2023 College Football Playoff

[Mavric]

I felt like this all happened because Bama beat Georgia.  But now, I guess had Georgia had won, Texas would have been #4 and FSU would still have been out.

I'm not really sure about that.  It seems to me that they would have gone with the undefeated team over the one-loss team.

Texas beating Alabama (then Alabama beating Georgia) put them in a bind.  They couldn't just totally ignore head-to-head on teams ranked right next to each other.  So they couldn't put Alabama in and leave Texas out.  Had that game not occurred (and Texas lost to someone else), I bet Texas would have been out and FSU in.  

If Georgia would have won, I would guess it would have been Georgia-Michigan-Washington-FSU.  Four undefeated teams.  QED.

 

[Crusader Husker]

I'm not really sure about that.  It seems to me that they would have gone with the undefeated team over the one-loss team.

Texas beating Alabama (then Alabama beating Georgia) put them in a bind.  They couldn't just totally ignore head-to-head on teams ranked right next to each other.  So they couldn't put Alabama in and leave Texas out.  Had that game not occurred (and Texas lost to someone else), I bet Texas would have been out and FSU in.  

If Georgia would have won, I would guess it would have been Georgia-Michigan-Washington-FSU.  Four undefeated teams.  QED.

I assume that to be true, but now I don't trust these Jackwagons.

 

[BigRedBuster]

I felt like this all happened because Bama beat Georgia.  But now, I guess had Georgia had won, Texas would have been #4 and FSU would still have been out.

If Georgia would have won, why wouldn't it have been:

FSU 13-0

Michigan 13-0

Georgia 13-0

Washington 13-0

Everyone is a conference champ.  Everyone is undefeated.  Everyone else has at least one loss.

This really isn't rocket surgery.

 

[BigRedBuster]

First of all....it's ESPN releasing a few facts about what happened.


I'll gauren-granddamn-tee you that they know what changed overnight.  And...they don't want those facts to come out.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

It only sucked because they put more weight on the perceived strengths of conferences over actual results on the field.

I feel like we do that all the time on this board. Strength of Schedule comes up a lot, and we never pretend it doesn't make a difference. 

Speaking of which: if we had to bet our own money, would we take Scott Frost's 3-9 Huskers who took #3 Michigan, #6 Ohio State, #9 Michigan State, #10 Oklahoma, and #22 Iowa down to the wire, versus this year's squad that won two more games against weaker competition in less than inspiring fashion? 

I mean, one of the results on the field was Alabama beating the top-ranked, defending national champion and breaking their 29 game-winning streak. It might have been just as weird for a conference that had two of the best teams to put zero in the playoffs. SEC would actually have hurt itself by playing the game. It sucked because there were four slots for five conferences. Thankfully this is the last year of that. 

In what should be a great bowl game — Georgia vs. FSU — key players are now considering not playing to protect their draft status. While there are four teams in the playoffs, the final rankings are still TBD. The playoff decides the undisputed champion, but the Georgia/FSU winner could jump the other three for that #2 position.

But as Reese Bobby said: if you're not first, you're last. 

 

[Mavric]

I mean, one of the results on the field was Alabama beating the top-ranked, defending national champion and breaking their 29 game-winning streak. It might have been just as weird for a conference that had two of the best teams to put zero in the playoffs.

Had Alabama not completed a miracle 4th & Goal from the 31 the week before, that's exactly what would have happened.

SEC would actually have hurt itself by playing the game. It sucked because there were four slots for five conferences. Thankfully this is the last year of that. 

Osborne said this 30 years ago.

By the same token, one year Alabama go in the playoff after not even winning their division.  One could make an agruement that they had an easier path to the playoff by losing that game and not risking losing in the CCG at the end of the year.

 

[Lorewarn]

@Guy Chamberlin, sorry but I'm calling absolute bulls#!t on the committee's propaganda piece.

There are all sorts of ways to expose how inane this is, but here's a couple. One - if the argument is ranking the best teams off of nebulous 'belief', then FSU at #5 makes absolutely zero sense. Consistency there would put them below Georgia, Ohio State and Oregon, who would all be favored. Two - taking all their PR spin at face value this week exposes their inconsistency in their own logic the week prior when FSU was still #4 even though the same evaluation should have taken place according to the  "...section in the committee's protocol that specifically refers to the "unavailability of key players ... that may have affected a team's performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance."

Their ambiguous "make it up as we go" criteria for evaluating is unfathomably unjust. "Who we think is better" is no actual way to primarily rank teams, as evidenced by Oregon being a Vegas and a fan/media/coaches favorite over Washington both times they played. It also begs the question of how Alabama is suddenly viewed as one of the best 4 teams based off no actual metrics but just 'vibes', when they struggled against more than one terrible opponent, and their only big accomplishment is squeezing by Georgia who has looked vulnerable all year and was clearly only #1 due to the poll and reputational momentum of years' previous (similar to 2014 FSU).

 

[Ulty]

Guy, I respect you a lot, and I am reading all of your points and the arguments and rationale put forth by the committee, but it's still a bunch of horse$h!t. These committee members are talking about "who would you rather play" and "their offense looks different without their QB," but these arguments still do not speak for the actual results on the field. 

Strength of Schedule comes up a lot, and we never pretend it doesn't make a difference. 

Of course strength of schedule makes a difference, but it's far from the only factor. In this case, everyone other than the selection committee does not find the strength of schedule to be more compelling than...the actual games that were played. Bama had a tougher schedule and beat some good teams, but they barely squeaked by some mediocre teams as well. 

I mean, one of the results on the field was Alabama beating the top-ranked, defending national champion and breaking their 29 game-winning streak.

Yet another, more direct, piece of evidence relating to results on the field, was the fact that FSU and Bama played a common opponent this season. Bama won by 14 against LSU. FSU won by 21. 

if we had to bet our own money, would we take Scott Frost's 3-9 Huskers who took #3 Michigan, #6 Ohio State, #9 Michigan State, #10 Oklahoma, and #22 Iowa down to the wire, versus this year's squad that won two more games against weaker competition in less than inspiring fashion? 

Objection: relevance.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

The "results on the field" are five teams winning their conference championships. Everything else is the subjective and unhappy process of squeezing them into four slots. 

But if I'm reading the room correctly, it's a matter of the Committee submitting to the will of the SEC and their propaganda lapdog, ESPN. 

 

[Lorewarn]

The "results on the field" are five teams winning their conference championships. Everything else is the subjective and unhappy process of squeezing them into four slots. 

But if I'm reading the room correctly, it's a matter of the Committee submitting to the will of the SEC and their propaganda lapdog, ESPN. 

That's part of it for some (I'm much less conspiratorial), but for me it's more that the committee operates in a closed room without any transparency or accountability to any actual metrics. 

The BCS was better than the current solution which is a room of people just chatting and making decisions based on their feelings and opinions. I don't know why we ever went to a committee in the first place - the only problem with the BCS was that there wasn't a playoff, but of course we overcorrected with adding a playoff and a committee and then overcorrected again by going to 12 next year instead of the 8 we should've been at all this time.

 

[Loe Doesnt Know]

@Guy Chamberlin Perfectly said "matter of the committee submitting (or bending) to the will of the SEC & the SEC's biggest money cow in ESPN. I have decided I'd do my part and simply boycott the Michigan/bama game. (Maybe watch the Grinch [starring Carey] & Scrooged [starring Murray] movies for the thousandth time instead.)  

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

That's part of it for some (I'm much less conspiratorial), but for me it's more that the committee operates in a closed room without any transparency or accountability to any actual metrics. 

The BCS was better than the current solution which is a room of people just chatting and making decisions based on their feelings and opinions. I don't know why we ever went to a committee in the first place - the only problem with the BCS was that there wasn't a playoff, but of course we overcorrected with adding a playoff and a committee and then overcorrected again by going to 12 next year instead of the 8 we should've been at all this time.

Well the BCS was pretty computer heavy, but it was humans who gave computers the criteria, which many considered too heavily weighted by margin of victory. Plenty of controversial decisions in that era, including, of course, Nebraska being elevated to the National Championship Game after losing its own conference championship in a blowout. 

My understanding is that last year's Championship Game weighed heavily in this year's subjective decision, as nobody wanted another TCU blowout. The results on the field last weekend may have been cause for concern, with FSU losing style points with its back-up QB and a bit of a slog against a good but not great Louisville. I don't think Michigan won any style points either in their slog against Iowa. Washington/Oregon and Georgia/Alabama were exciting and better played games, and it sounds like that counted for something. I would have been happy leaving Texas out for any number of reasons, but they looked good on the field when it mattered most. 

 

[Mavric]

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[Mavric]

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