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2017 College Football Playoffs (and Other Bowl Games)

I’m more “upset” that the ‘15 team got left out, given the new completely subjective “eye test” being the standard, than I am about this year.

They are the ones who really got fucked by this committees ever changing evaluation criteria since the “eye test” said they were one of the most talented collections of college players ever assembled.

This year is a big “meh” for me.
You're saying that 2015 OSU should have gotten in, because they passed the "eye test"; and that they passed the "eye test" because they had a lot of talented players who would eventually be upper-level draft picks and successful NFL players? To the extent there is an "eye test", I think you're misconstruing what it is. It's basically margin of victory or, as I think I heard someone on the committee say a few years ago, watching the games and seeing who controls the action. '15 OSU struggled in a lot of their wins; they were playing poorly for most of the season, and we all knew it. That's an "eye test" failure; and NFL success that hadn't happened yet is irrelevant to it. I haven't watched Alabama play this year, but my impression is that they've generally kicked their opponents' butts in their wins. I understand that their schedule has been a little weak, but if you're talking about "eye test", the question is whether they struggled with weak-to-ok opponents or dominated them. '15 OSU largely did the former; it's not clear to me that you can say the same of Alabama this year.
 
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The longer this thread goes the more it sounds like PoSU fans last year, only we don't have a H2H win over Alabama. No one thought we'd get in the CFP after the Iowa debacle but we managed to convince ourselves that it didn't matter by the time yesterday rolled around. It did matter.
If Bama had a quality resume I would agree. Their best win was a 2 score game against a 9-3 team that lost to Troy. OSU has 3 wins that are substantially better (psu and Wisconsin based on rankings and MSU based on margin of victory). That's the beef. If Bama had the resume of osu in 2016 you would see zero complaints from me and I'd imagine most people. They didn't.

I'll say this: I won't say they set a precedent for not having a tough OOC opponent, but they absolutely set a precedent to play an 8 team conference schedule And play an FCS in place of a 9th game. You look much better in the eye test vs Mercer than Iowa. And I don't just pick Iowa because that's the bad loss, but because it's a very likely game OSU doesn't play if they played 8 conference games since it's a crossover game.
 
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If Bama had a quality resume I would agree. Their best win was a 2 score game against a 9-3 team that lost to Troy. OSU has 3 wins that are substantially better (psu and Wisconsin based on rankings and MSU based on margin of victory). That's the beef. If Bama had the resume of osu in 2016 you would see zero complaints from me and I'd imagine most people. They didn't.

I'll say this: I won't say they set a precedent for not having a tough OOC opponent, but they absolutely set a precedent to play an 8 team conference schedule And play an FCS in place of a 9th game. You look much better in the eye test vs Mercer than Iowa. And I don't just pick Iowa because that's the bad loss, but because it's a very likely game OSU doesn't play if they played 8 conference games since it's a crossover game.
SIAP
 
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You're saying that 2015 OSU should have gotten in, because they passed the "eye test"; and that they passed the "eye test" because they had a lot of talented players who would eventually be upper-level draft picks and successful NFL players? To the extent there is an "eye test", I think you're misconstruing what it is. It's basically margin of victory or, as I think I heard someone on the committee say a few years ago, watching the games and seeing who controls the action. '15 OSU struggled in a lot of their wins; they were playing poorly for most of the season, and we all knew it. That's an "eye test" failure; and NFL success that hadn't happened yet is irrelevant to it. I haven't watched Alabama play this year, but my impression is that they've generally kicked their opponents' butts in their wins. I understand that their schedule has been a little weak, but if you're talking about "eye test", the question is whether they struggled with weak-to-ok opponents or dominated them. '15 OSU largely did the former; it's not clear to me that you can say the same of Alabama this year.
All you have to do is look at their box scores to see that they haven’t dominated anyone with a pulse, on top of barely playing anyone with a pulse in the first place, on top of losing their last game while playing badly.

As has already been pointed out, Ohio State beat a ranked Michigan team on the road 42-13 in absolutely dominating fashion in their last game in ‘15.

But, at the risk of giving the impression that I care that much, I will just drop it.

This has been I highly successful season for many reasons, let’s go win a bowl game.
 
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All you have to do is look at their box scores to see that they haven’t dominated anyone with a pulse, on top of barely playing anyone with a pulse in the first place, on top of losing their last game while playing badly.

As has already been pointed out, Ohio State beat a ranked Michigan team on the road 42-13 in absolutely dominating fashion in their last game in ‘15.

But, at the risk of giving the impression that I care that much, I will just drop it.

This has been I highly successful season for many reason, let’s go win a bowl game.
In addition, there were four P5 conference champions in 2015 that had one loss or fewer. That wasn't the case this year. 2015 was a tougher year for a non-conference champion to make it in, because the records of the conference champions were better, overall. That's not changing standards, that's just the normal variance in circumstances from year-to-year that you should naturally expect.
 
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Here are three big problems with what the committee did yesterday (and when I say "big," I mean "big" in terms of harm to the committee's reputation):

1. We have issues trusting what the committee tells us. CFP Chairman Kirby Hocutt said on Tuesday, November 28 that there was very little separation between Alabama at No. 5 and OSU at No. 8. In the six days following that statement, OSU defeated then-undefeated and No. 4 ranked Wisconsin on a neutral field, and, in the process, OSU won a conference championship. Also during that six plays, Alabama did not play again (and thus did not win a conference championship). On Sunday, December 3, the CFP executive director said that the vote between OSU and Alabama wasn't even "that close." What Hocutt said on November 28 really couldn't have been true.

2. The committee has issues with contravening precedent. The comparison of 2017 Alabama to 2016 Ohio State fails on a number of levels. Most obviously, the 2017 Alabama team had no quality wins of which to speak, with its best win coming against #17 LSU. In 2016, Ohio State had wins against #6 Michigan, #7 Oklahoma, and #8 Wisconsin. The best comparison to 2017 Alabama was 2015 Ohio State: each team went 11-1, lost late in the season (Alabama in its final game, OSU in its next-to-last game), and neither had quality wins (2017 Alabama beat #17 LSU and #23 Miss. St., 2015 OSU blew out#14 Michigan in Ann Arbor). 2015 OSU was left out.

3. The "eye test" or "fewer losses is better than better wins." Perhaps most troubling about the committee's decision yesterday was the subjectivity underlying its decision and/or that the committee's decision could be read as to reward teams who have weaker schedules but who lose less. OSU had the conference championship and by far and away the better "win" resume, with three victories (#6 Wisconsin, #9 Penn State and #16 Michigan State) that were better than Alabama's best win (#17 LSU). However, OSU had two losses (one against #2 Oklahoma, the other an atrocious loss to Iowa), whereas Alabama only had one (to #7 Auburn). That decision that losses matter more than wins could be troubling for the regular season as teams try to decide how to schedule based on gleaning information from the committee's decision. Also, the committee's decision is suggestive of the "eye test" playing a crucial role, which many college football fans will not like (even those fans of the beneficiaries of that test today who have foresight to realize they may not be the beneficiaries of it the next time it is applied).
 
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I hate to defend Alabama, but they had no idea FSU was going to blow this year and lose their QB, so I am going to give them some credit for that OOC game, albeit at a neutral site. Now Mercer is BS, but Bama has played USC, Wisky, Ped St. among others as their "tough" game OOC. Mercer really isn't all that different from UNLV or Buffalo or Kent.

We need to go take care of business and beat USC's ass real good for them. And then I am going to be rooting for OU to beat the brakes off of UGa and Clemson to embarrass Bama like they did us last year, although Clemson will not have the luxury of having a Beck.Warriner OC calling plays against them.
 
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I hate to defend Alabama, but they had no idea FSU was going to blow this year and lose their QB, so I am going to give them some credit for that OOC game, albeit at a neutral site. Now Mercer is BS, but Bama has played USC, Wisky, Ped St. among others as their "tough" game OOC. Mercer really isn't all that different from UNLV or Buffalo or Kent.

We need to go take care of business and beat USC's ass real good for them. And then I am going to be rooting for OU to beat the brakes off of UGa and Clemson to embarrass Bama like they did us last year, although Clemson will not have the luxury of having a Beck.Warriner OC calling plays against them.
Nobody is faulting Alabama for scheduling Florida State. Merely scheduling them is not the metric by which a team is measured, however. It's not Alabama's fault that FSU sucked balls this year... but.. that doesn't change that FSU in fact sucked balls this year.
 
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I hate to defend Alabama, but they had no idea FSU was going to blow this year and lose their QB, so I am going to give them some credit for that OOC game, albeit at a neutral site. Now Mercer is BS, but Bama has played USC, Wisky, Ped St. among others as their "tough" game OOC. Mercer really isn't all that different from UNLV or Buffalo or Kent.

We need to go take care of business and beat USC's ass real good for them. And then I am going to be rooting for OU to beat the brakes off of UGa and Clemson to embarrass Bama like they did us last year, although Clemson will not have the luxury of having a Beck.Warriner OC calling plays against them.
Please keep in mind that you're comparing OSU's #3 OOC opponent to bama's #4. Your logic ignores that they should absolutely have a tougher top to bottom ooc schedule than OSU since OSU absolutely has a better conference schedule.
 
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You can argue Auburn got screwed worse than us. They destroy UGA and beat Alabama soundly. They are ranked #2.

If they would have lost the tiebreaker to Alabama and the SEC title game was UGA v. Alabama. I can tell you Auburn would still be in the playoffs. They essentially got punished for beating Alabama and having to play an extra game and Alabama got rewarded
 
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Nobody is faulting Alabama for scheduling Florida State. Merely scheduling them is not the metric by which a team is measured, however. It's not Alabama's fault that FSU sucked balls this year... but.. that doesn't change that FSU in fact sucked balls this year.
But people seem to be inferring Bama schedules a weak OOC schedule, but if I am going to be honest and objective without my scarlet glasses on, their OOC schedule was not any different from ours with the exception that FSU unusually sucked this year. I would not say Bama schedules weak sisters like Washington did last year. Bama plays one decent team a year like tOSU does, and most teams for that matter. They also schedule a pud before they play their rival, which we have not had the luxury of doing.

But I am not going to act like Bama schedules weak teams year in and year out, that isn't really true.
 
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It's not an inference, @Hstead It's an objectively verifiable result. Again, it's not Alabama's fault that FSU sucked. But.. they still sucked. Much like it wasn't Ohio State's fault that Washington sucked in 2007.... didn't change the fact that OSU had to hear about how weak their schedule was all fucking year.
 
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