Is there a scenario where we still back into the playoffs?

editder

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I hate comparing.losses, but if.ducks win today and undefeated, a.three point game from boise looks great for them and keeps them ahead of big 12 winner.
Sarkisian made a great point for sec this morning, using horns last season example, anyone can get up for.one game, it's different and difficult to be up every week.
Yeah, I was surprised to hear him say that. Pretty much described every year in the history of that program (and Oklahoma’s too) of playing a one- or two-game season every year.

The irony, of course, is that they got one of the easiest schedules in the conference this year.
 

CrimsonNagus

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It’s not necessarily balance I’m after. I want the committee gone. There is no committee in the NFL. There are 8 divisions. The 4 division winners and 3 best records after that make the playoff on each side.
This is what I want. If CFB has to change then I want the B1G and SEC to combine and create their own league, with its own rules, its own commissioner with divisions and a playoff that is all decided on the field.

You will never have a completely fair system in a league with 130 teams because you can never have enough common opponents to settle it on the field.
 
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denver

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Caught about 5 minutes of gameday this morning to hear dork Pat McAffee talking about Alabama dropping out of the field if SMU loses. Coach Saban tried to get the discussion going about “who have you actually beat” vs “who you lost to.”

It occurred to me how superior the NFL system is to this joke of a committee based playoff. SEC/BIG TEN breakaway needs to happen and happen soon.

All of this is just made for tv drama. Would that the rest of the world would tune out like me.
How about Howard talking about our 3 losses....and then in the same segment saying its about who you've beaten....the whole B10 got a pass in that discussion too.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Just a comment on the selection processes: we have ALWAYS had bad polling placement, and we ALWAYS WILL have bad polling placement. But let's also be clear that the rankings we have NOW are substantially better than they used to be, too. Whether we have the SIDs, the BCS (2/3 human, 1/3 computer), or the committee, people are going to be taking an interest - which is exactly why Alan Gould began the AP Poll in 1936. I don't think there's a single poll where at least 20 teams were ranked where they don't have a team ranked ahead of a team that lost H2H to another team.

Just a few of the more egregious examples:

HUMAN POLLS (AP)
1980 Final Ranking

2) Pitt (11-1)
5) Florida State (10-2)

Florida State played a tougher schedule AND beat Pitt, 36-22, in mid-October - the week after beating #3 Nebraska, whose only other loss in 1980 was to 10-2 Oklahoma by four. One could also argue placing Miami one spot ahead of Mississippi State, who beat the Hurricanes IN MIAMI the same day FSU beat Pitt.

1982 Final Ranking
12) Ohio State (9-3)
13) Florida State (9-3)

The Noles plowed the Buckeyes, 34-17, in Columbus, and Ohio St lost to TWO unranked teams (Stanford and Wisky) while FSU lost to one (Pitt, who were #2 at the time) and beat two ranked teams. But Ohio State - at that time - was the blue bloood and FSU wasn't yet in the national consciousness.

1983 Final Ranking
9) Ohio State (9-3)
10) Illinois (10-2)
14) Iowa (9-3)

Ohio State loses to Iowa by six on the road, maybe not the most egregious point as both were 9-3.
But they also lost to Illinois by four on the road AND Illinois has fewer losses and went to the Rose Bowl.

Why did this happen? Because Ohio State won their bowl game and the other two lost theirs, Illinois by 36 points to 6-4-1 UCLA.

1984 Final Ranking
4) Nebraska (10-2)
6) Oklahoma (9-2-1)

Oklahoma beat the Huskers, 17-7, in Lincoln but THEN THEY WERE UNDULY PUNISHED because they got Washington in the Orange Bowl and Nebraska crushed LSU in the Sugar.

1985 In-Season Rankings And Final Rankings
#3 Oklahoma loses AT HOME to UNRANKED Miami, who enters the poll the next week at #15.
Miami NEVER moves above Oklahoma, setting up a Penn State vs OU national title game in the Orange Bowl and leaving Miami to scream - and not show up to play Tennessee, either. Oklahoma - common in the 80s - had yet another season where they played nobody but Nebraska and still couldn't run the table (though Miami did turn out to be good for awhile there). Florida also beat Tennessee and had a better record but finished one spot below the Vols. And Texas A/M (10-2) - despite a 23-10 loss to Alabama - finished sixth with Alabama (9-2-1) finishing at 13.

1989 Final Rankings
5) Tennessee (11-1)
9) Alabama (10-2)

Alabama is unduly punished for having to play national champion Miami, a game possible because Alabama barely scraped by the Vols, 47-30.

1990 Final Rankings
16) Michigan State 8-3-1
25) Illinois 8-4

OK, not only did Illinois beat Sparty, 15-13, they were also the ONLY TEAM to beat the national champion Colorado that year. To be nine spots below a team you beat - unduly punished because Clemson killed you, 30-0, in the bowl game - was absurd, too.

1991 Final Rankings
5) Alabama (11-1)
7) Florida (10-2)
13) Notre Dame (10-3)
16) Oklahoma (9-3)
20) Colorado (8-3-1)

Alabama loses, 35-0, to Florida, who winds up with a loss in a much better (and challenging) bowl game, but finishes higher ranked? And it's not like Alabama was impressive that year, either, one win being a 10-7 fright against Memphis. Indeed, Alabama won their last six games by one score. Florida over Notre Dame is a BIT more defensible if you take the "Florida beat Tennessee who beat Notre Dame" route (a specious argument) or the fact Florida beat FSU, thought unstoppable. Florida's best win and worst loss WERE better than Notre Dame's, but still......and Colorado beat OU, 34-17, in Norman while tying the Nebraska team that also beat OU. Colorado got punished for losing by 5 to a top five ranked Alabama team in the Blockbuster Bowl.


Let's fast forward to the BCS Rankings....but note that there is SUBSTANTIAL IMPROVEMENT compared to the nonsense prior to the BCS, too. If you don't think the BCS improved these things happening less, just to look at the AP polls for these same years, where you wind up with team after team below another team they beat.

I will spot them in 2001 due to the fact 9/11 resulted in cancellation of the Washington State-Colorado game, which would have made the outcome more fair. Can't blame the BCS for that. However.....

1998 BCS Final Rankings
3) Kansas State (11-1)
6) Texas A/M (11-2)

I won't call this one totally off base, since it was a late K-State collapse, but this is not good. The Ags had played an extra game and one loss was by 9 points to #2 Florida State in the opener. Something tells me if this was a CFP-era ranking sans computers, ATM would be selected over KSU. But please note even the so-called reliable BCS almost always began with NUMBER OF LOSSES, which is why Boise State did well for a few years there.

1999 BCS Final Rankings
8) Michigan (9-2)
9) Michigan St (9-2)

Saban's last Sparty team had beaten Michigan by 3. I'm sure the argument is that Sparty was blown out in their next 2 games by ranked teams, but Michigan barely beat 5-7 N Dame (26-22), barely beat 7-5 Syracuse (by 5), and lost to an Illinois team that Sparty beat by 17. The counter argument - aka the 2024 SCAR argument - is that Michigan beat both teams that plowed Sparty. But Sparty played well in all but the two losses and had the head-to-head....kinda like Alabama this year, plus they beat 9-3 Oregon.

Nobody remembers it because 8 and 9 didn't matter under the two-team BCS.

2001 BCS Final Rankings

5) Florida (9-2)
6) Tennessee (10-2)

But as we know, the Vols lost to LSU, which magically turns their win over Florida to a loss. The Vols rank below Florida ONLY because they had an extra game....because they beat Florida.

2003 BCS Next-To-Last Rankings
1) Oklahoma

Who goes out, loses to Kansas State by a 35-7 shellacking that felt worse than that - and stays #1.

And this right here is why you cannot turn this over to a computer - just like when Notre Dame was given the 2012 national title due to a computer.

2005 BCS Final Rankings
9) Auburn (9-2)
12) LSU (10-2)

LSU beat Auburn, 20-17, at home in overtime. Maybe this is one you can argue H2H is a wash, but fact is that LSU only fell below Auburn because they won that game and had to play UGA - and got rolled. But bear in mind Auburn had a 9-point home loss to 7-5 Ga Tech, which is far worse than losing the SECCG to a good team by any stretch. LSU also scheduled (and beat) then ranked Arizona State and beat #12 Florida as one of their East opponents. They DID lose to the Vols in OT in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but this one seems not the best to me.
 

selmaborntidefan

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2012 BCS Final Rankings
2) Alabama (12-1)
3) Florida (11-1)
7) Georgia (11-2)
8) LSU (10-2)
9) Texas A/M (10-2)
10) SCAR (10-2)

OK, why is Georgia BEHIND Florida, whose sole loss is to...UGA? Georgia only has more losses BECAUSE THEY BEAT FLORIDA and their reward was to play Alabama. Again, since it was a one-score win and Florida beat - blew out, in fact - the other team that beat UGA, you can argue this to a point. But a loss to Alabama in this scenario shouldn't miraculously turn the H2H win into a loss, either.

And we move to the CFP......again, they did better but still a few hiccups.....

2014 CFP Final Rankings

7) Mississippi State (10-2)
9) Ole Miss (9-3)

Remember when the CFP dropped TCU BELOW Baylor in the last poll - THIS SAME POLL - because of H2H? Well, Ole Miss blasted MSU, 31-17 (it didn't feel that close), and......somehow winds up below them anyway. (Folks - if you can rank a 1-loss team ahead of an unbeaten, you can rank a 3-loss team ahead of a 2-loss team, especially if the 3-loss team won the head-to-head competition. Bear in mind, the Egg Bowl had just been played less than 2 weeks earlier, so this was not a September game a team overcame.

2019 CFP Final Rankings
6) Oregon (11-2)
12) Auburn (9-3)
13) Alabama (10-2)

So explain this one to me. Auburn has a worse record than Alabama, but they DO have a 3-point head-to-head win AT HOME. So I can see that part of the argument, although that three points came because of some rules chicanery the refs allowed at the end of the first half (and two pick sixes). But how do you then justify OREGON ahead of Auburn? "Well they have two more wins and one more loss" I guess it is? Auburn has losses to #1 LSU, #5 UGA, and #9 UGA by a total of 21 points. Indeed, they gave one of the best offenses ever (Joe Burrow's LSU) perhaps their biggest scare. Oregon, by contrast, has a loss to the FOURTH-BEST team in the SEC at a neutral site and an 8-5 Arizona State in a game they trailed in the third quarter, 24-7. Sure, they won the Pac-12 championship, but how good was the Pac-12? Cal barely beat 4-8 Ole Miss while Oregon lost to Auburn. The SEC went a monstrous 8-2 in bowls while the Pac-12 was 4-3. I know those results weren't before the ranking, but the mere fact ALABAMA was the FIFTH-BEST team in the SEC, a conference with 5 of the top 13 ranked teams should have pushed at least Auburn - and probably Alabama - ahead of the Ducks.

2021 CFP Final Rankings
11) Utah (10-3)
13) BYU (10-2)

I'm sure the argument would be, "Well, Utah routed Oregon (38-10) and played an extra game," but this is irrelevant since they're not being punished for the extra game. BYU beat Utah, 26-17, in September and never trailed once in the game. They led, 23-10, and Utah never caught them. BYU's two losses were to 7-5 Boise State and by 14 pints to CFP #7 Baylor while Utah's TWO other losses were to San Diego State and Oregon State. Yes, the same San Diego State ranked #24 (11-2), well behind Utah despite a better record and a H2H win. I have less problem with this one because SDSU beat Utah in triple overtime. But how in the world do you REALLY rank Utah ahead of BYU when the only team Utah played all year that was any good - and beat - was Oregon?

2022 CFP Next-To-Last Final Rankings
3) TCU (12-0)
4) USC (11-1)
5) Ohio State (11-1)
6) Alabama (10-2)
7) Tennessee (10-2)

Well, we all know what happened. TCU played Kansas State and lost the Big 12 title game, 31-28, in overtime to a team they'd already beaten. And I can even see the argument that "we were deciding the four teams in the playoff, which inhibited us from dropping TCU below 2-loss teams USC, Alabama, and Tennessee" (rated below the same Alabama team they'd beaten, but I digress, since the SCAR blowout can reasonably be cited for that ranking; I would have had the Vols higher, but who cares).

But why couldn't they be dropped to #4? If the argument is, "We didn't want to punish TCU," you weren't, because they'd still make the playoff at number four, it's just that colossal blowout to UGA would have occurred in the semi-final round - and it MIGHT have been enough to tire UGA that Ohio State beats them. This was an obvious case of "we don't want back-to-back rematches." After all, if you're not going to consider the game to have any relevance, why did Kansas State move UP one spot in the final poll?

CONCLUSION

I know folks aren't happy with some of the decisions, hell, I'm not happy with all of them. But at the same time let's at least admit that poll rankings have gotten MUCH BETTER than they once were, too.
 

selmaborntidefan

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It’s not necessarily balance I’m after. I want the committee gone. There is no committee in the NFL. There are 8 divisions. The 4 division winners and 3 best records after that make the playoff on each side.
This is where - and let me be clear that I'm not referring specifically to YOU, TE08 - people are going to have make compromises or decide what they really want.

Posters A, B, and C don't want automatic qualifiers, but that's EXACTLY what the NFL has: win your division, you're in. But most of us here (and I think you agree) think auto bids for the riff-raff conferences are a recipe for disaster both for ratings and for what can happen (and I don't mean an upset, either).

Posters D and E don't want HUMANS doing the ranking - and we will wind up with stuff like a #1 team getting blown out late in the season and staying #1, it's already happened.

Posters F and G want automatic qualifiers for the P4 conference champions (or best team in a fluke), but NOT automatic byes.

I can agree with all points of SOME of these arguments.

But I also think they fall apart given that the 0-16 Lions of 2008 COULD beat the 2007 16-0 Patriots in a head-to-head game, but Slippery Rock isn't going to beat the 2019 LSU Tigers.
 

crimsonaudio

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It’s not necessarily balance I’m after. I want the committee gone. There is no committee in the NFL. There are 8 divisions. The 4 division winners and 3 best records after that make the playoff on each side.
And that works because there's parity.

In a world where a B1G team like Indiana can make the playoffs for playing a glorified G5 schedule, there isn't enough parity for the NFL model to not screw someone over. And they would make the playoffs in the NFL model, as their division would have to be weak to yield such a schedule.
 

bamaga

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Paul F admitted yesterday that this whole thing is an ESPN production. All of it. The CFP ranking show, the seedings, the arguments, the teams selected ... everything ... because it increases eyeballs on the CFP ... which are all ... ESPN. Self-dealing anyone?

Frankly, if we get in, I hope the CFB world goes mad. They hate us because we win. They hate us because we are Alabama. They hate us because we have had at least 2 of the greatest coaches who ever lived. They hate us because now we're also a basketball school. They hate us because we have nearly tripled student population in the last 25 years. They hate us because THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA is the definition of how to do it right, year after year after year after year. They hate us because this is true, even when we're 9-3.

Built by Bama.
I hope they hate us because 9-3 Alabama wins the National Championship
 

TideEngineer08

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And that works because there's parity.

In a world where a B1G team like Indiana can make the playoffs for playing a glorified G5 schedule, there isn't enough parity for the NFL model to not screw someone over. And they would make the playoffs in the NFL model, as their division would have to be weak to yield such a schedule.
Yeah I don’t care about parity so much either.

I hate the manufactured drama of this committee, and the weekly ranking shows it has spawned.

But for parity, a reorganization is going to have to accompany the breakaway. Figure out how to get from the 34 teams currently in both leagues to say, 48. Then create 8, six team divisions.

Mind you, I greatly preferred the BCS, and the leagues as they were arranged prior to 2012. But we blew that up.
 
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