Recent Comments
Yes, the current conference structures are a mess and we need better tiebreakers, but we've seen teams with lesser records either win conferences or get into championship games before.
Even when the conferences were small enough to do round robins, you could have a team go 8-0 in conference, but 0-4 out of conference, and they would be declared the champion over a team that went 7-1 and 4-0.
When the ACC was looking at the teams for the championship game, they didn't see a 10-2 uva, 7-5 Duke, 10-2 Miami, or 8-4 SMU. They saw uva at 7-1, with the rest of the teams at 6-2.
I'll regurgitate Steven Godfrey's take on the Yahoo show: ND being left out is the fault of the ACC and B10 pursuing super conferences:
- If the ACC still had divisions (aka didn't add SMU/Stanford/Cal), Miami would be in the championship game, and likely wins. If not, it's easy to knock them out.
- If the B10 doesn't pick apart the P12, Oregon is the P12 champ, taking an autobid away from one of the G5s, which opens a spot for ND.
I am feeling a 3-hour stomach ache coming on....
Alabama has at least two better wins (@Georgia and Vandy) than ND's best win which is... Pitt or USC, maybe?
I know at the end of the regular season they had 5 top 30 wins by the Massey, with a 5-1 record vs the top 30 overall, and Notre Dame had one top 30 win by Massey, 1-2 vs the top 30.
I was hoping as like Director of high school relations or something like that. But it is what it is
But Alabama beat a top 4 team on the road. ND's best win is... Pitt? I agree ND is a better team today, but Alabama has the more impressive total resume IMO.
All three teams finished the regular season 10-2...
Alabama had to play an extra game against a top 3 team that they had already beaten on the road.
A pretty notable part of this equation is that Notre Dame and Miami were sitting in the living rooms while Alabama had to play Georgia again. A game they earned in their conference unlike Miami and Notre Dame, both of whom also played considerably weaker schedules than Alabama, who did make it to their CG.
This one I can't prove or disprove based on existing data points. It wouldn't be fair to look at the 4-team format, and we haven't had enough sets of circumstances in the 12-team format.
Last year, we either had games where both participants were in the top four already (SEC and B1G), or games where at least one of the participants was only getting in by virtue of autobid (ACC and Big 12).
I'll be honest, I'm not really digging this move. I see many ways it could go south. And I kind of just wanted a break from Brent Pry. I like the guy a lot, but he's not a head coach.
But I can't really get too mad because if he had been at Penn State this year, or had moved on from Penn State and was rejoining Franklin from another team, to get the band back together at VT, I would be pumped.
I just couldn't believe how bad our linebackers were when we had Pry as HC with a linebacker specialization, defensive coordinators, and miscellaneous other coaches responsible for developing their skills. And they were abysmal. It's like they were coached on where to lineup, but after that it was, "if the guy with the ball comes your way, tackle him."
"Best" is a meaningless subjective measure. Its great for arguing with your friends.
Play football. Whoever wins the conference games goes to the conference championship. You know how we avoid this situation? Any of the teams in the conference should have won more games.
It kinda is though. The size of the conferences makes it impossible to determine who the best teams in the conference are. Hell I'd be for the conference championship to be the 2 highest computer ranked teams - even if just against conference foes (which is silly for computer rankings). Forget this gimmicky runoff tiebreakers
does it really matter? ND would have wiped the floor with either team
We shouldn't have conference structures large enough that a 7-5 team wins is my point. In todays structure its 'fair' that they got in but it certainly doesn't represent the best team in the conference.
Sometimes it's the X's and the O's but more often than not it's the Jimmy's and the Joe's.
This also explains, I think, how Penn State was able to be competitive against Oregon and Indiana this year. The talent was definitely there
It's clear JF has a deep relationship with Pry. I imagine JF has 100% say on who he's bringing on for staff and this isn't a save money thing. So I'm ok with the hire and any hire JF makes initially. I have trust he's going to take VT back to the level it was in the 2000s.
Neighing my own horn
I'm not sure that, in two years, there will be more than a handful of players that were here when he was head coach. We're looking at a total roster overhaul, here.
Deepest condolences. losing your parents is something most all of us have to go through(unless we pass first). I did it 14 and 21 years ago. It is devastating in the moment, and while you never 'get over it' , you do adjust to the 'new normal' and are able to live life fully again.
Conference alignment is not how we got a 7-5 team in a championship game. (It also happened in 2018 where 7-5 Pitt won the Coastal.)
But conference championships have different criteria than national championships. The conferences are just looking at conference records, while nattys look at overall records.
Same. Pry was a decent to good DC for JMFF, so I'm okay with him taking this job at Tech. With the Jimmies and Joes that JMFF will be pulling in, I'm sure he'll do fine.
Proven in what way??
Wouldn't they have been playing Virginia?
And one was to a 5-7 team that only won 2 conference games in arguably the weakest P4 conference.
The problem with this is if you make a system where your rules can be manipulated to prevent teams from playing in the championship by anything other than playing football, the thumb will be on the scales for certain teams and against others.
Make tie breaker rules, stick with them through the season and refine them for the next season if you have to. But if a "bad" team gets into the conference championship or the playoff, then beat them on the football field.
Franklin wants to push for a natty - at VT or after. He's going to load his staff with who he thinks will make a difference, and apparently he thinks Pry is the guy. We wanted Pry when he was Franklin's DC, so history would suggest this could be a good match.
I'm more curious how the players will feel about this move. They seemed checked out under Pry's leadership. How will they respond?
Sometimes your best employee isn't necessarily the best person to promote into leadership. It's a different skill set. Hopefully if Pry can return to a singular focus he'll get that defense humming again.