College Football

[Eagler]

Go Bulldogs!

Eagler

[Eagler]

SEC championship was a great game..

Ga's backup quarterback stepped up and won it in ot

Eagler

[Maverick]

I saw the very end of the SEC game and it's overtime. Then I watched 2/3rds of the Oregon Penn State game. That one was fantastic. I thought Oregon was going to have a blow out the first quarter then Penn State got in gear and darn near tied it up by half time. Glad to see Oregon pulled it off.

[shotgunneeley]

SMU fought like the third monkey in line on Noah’s Ark that fourth quarter, though they’d pull it off up to that clutch 56yard field goal by Clemson to win.

Portal looks like it will cause trouble again with Arkansas; I see both starters and prospects leaving out. Does not bode well for the current administration and atmosphere.

[Brooke]

Georgia/Texas game was excellent.

For Penn State/Oregon, I thought Penn State would get blown out, but they did way better than I thought they would.

For playoff seeding, I'm not that keen on how conf. championships and strength of schedule are figuring in. It causes a lot of absurdities, I think, if you are looking for best teams.  Because some conferences and schedules just aren't that strong compared to others.

I'd rather see rankings be by elo, then just take 12 highest.

[RUSH1]

Georgia/Texas game was excellent.

For Penn State/Oregon, I thought Penn State would get blown out, but they did way better than I thought they would.

For playoff seeding, I'm not that keen on how conf. championships and strength of schedule are figuring in. It causes a lot of absurdities, I think, if you are looking for best teams.  Because some conferences and schedules just aren't that strong compared to others.

I'd rather see rankings be by elo, then just take 12 highest.

Well said.  A three loss ACC team should not be in the playoffs.  Epecially when two of their losses were to SEC teams, neither of which made the playoffs.  I could expand, but I'll just let the arse whoopings prove my point.   

[Spikes]

I was pretty excited when they went to 12 team, but was disappointed recently when I found out it's not just the 12 best teams. There should be no conference automatic bids like we have in basketball. We don't have a 68 team field to afford the lesser teams and there's also much less parity in CFB than basketball.

If it were simply the 12 best teams, it would likely be 10ish SEC/B1G teams and a couple other random teams each year. Including some other schools just because they won a poor conference is not the way to do it IMO. But only having SEC/B1G schools would be 'unfair' to other schools according to the committee. Like RUSH said, the 'other' teams will likely get stomped. I'm sure there will be a surprise or two, though. A '3 loss Bama' team would mop the floor with half of the teams that made it in. But that's the difference between SEC/B1G and others, the SEC being the stronger conference of the two.

With that said, it really exposes the flaws with 'rankings' such as the AP Poll. Notre Dame losing to an FCS team and somehow ending up as the 5th best team in the country, according to rankings, is inexcusable. Unfortunately, with no scheduling requirements and a vast variety of conferences and competition unlike the NFL, it's basically impossible to rank from a statistical standpoint rather than what people 'feel'.

[Brooke]

I was pretty excited when they went to 12 team, but ...

Yep, me, too.

Upside is that at least the best 6 or so teams will tend to make it in, even if the others are not the best and thus are in at the expense of better teams.

Causing this, I think, are two big problems.  One is conf. champions getting byes and ending up as seeds 1-4.  Two of those are usually going to be weak compared to the rest of the field because the Big10 and SEC are by far stronger conferences.

The other problem, even without the conf. championship issue, is that the ranking system sucks because strength of schedule doesn't figure in as strongly as it should.  Have Boise State, Arizona State, SMU, Indiana, Notre Dame play the same schedule as South Carolina, Miss State -- or Michigan for that matter (who played #1 Oregon, #2 Ohio State, #3 Texas, #8 Indiana, #22 Illinois) -- and I don't think they'd be in the playoffs.

I really wish they'd just move to an elo ranking system, which automatically takes into account strength of who you play -- no judgement used at all -- then take the 12 top teams, with the top 4 getting byes.

However, it would mean few teams would want to play conf. championships.  And since conf. championship games bring in money and are nostalgic, conf. championships won't be gotten rid of.  So would have to think about how they can be done in a way that teams want to play those.

[Spikes]

Agree. Looking at the AP Poll for reference, I can't fathom anyone thinks Boise State is actually the 8th best team in the country. Boise State, whose best team win this year was against UNLV, and their best win was against 5-7 Kansas.

The thing is, each year there are coaches that complain that their program isn't taken seriously enough (that undefeated UCF season comes to mind). But these programs have the ability to schedule good teams out of conference. Why not, and go get a signature win and prove yourself worthy.

I hope some adjustments are in the works for next year but my hopes aren't terribly high. With the realignment of all the schools last year, a 12 team should realistically have 2 Power 2 (SEC/B1G) as auto byes, 2 at-large Byes for teams with the best record over elo (as you suggested Brooke), and fill in the rest with the same. If the Big 12 or Mountain West want schools to get in, go schedule Ohio State and beat them.

The landscape of CFB is changing so much though, and I would not be surprised to see a single conference or two in the next 5 years.

[CAV]

Problem for a team like Boise State is getting a quality power Conference team to play us. On paper it looks like a David versus Goliath matchup.... And Boise State has shown they are pretty good at playing the part of David. And David has a nasty habit of winning. In recent history the only top 10 team willing to come play Boise has been Oregon and they're only one and 3 versus Boise  This year was their only win and they dang near lost that one.

Remember the year Boise State played Georgia and won? It pretty much wrecked George's whole season. Teams like talk a good story but, when it comes to putting their season on the line, they are more likely to schedule a cupcake team on their non-conference weekends.

[Brooke]

they are more likely to schedule a cupcake team on their non-conference weekends.

That is true.

It's a result of the Committee not factoring in strength of schedule enough.  They do it some, but not enough to incentivize scheduling difficult teams out of conference.

Some teams do it still, but there is a large disincentive in doing that.  Michigan, for example, scheduled Texas this year and will play them again year after next.  Next year is Oklahoma, which although not good this year, wasn't expected to be bad back when Michigan set its schedule.