2008 BCS Rankings

[OH10]

I'm not convinced the Oklahoma offense is that f'n good. While they are racking up 60 points per game, they are doing it (1) because they have to in order to rack up beauty contest points and (2) IT'S AGAINST THE BIG 12, who has a track record now of neglecting the art of good defense.

I think the voters that are putting Oklahoma over Texas are falling hard for style over substance. They are also conveniently forgetting how well the Texas defense was able to shut down Oklahoma over the last quarter and a half.

 

[Gatorubet]

I'm not convinced the Oklahoma offense is that f'n good. While they are racking up 60 points per game, they are doing it (1) because they have to in order to rack up beauty contest points and (2) IT'S AGAINST THE BIG 12, who has a track record now of neglecting the art of good defense.

I think the voters that are putting Oklahoma over Texas are falling hard for style over substance. They are also conveniently forgetting how well the Texas defense was able to shut down Oklahoma over the last quarter and a half.

True. But the "How the fuck did they lose to those guys" factor is huge.

Guns up indeed.

 

[WaitingforKickoff]

True. But the "How the fuck did they lose to those guys" factor is huge.

Guns up indeed.

That factor should apply more to Florida than it does to UT.

 

[Gatorubet]

That factor should apply more to Florida than it does to UT.

It could. That is a valid comment. But you could also look at the fact that the other team lost to a mutual opponent that you beat by 40. That is equally off putting as a stat. Even #1 Bama did not beat Ole Miss like that. So it really depends on what you focus on.

I hate that is was a subjective BCS vote deal rather than dropping down to a offensive/defensive stat type tie-break. How annoying to let some ass wipes in Maine and Iowa and Montana pick your conference championship game participants.

 

[WaitingforKickoff]

It could. That is a valid comment. But you could also look at the fact that the other team lost to a mutual opponent that you beat by 40. That is equally off putting as a stat. Even #1 Bama did not beat Ole Miss like that. So it really depends on what you focus on.

I hate that is was a subjective BCS vote deal rather than dropping down to a offensive/defensive stat type tie-break. How annoying to let some ass wipes in Maine and Iowa and Montana pick your conference championship game participants.

Which method is more arbitrary in your opinion: to use a direct matchup to determine superiority between two teams, or to use results of those two teams against a chosen third team to determine superiority? Notice that I have italicized the word chosen because no one is comparing the results of how each team did against texas a@m or baylor.

And that leads to my next rant. If you want to go by the third party meter, fine. But why would you only choose one common opponent rather than all of them? To me the selection of OU over UT is so unfair and corrupted on so many levels.

 

[Gatorubet]

Which method is more arbitrary in your opinion: to use a direct matchup to determine superiority between two teams, or to use results of those two teams against a chosen third team to determine superiority? Notice that I have italicized the word chosen because no one is comparing the results of how each team did against texas a@m or baylor.

And that leads to my next rant. If you want to go by the third party meter, fine. But why would you only choose one common opponent rather than all of them? To me the selection of OU over UT is so unfair and corrupted on so many levels.

Look, I already stated on here a while ago that I would vote for Texas because of the head to head between the two best teams.... but why would that be better than using the "best" common opponent?? It wouldn't. There is no answer.

All I'm saying is it sucks, and no amount of arguing any point over any other point will be sufficent to remove the suckiness.

 

[WaitingforKickoff]

Agreed that it sucks. But it sucks because of the arbitrary nature of selection that wasn't and shouldn't be there. Don't forget, had some of the same pundits who ignores the sanctity of the head to head matchup had their way, your team may not have had the chance to face OSU in Jan. '07.

 

[Gatorubet]

Agreed that it sucks. But it sucks because of the arbitrary nature of selection that wasn't and shouldn't be there. Don't forget, had some of the same pundits who ignores the sanctity of the head to head matchup had their way, your team may not have had the chance to face OSU in Jan. '07.

Here, the problem is not putting OSU over UT, the problem is there are no guidlines for how to assess the situtation. Best team? Best team when they played? or now? I mean, the lack of direction of any guiding principles issued to the very people who have a vote is what bugs me.

 

[Taosman]

As Buckeye fans it's upsetting to see how "subjective" the BCS is treating this years team. It's very obvious that voters are keeping us down and other teams to "fix" a certain outcome.
The People's Choice Bowl. Just watch as the Big XII "winner" gets trampled in the BCS Championship game and the whining starts anew. :tongue2:

 

[BB73]

Your last sentence says it all. Throw out the fact that Texas beat Oklahoma head to head. The bottom line here was that if the team that Texas lost to had lost yesterday (which actually would have hurt Texas in the computers) then the computers would have never had to come into play, and texas would be in. How F'ed up is that?

That's frequently how conference champions are determined, but I'd say that's an issue with the conferences, not with the BCS.

Oregon State lost to Oregon, and that puts USC into the Rose Bowl as long as they beat UCLA.

But because the determination of the Big 12 South 'champion' is likely giving that team a chance to win their way into the BCS Title game, it's a big deal.

Many conferences have some odd rules in breaking ties.

If Penn State would have lost to MSU instead of Iowa, the Big Ten 'champion' of the 3-way tie would have been MSU, because they didn't schedule an FCS (1-AA) team this year.

The SEC has a rule to break a 3-way tie by eliminating the lowest of the 3 in the BCS rankings, and then applying the head-to-head. That applies only if the other methods don't decide it, and 2 teams are within 5 BCS spots of each other.

If the Big 12 had that rule, it would have sent Texas to the CCG, and Gatorubet would be sweating out a scenario where Texas and Florida win their CCGs, and an Oklahoma team that's #3 in the human polls next week could have jumped Florida in the BCS. I don't think it's possible for Texas to jump Florida if the Gators beat Bama. The #1 votes will be pretty evenly split between Oklahoma and Florida, and Texas doesn't have as much juice in the computers as Oklahoma does.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

For everyone complaining about Oklahoma getting in in front of Texas, and who also favor a playoff, consider:

Cleveland beat the New York Giants 35-14 in October.

Shouldn't that mean that Cleveland gets in instead of the Giants? (Yes, I realize they're in different conferences, but the point remains the same.) Of course not.

It's really quite simple.... under the system we have, which is designed to differentiate between otherwise equal teams, Oklahoma's body of work is better than Texas' even in spite of UT beating OU head to head. As it should be.... a single loss by USC to Stanford last year did not compel people to believe Stanford should have been Illinois 2008 Rose Bowl opponent. It's, of course, easy to accept an upset when the teams are vastly different overall (USC was tons better than Stanford despite the on field reasult) but not so much when the teams are very close. When Texas beat OU we didn't feel like it was an upset.... but... maybe it was.

 

[WaitingforKickoff]

For everyone complaining about Oklahoma getting in in front of Texas, and who also favor a playoff, consider:

Cleveland beat the New York Giants 35-14 in October.

Shouldn't that mean that Cleveland gets in instead of the Giants? (Yes, I realize they're in different conferences, but the point remains the same.) Of course not.

It's really quite simple.... under the system we have, which is designed to differentiate between otherwise equal teams, Oklahoma's body of work is better than Texas' even in spite of UT beating OU head to head. As it should be.... a single loss by USC to Stanford last year did not compel people to believe Stanford should have been Illinois 2008 Rose Bowl opponent. It's, of course, easy to accept an upset when the teams are vastly different overall (USC was tons better than Stanford despite the on field reasult) but not so much when the teams are very close. When Texas beat OU we didn't feel like it was an upset.... but... maybe it was.

There seems to be several areas of contention in your post. Allow me to separate the issues.

-The comparison of the Browns to the Sooners is a faulty one, because the Browns have a worse record than the Giants whereas the Sooners have the same record as the Horns. Isn't the whole argument about what is the best way to determine superiority all else being equal?

-Secondly, you contend that OU has a better body of work. That's a very arbitrary determination for which there is no factual basis except for the fact that OU has scored more points in garbage time than UT has. Did you know that UT beat Kansas by four TDs while OU only beat them by two? For those of you proposing that we ought to use the common opponent as the key rubric to determine superiority, I would like to ask why is it that you are only comparing the common results against TT and not the rest of the teams?

-The frivolity in throwing away the results of the head to head matchup is my biggest problem with this. Suppose that two teams head into the title game each with one loss, and it just happened so that one of the teams lost to a team that the other one defeated. By the virtue of extending your logic, there would be no point in playing the game, because superiority has already been established from the comparison of common opponent matchups.

Disregarding the head to head matchup is just flat out absurd.

 

[Bucklion]

My apologies if this has been brought up already, but I believe Texas should be the team, but if looking at the entire body of work, there's a case for Oklahoma, in that OOC they beat TCU 35-10 and Cincinnati 52-26, and they are I believe 11-12 or 11-13 in the polls right now, with Cincinnati being the BCS rep from the Big East (such as it is). They also won at Washington, who suck royal ass, but at least are from a BCS conference. Texas played Arkansas, and other than that, they beat Florida Atlantic, UTEP, and Rice. OU's OOC is clearly better IMO, though they lucked into it in the sense that TCU and Cincy had really good years.

 

[EidoloN]

My problem is, why the hell does the country and voters don't give us the votes, or recognition because we got beat the last 2 NCGs, but yet, Chokelahoma gets all the country and media attention for being this great team every year, then gets waxed in the BCS bowls they play in. Unbelievably unfair. There is more hatred and biasness against us then I have thought, this IMO proves it.

 

[Oh8ch]

My apologies if this has been brought up already, but I believe Texas should be the team, but if looking at the entire body of work, there's a case for Oklahoma,

And if you intent is to determine the best team for the 2008 football season why would you not look at the entire body of work?