If margin of victory isn't supposed to make much of a difference, partially because they don't want teams running up the score, why should margin of defeat be so important?
It would be a pathetic day for college football when some coach late in the season is trailing in a game and has the thought: "We're down by two scores in the middle of the 4th quarter, but we can handle a defeat and still be in the playoff race as long as the margin doesn't get too large, so I'll just run out the clock instead of throwing the ball, which could result in a turnover as well as stopping the clock, both of which would result in more possessions for the opponent which could make the final score an unacceptable margin of defeat for the playoff committee."
I understand that it was a bad performance and that's a factor in the body of work, but the 31-point margin became a bigger issue a couple of weeks ago when ESPN first realized that a Bama-Buckeye beauty contest was a real possibility for the final playoff spot, and began constantly harping on it on their broadcasts in an attempt to sway the committee.
