College Playoff

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

If the BCS were to make one change, it would be what Jax says - NO POLLS before week X

A preseason ranking is a cause of a great many of the Poll's problems, if you ask me. How can you rank Ohio State ahead of anyone when you haven't seen them play? It's nothing more than a guess. Making matters worse, we always try to legitimize our own guesses.. so, if OSU is my #1, but they loose, I'm going to look for every chance to move them up later in the year to make my preseason poll look "right" if I can.

 

[jwinslow]

So did Texas. To a team that was absolutely crushed by the team that allegedly screwed them.

They lost AT Texas tech on a last ditch, play of the year TD by the best WR in football. OU won at home.

OU also didn't have to play all of these games back to back. Texas had to beat OU, Missou, Ok St & TxTech in 4 consecutive weeks, and they came within seconds of doing it. OU had the luxury of a month and a half between their loss to Texas and their final two games. If Texas lost to Texas Tech in October and beat the other three in Nov/Dec, they would have gone to the dance.

That is EXACTLY the kind of nonsense you get with a basketball playoff.

Personally, I think Texas was a better selection to face Florida in the BCS Championship.

Then how can you tell me with a straight face that the system determined the best team?

That is to say, I agree they "deserved" a chance... but... they were on the bubble, and it burst. Tough shit. This is football, not rec league T-ball.

This doesn't seem very relevant to me. Otherwise, we shouldn't have fixed the formula when it kept USC out of the title game when they were ranked #1.... all because life isn't fair.

 

[osubartender23]

If they are the better team shouldn't they have won that tourney? If the team is consistently excellent all year long and chokes in some weak ass conference tourney then they didn't deserve to make it to the big dance.

So basically the regular season should be ignored all together and everything should just ride on conference tournaments? If a team is consistently excellent all year and chokes in "the big dance" does that also mean that they didnt deserve to be there since they lost to a lesser team? Any team can win on any given day. Thats why a playoff wouldnt actually crown a true champion. It just allows us to say at the end of the year that team A got hot and was able to beat a team that has had a better year overall.

 

[AuburnBuckeye]

Stanford settled it on the field against USC in 2007....
Oregon State settled it on the field against them in 2008....
Ole Miss settled it on the field with Florida last year too....

Nothing is "settled" and this is a red herring argument as well.

That has nothing to do with the playoffs. And i'm not talking about single games. See this argument for an explanation of the whole single game thing.

That wasn't the playoffs, their wasn't a national title on the line. Besides i'm not talking about single games, I mean the playoffs as a whole. For instance lets say UF is #1 seed and Ole Miss is #8, and Ole Miss pulls the upset. That doesn't mean Ole Miss is better, it just means UF isn't the best. Whoever wins the tourney is the best.

Um.... No. I like a sport where the best team is crowned champion.

And what about the current system does that?

Right... the 8 teams the media and some computers think...

Yes, what is wrong with that? It gets the best teams and lets them play the games on the field.

What? How do we know that those games in November aren't against the best? They could be.. all we'd have to do is schedule em that way.

This is stupid. You show me where a team scheduled the best like 2-3 teams and no one else in the same month.

And, as I already said... Lesser teams "prove" themselves against elite teams all the time. So what? Upsets happen.

You fail to see where i'm coming from here, sure upsets happen, but if you're in the playoffs and you don't win your not the best team. You can have the best record, or the most 1st round draft picks, but if you get beat your not the best. The team that beat you may not be better than you, but you are not the best. The team that comes out on top of the pile proved themselves to be the best.

 

[jwinslow]

So basically the regular season should be ignored all together and everything should just ride on conference tournaments? If a team is consistently excellent all year and chokes in "the big dance" does that also mean that they didnt deserve to be there since they lost to a lesser team? Any team can win on any given day. Thats why a playoff wouldnt actually crown a true champion. It just allows us to say at the end of the year that team A got hot and was able to beat a team that has had a better year overall.

It's a larger sample size. Cinderellas pop up all the time in the first weekend of the dance. It's extremely rare for them to keep that up.

Your last line applies to the 1 game NC system we have now. It hits really close to home with 2006.

 

[AuburnBuckeye]

I understand everyones problems with the playoff system. NO ONE has ever said it was perfect. But you can not sit here and tell me that the BCS is better.

 

[osubartender23]

That wasn't the playoffs, their wasn't a national title on the line. Besides i'm not talking about single games, I mean the playoffs as a whole. For instance lets say UF is #1 seed and Ole Miss is #8, and Ole Miss pulls the upset. That doesn't mean Ole Miss is better, it just means UF isn't the best. Whoever wins the tourney is the best.

See this makes no sense at all. Miss beat UF in the regular season but it doesnt really matter? It only matters if its in a playoff with a national championship on the line? Why should a loss not make a difference, no matter when it happens?

 

[jwinslow]

No. Whoever wins the tourney is playing the best during the time of that tournament.


I'm a Steelers fan and will tell you that our 2 SB champions this decade were not our best teams.

You'd have a hard time convincing me that there's a bigger difference in NFL teams from the postseason to the regular season... and teams that take 4-6 weeks off in college football.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

They lost AT Texas tech on a last ditch, play of the year TD by the best WR in football. OU won at home.

OU also didn't have to play all of these games back to back. Texas had to beat OU, Missou, Ok St & TxTech in 4 consecutive weeks, and they came within seconds of doing it. OU had the luxury of a month and a half between their loss to Texas and their final two games. If Texas lost to Texas Tech in October and beat the other three in Nov/Dec, they would have gone to the dance.

So, schedule matters.. just like I've been arguing all along.
A loss isn't a loss isn't a loss? (Charlie W. agrees, )

I realize what you're saying, and I do agree that late season losses aren't any better or worse than early losses. It's a problem, but how does a playoff fix it and at what price to the game?

Then how can you tell me with a straight face that the system determined the best team?

Well, for one, Florida won so what I think about Texas is irrelevant. For another, I don't tout my personal opinions around as facts. I think Texas was better than OU... that's an opinion... I didn't say it was a fact, true, un arguable. I don't have a problem with OU also having been considered.. after all, maybe I'm wrong and OU was better than Texas....

that's how.

This doesn't seem very relevant to me. Otherwise, we shouldn't have fixed the formula when it kept USC out of the title game when they were ranked #1.... all because life isn't fair.

What has "fair" got to do with this? You want fair, you'd better start inviting Sun Belt Champs and MAC champs too.

No, the BCS worked wonderfully when it took OU and LSU over USC. It did exactly what it was supposed to do, pick 2 out of 3 teams. So, humans ranked USC #1... isn't your problem with polls bias? Why am I supposed to credit you using USC 2003 as evidence in support of your position when I consider the fact that you alrady don't trust the polls, and now you're relying on them to try and advance your point?

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

I understand everyones problems with the playoff system. NO ONE has ever said it was perfect. But you can not sit here and tell me that the BCS is better.

Not our job to implement a change, nor is it our job to tell you it's better.

It's YOUR job, as an advocate for some change, to do that.

It seems like you cannot.

 

[osubartender23]

I understand everyones problems with the playoff system. NO ONE has ever said it was perfect. But you can not sit here and tell me that the BCS is better.

It's not better, but a playoff isnt going to solve any of the issues we currently have either.

 

[jwinslow]

I've been working on some scenarios... and the problem here isn't the 8 team scenario in my 5 BCS bowl system, it's that the ACC is atrocious.

 

[AuburnBuckeye]

So basically the regular season should be ignored all together and everything should just ride on conference tournaments? Any team can win on any given day. Thats why a playoff wouldnt actually crown a true champion. It just allows us to say at the end of the year that team A got hot and was able to beat a team that has had a better year overall.

The regular season sets them up for victory, they will have the easiest path to the championship. If they choke in the playoffs then they aren't the best team.

If a team is consistently excellent all year and chokes in "the big dance" does that also mean that they didnt deserve to be there since they lost to a lesser team?

Yeah!!!! That's totally what I said! Nice comment. They obviously earned there spot during the reg. season. The regular season isn't made pointless because it decides who gets in.

And if they were so damn great during the regular season shouldn't they get an at-large bid? If there schedule was so weak that they couldn't get an at-large bid then they weren't that good to begin with.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

That has nothing to do with the playoffs. And i'm not talking about single games. See this argument for an explanation of the whole single game thing.

It has everything to do with it. Playoffs are a sequence of single games. The better team doesn't always win, and as a consequence Playoffs don't give us anything we dont' already have.

This is stupid. You show me where a team scheduled the best like 2-3 teams and no one else in the same month.

OK.. in 1995 Ohio State played the following teams in successive weeks:

8 Notre Dame
7 Penn State
27 Wisconsin

they played # 14 Iowa two weeks later.

Now, I just pulled this off the top of my head, I'm sure there's been an even harder gauntlet at some point in the history of College football. It wasn't too hard to show you that you can get 3 tough games in a row, though. And this series of Games came in October... would it have been more impressive if they did it in December?

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

I've been working on some scenarios... and the problem here isn't the 8 team scenario in my 5 BCS bowl system, it's that the ACC is atrocious.

No kidding. I saw the same thing when I did my hypos.