being on the committee as well.
So who picks the committee?
ROOFUS?!!?!
This is all to pick 4 teams, FOUR!
Three of them will be obvious and they will at worst have to split hairs between 4 and 5-
What's that job pay I do it for half that!
GO HOKIES!
Is there a term limit for committee members?
I have this hunch that Bobby Bowden will be selected and live to 104!
GO HOKIES!
David Pollack implied on College Gameday this morning that women shouldn't be on the selection committee.
Someone else mentioned this. I didn't hear it but....really, Pollack? Really?
Eh. Not as harsh as I thought it would be. I don't disagree with the points Pollack DID make, but out of context I think that topic spun a little out of control. Fowler didn't really help, kinda put words in Pollack's mouth. If the topic at hand was Rice, I hear Pollack's point. Weird stuff for GameDay.
EDIT: SI is following up on this, and it looks like WorldOfIsaac and I agree. I agree with pretty much all of them, but Fowler isn't clean in this, either.