tOSU - CBS.online NC / Playoff Discussion

[Dryden]

The BCS does indeed get it right, occasionally...but other times it gets it wrong (Oklahoma vs LSU after the 2003 season for example).

Where the BCS went wrong is that they decided to use computers to help solve a problem humans have: evaluating teams that don't directly play each other. But, when the computers don't agree with the humans, the humans change the formula to get the result they wanted.

The mess at the end of 1998, which probably didn't cost Ohio State a national title anyway, precipitated a comedy of errors in changing the BCS formula to get the result the humans wanted. It has now fallen apart to such an absurd level that we've created two more polls (the Harris and the BCS itself) to correct what is perceived to be an error when just two polls (the AP and Coaches) didn't agree.

I have lost the link, but I had had a web address where I read that Nebraska (at Oregon's expense) in 2001 and Oklahoma (at USC's expense) in 2003 would not have happened if the original, unadultered formula proposed in 1997 were still being used. I read this before Auburn's snub last year, so I don't know that anything would have changed for 2004.

My point being, anyhow, is that the BCS went wrong by getting too cute in their method for determining which team is #1 and which is #2. Aside from making the six BCS conferences a truck load of money, along with ABC/ESPN, the BCS has only ever been about one thing: put the polls' #1 and #2 teams on the field at the end of the season.

The easiest way to figure this out would have been, from the outset, to use a teams' total points from the AP poll plus the teams' total points from the Coaches poll divided by two. That's it. No strength of schedule formulas, no computers, no margin of victory, no quality win component, nothing but the two primary polls that were already there as the source of the problem. Rather than do this, though, the BCS used both polls' whole number rankings for teams with a heaping pile of other shit that the John Q Fan never could figure out.

The BCS is/was perfect in theory, reward the best teams with prestigious intersectional bowls that never would have happened previously, with #1 playing #2 in a big game at the end. It failed in execution only after the math geeks got involved.

 

[Golferdow01]

I personally feel you only need four teams in a playoff...#1 vs #4 and # 2 vs #3 then a championship.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Where the BCS went wrong is that they decided to use computers to help solve a problem humans have: evaluating teams that don't directly play each other. But, when the computers don't agree with the humans, the humans change the formula to get the result they wanted.

I doesn't matter how or why the system is inconsisent, only that it is. There will be another instance down the road where there will be three (or more) undefeated teams at the end of the regular season and conference championship games, and thus one or more teams will be pissed off because "the system" screwed them over. You put a 16-team format in place, and no one will give shit about how #17 thinks they got screwed out of the playoffs.

 

[Captain Hindsight]

I personally feel you only need four teams in a playoff...#1 vs #4 and # 2 vs #3 then a championship.

That's a good point, but I think that they should make an eight team playoff. It's not too many, not too little.

 

[Thump]

Not fair to UT.

They went undefeated through 12 games, why should they have to play another?

In my perfect world....if your going to do a playoff use the BCS to seed teams 1-8, higher seed gets home field, NC game is the RB every year.

Leave all the other Bowls as they are for the 109 teams that don't make the tourney.

If you were going to have a playoff, it would have been:

1 USC vs. 4 OSU

2 Texas vs. 3 PSU

Texas earned their title this year. I don't think they have anything to prove.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

That's a good point, but I think that they should make an eight team playoff. It's not too many, not too little.

I don't know how many times I have to hit you clowns over the head with a 2x4, but 16 is the number. All other divisions have it and it has worked exceptionally well.

 

[sandgk]

I don't know how many times I have to hit you clowns over the head with a 2x4, but 16 is the number. All other divisions have it and it has worked exceptionally well.

2^4 = 16 You are a math major!!

 

[Golferdow01]

I don't know how many times I have to hit you clowns over the head with a 2x4, but 16 is the number. All other divisions have it and it has worked exceptionally well.

We are looking for a compromise, so 4 or 8 would be a hell of a lot better than none. Why not drop the clown shit and realize our points. Of course we want 16 teams!

 

[Dryden]

Why not drop the clown shit and realize our points.

Uh oh, tellin' Mililani to 'drop the clown shit'?

I've been around long enough to know that 'Mili don't play 'dat!'

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

We are looking for a compromise, so 4 or 8 would be a hell of a lot better than none. Why not drop the clown shit and realize our points. Of course we want 16 teams!

Show me in the thread where anyone asked for a compromise, post Nazi. The 16-team playoffs have been in place for decades and are tried-and-proven, so anyone else's "points" that 4 teams are enough or that 8 eight teams are "not too many, not too little" are flat out off the mark. And don't tell me what I can say in a post...clown.

 

[Thump]

All other divisions have it and it has worked exceptionally well.

They also didn't have pre-existing bowl games to schedule around as well.

 

[Thump]

Show me in the thread where anyone asked for a compromise, post Nazi. The 16-team playoffs have been in place for decades and are tried-and-proven, so anyone else's "points" that 4 teams are enough or that 8 eight teams are "not too many, not too little" are flat out off the mark. And don't tell me what I can say in a post...clown.

Please take this to pm's gentlemen.

 

[Golferdow01]

Show me in the thread where anyone asked for a compromise, post Nazi. The 16-team playoffs have been in place for decades and are tried-and-proven, so anyone else's "points" that 4 teams are enough or that 8 eight teams are "not too many, not too little" are flat out off the mark. And don't tell me what I can say in a post...clown.

Funny calling me a post nazi when you are 2nd on this forum...

So you are saying you would rather have the current system than a 4 or 8 team playoff? Do you honestly think We will see at 16 team playoff in the near future?

Try disagreeing with someone without insulting them for once.

 

[JXC]

Not dissing, but it doesn't matter what you (or I) think, the point is that all other divisions have 16 teams, and thus so should I-A. By the way, Youngstown State won one of their national titles (1991, IIRC) despite being ranked outside of the top eight at the time of selection, so there are many times when those teams ranked below #8 are deserving of inclusion.

If it doesn't matter what we think, why the heck are we even having an opinion on this (or anything)? Best shut down BP.

 

[BayBuck]

I don't know how many times I have to hit you clowns over the head with a 2x4, but 16 is the number. All other divisions have it and it has worked exceptionally well.

I don't see why the sport's major division would be bound to follow the example of its little brothers and sisters. Heck, the closest thing to DI CFB is DI basketball, and they use 64, which is clearly too many... CFB is the only sport with a bowl system in place, and being already unique I'd say they're free to do it their own way. I agree with others that 16 is too many--but then I'm against all playoff proposals. :tongue2: