BCS playoff

[RV]

But Alabama only got in because Auburn lost. Had Auburn won that game it seems possible Georgia gets the 4th seed and Alabama gets left out.

I think the playoff committee got it exactly right last year, but mostly because the teams made it easy for them.

But Auburn did lose - didn't they? They also lost at Clemson and at LSU before losing to Georgia in the SECCG. They then went on to lose to the pretender CFU, pretty much validating an invalid pseudo-champ. Because of that we might be stuck with CFU in the playoff this year.

Had Georgia lost to Auburn, the Dawgs being already seeded 3 would have incurred their second loss so no, they would not have stayed ahead of Alabama

[Westtncat]

It seems folks have been attempting to help with your understanding of things.

It's pretty much like anything else. Pick the sport and it's likely the team(s) that has gotten it together over the course of the season will win, or at least, go deep in their playoff system. Same with football. Although in football each game is magnified due to the limited number of games when compared to any other sport. As in any other sport, an early season loss won't hurt you all that much if you prove over the remaining 11 football games that you're worthy. Conversely, a late season loss is viewed and weighted such that it proves a lack of improvement and that you haven't really gotten things together.

Of course since the implementation of the Selection Committee, a late season loss is not as debilitating as shown by the inclusion of Alabama in the playoffs (albeit as #4 seed) of what was certainly the best team in the country last year, even though they lost the last game of their regular season on the road to a rival who happened to be ranked #6 at the time.

Thats one theory but it seems more of a what have you done for me lately thing. A team can lose by double digits early in the year and still move up through the year where as a team can lose on a last second field goal on the road in a rivalry game and move down. This wouldn't really be the definition of not having it together as much as, we gotta move them down because they lost scenario. I do get the point you make however. The polls will never reflect the true strength of a team and dont matter that much until you start using them to let teams in or out of a playoff system, which is what ends up happening. I believe it was last year people were complaining that Alabama got in and didn't even win their conference championship.

Ohio St. and UCF had a very good argument last year. However I do feel they ended up making the right choices last year. Not sure we would feel the same if two big ten teams got in, if you root for the SEC that is.

[RV]

Thats one theory but it seems more of a what have you done for me lately thing. A team can lose by double digits early in the year and still move up through the year where as a team can lose on a last second field goal on the road in a rivalry game and move down. This wouldn't really be the definition of not having it together as much as, we gotta move them down because they lost scenario. I do get the point you make however. The polls will never reflect the true strength of a team and dont matter that much until you start using them to let teams in or out of a playoff system, which is what ends up happening. I believe it was last year people were complaining that Alabama got in and didn't even win their conference championship.

Ohio St. and UCF had a very good argument last year. However I do feel they ended up making the right choices last year. Not sure we would feel the same if two big ten teams got in, if you root for the SEC that is.

I'm not sure you get how the teams are selected. It's not polls that determines who's in and who's out, it's a Selection Committee and their first seeding comes out October 30. Strength of schedule is an integral component in that selection along with several other criteria. Here's a link that might help you out.

Bill Connelly

[Dwight Schrute]

But Auburn did lose - didn't they? They also lost at Clemson and at LSU before losing to Georgia in the SECCG. They then went on to lose to the pretender CFU, pretty much validating an invalid pseudo-champ. Because of that we might be stuck with CFU in the playoff this year.

Had Georgia lost to Auburn, the Dawgs being already seeded 3 would have incurred their second loss so no, they would not have stayed ahead of Alabama

They did - but it worked out that way mostly. Would the selection committee have gotten it right? Not sure, but 6 or 8 teams would make sure that the best team doesn't get left out because of a fluke.

[Spiritof96]

BTW Bill Connelly's SPI rankings have us at 22. That feels about right to me....

[Westtncat]

I'm not sure you get how the teams are selected. It's not polls that determines who's in and who's out, it's a Selection Committee and their first seeding comes out October 30. Strength of schedule is an integral component in that selection along with several other criteria. Here's a link that might help you out.

Bill Connelly

I think maybe you think I don't understand how this all works?? That link was to a site talking about making strength of schedule more useful. A link to how the selections are really made can be found in wikipedia. I tried to provide the link but it wouldn't approve the post with it included.

Yes, its a committee, they make their own poll. It has some mathematical substance to it but it can still be inconsistent. They basically have their own method for a poll, which is my whole point. You can keep up with their poll on a weekly basis just like any other poll. The top 4 ranked teams in this method are in the playoff. Its not like a committee meets and picks teams randomly. The fact that this system uses 13 individuals may, in fact, make it the worst method of all.
From wiki

"A team's strength of schedule is one of the most pertinent considerations for the committee in making its selections. Other factors that the committee weighs are conference championships, team records, and head-to-head results, plus other points such as injuries and weather Unlike the BCS system, the AP POLL, Coaches' poll and the Harris poll computer rankings, are not used to make the selections. Advanced statistics and metrics are expected to be submitted to the committee, though like other analytics, they have no formal role in the decision. Committee members are not required to attend games.

[Old School]

[SIZE=16px]
So what does a team like UCF do? There is no way they can create a schedule you want but what they can do is win every single game and their bowl game. Their last three games that year were against top 25 teams (including Auburn) I think Auburn beat Bama that year so anything is possible. Everyone cant be in a P5 conference. They were a good team period. Auburn should have taken care of business. UCF had a lot to do with that. So just kick them out of DI football?

They can face up to the fact that playing a bunch of wimps comes nowhere close to entitling them to an invitation to the national championship game. They might as well make it official and move those other conferences to a different division.

The "top 25" teams you refer to were South Florida and Memphis. The rest of UCF's schedule? FIU, Maryland, Memphis, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Navy, Austin Peay, SMU, UConn, and Temple. Yawn. How many P5 teams would run the table against that slate? 20? 30?

No question Auburn was dejected, down, and not bringing their A game into that bowl game, after being so close at a shot at the national championship - just like the year a 12-0 Alabama team lost the SEC Championship Game to Florida, then lost to Utah in the Sugar Bowl.

[Old School]

[SIZE=16px]

No offense but this is a really bad idea. If you followed this scenario it would repeat itself every few years until you had several divisions because you would either have teams that could compete for a national title or , if they cant , kick them out of division

I doubt it. The conferences have a lot of reasons to keep most or all of their current members. You wouldn't have the playoffs, bowl games, etc. without them. They don't owe UCF or anyone else any part of it.

[Old School]

[SIZE=16px] I only had to go back one year for UCF, also Ohio St. won the big ten last year and got left out. I could probably do this for every year but thats a lot of research. At the end of this year we will see how it plays out and maybe bring it up again. It seems to me that almost every year there is an argument for more teams.

No way. Ohio State had no business anywhere near the playoff last year. They were a two loss team. Oklahoma beat them by more than 2 TDs, at Ohio State. Then, Ohio State lost to Iowa. By 31 points. Ohio State gave up 55 points to an Iowa team that finished the regular season 7-5, lost to Purdue, and went to the Pinstripe Bowl. Ohio State had no argument to make that they had a legit claim to having proven themselves the best team in the country. None. They didn't deserve a bid to the playoff.

UCF ran up its record against a nothing schedule. FIU, Maryland, Memphis, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Navy, Austin Peay, SMU, UConn, Temple, USF, Memphis again. That does nothing to prove a team is one of the best in the country, much less has proven itself deserving of a shot at the championship.

If you go back over past years you'll find very few if any where there's a decent argument that more than 4 (usually, 3 or fewer) had staked a legit claim to being the best in the country.

[Old School]

Ohio St.'s body of work was over looked last year so that kinda blows the every week counts argument up.

Ohio State's body of work was two losses, with a 31 point loss to an Iowa team that wasn't that good.

[Old School]

Believe me there are things I would love to see change in the basketball tourney too. However I dont have as much a problem with teams getting in as I do teams left out. That being said, if I could I would change the NFL playoff format too but thats another argument

That might end up being more of a discussion than an argument.

[Old School]

"The lesson of the current system is that you can lose, you just can't be the one that loses last."

This is absolutely true and something I never understood with college football. an 11-1 team should just be an 11-1 team regardless of the time of year they lost.

In some ways I don't like that, but I don't mind when it accounts for something: a key player or two getting injured, a seeming lack of focus or discipline...if a team really doesn't look that good down the stretch, maybe they don't belong. If it's just that a team's one loss against a very high quality opponent came in Week 12 instead of Week 2, that's not something to necessarily treat differently, although there's an argument to be made that a team that improves and gets better each week as opposed to one that doesn't progress as much deserves different consideration.

[Old School]

Ohio St. and UCF had a very good argument last year. However I do feel they ended up making the right choices last year. Not sure we would feel the same if two big ten teams got in, if you root for the SEC that is.[/SIZE]

"very good argument"? 2 losses? 31 point loss to Iowa? Or a schedule against which the majority of the SEC would go undefeated?

Neither of those teams had any business in the playoff conversation last year.

[Old School]

They did - but it worked out that way mostly. Would the selection committee have gotten it right? Not sure, but 6 or 8 teams would make sure that the best team doesn't get left out because of a fluke.

I'll repeat something I posted earlier, and invite anyone to give it a shot: Out of the past, say, 20 years, in how many of them can you point to more than 3, and definitely more than 4, teams that really had a legitimate claim to having proven themselves to be the best in the country, or to have a resume as good as that of the consensus #1 team at season's end?

A 4 team playoff will almost always, and probably always, include every single team that can seriously claim to having proven themselves the best in the country at that point. A 6 or 8 team playoff is going to be about a bunch of teams who can't make that claim squabbling over undeserved quota handouts, not about including anyone who deserves to be there but otherwise wouldn't be.

[Old School]

From wiki

"A team's strength of schedule is one of the most pertinent considerations for the committee in making its selections. Other factors that the committee weighs are conference championships, team records, and head-to-head results, plus other points such as injuries and weather Unlike the BCS system, the AP POLL, Coaches' poll and the Harris poll computer rankings, are not used to make the selections. Advanced statistics and metrics are expected to be submitted to the committee, though like other analytics, they have no formal role in the decision. Committee members are not required to attend games.[/SIZE]

So much for any argument that UCF deserved any consideration for the playoff.