Yup. Basically, Bama is probably in if their 1 loss is to basically anybody but Texas. Hard to penalize FSU for QB injuries when they still got the job done. If Jordan Travis were healthy, don’t think many question the legitimacy of a 13-0 FSU team.
CFB 2023 Conference Championships: A thread enjoying five major conference championship games for the last time
- Thread starter Awesome Fossum
- Start date
So, if this was 2024, we'd be looking at something like...
(1) Michigan vs.(8) Oregon or (9) Missouri
(2) Washington vs.(7) Georgia or (10) Penn State
(3) Florida State vs.(6) Ohio State or (11) Ole Miss
(4) Texas vs. (5) Alabama or (12) Oklahoma
edit-please correct me because I am not sure how they are actually formatting this tornament
(1) Michigan vs.(8) Oregon or (9) Missouri
(2) Washington vs.(7) Georgia or (10) Penn State
(3) Florida State vs.(6) Ohio State or (11) Ole Miss
(4) Texas vs. (5) Alabama or (12) Oklahoma
edit-please correct me because I am not sure how they are actually formatting this tornament
You said you don't care who gets in but it seems like you care very much.
Why do we think the SEC is so strong this year and the ACC so weak? The ACC has a winning record against the SEC. The SEC hasn’t beaten ANYONE out of conference this year and got mostly smoked in the early nonconference. They pad their team records by playing far more FCS schools than any other conference. I get the reputation, but should the on field results this year mean something too?
If you want the former, the latter is pretty easy, actually. How many points would you give Texas, Alabama, or Oregon if they were playing FSU next week?
I’m going with RPI, which I think is the right methodology for this sort of thing. SEC is #1, Pac-12 is #2, the others are basically the same.
http://realtimerpi.com/college_football/ncaaf_conf_Men.html
I mean, Oklahoma State and Louisville were conference championship game participants. That’s weak sauce. (Iowa too, but that’s because the B1G clings to the divisional format; no one thinks the Hawkeyes are the 2nd or even 3rd-best team in that conference.)
Oregon would be favored again if they played Washington today. Should we leave Washington out?
No. They beat Oregon in Oregon's house and then again on a neutral field. I'm not sure your proposition is right, but I'll grant it and give you Oregon + three points.
The betting analogy was only just that. Which of those three does FSU beat next week? To be clear, I don't really have a dog in this fight, other than that I would like to see the four best teams playing for the championship. FSU had horrible injury luck, but I don't think they can contend now. They can't score against mediocre opponents.
Bama lost at home to texas
miami thumped A&M
FSU beat both LSU and Florida, who also lost at home to Utah
Clemson beat south carolina
Auburn lost, at home, to New Mexico State
There is no question that Georgia and Alabama are as good as any team in the country. But the rank and file SEC teams were not very good this year, whatever RPI says. They shouldn’t get extra credit for “playing an SEC schedule”, not this year anyway.
Results on the field have to matter. Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, keeps talking about ”putting in the best teams”. If he’s talking about FSU, because they lost their QB, isnt it also fair to say using that kind of analysis (i.e. disregard the wins) that Bama isn’t that good, because it took a miracle to beat Auburn, a team that lost at home to New Mexico State?
miami thumped A&M
FSU beat both LSU and Florida, who also lost at home to Utah
Clemson beat south carolina
Auburn lost, at home, to New Mexico State
There is no question that Georgia and Alabama are as good as any team in the country. But the rank and file SEC teams were not very good this year, whatever RPI says. They shouldn’t get extra credit for “playing an SEC schedule”, not this year anyway.
Results on the field have to matter. Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, keeps talking about ”putting in the best teams”. If he’s talking about FSU, because they lost their QB, isnt it also fair to say using that kind of analysis (i.e. disregard the wins) that Bama isn’t that good, because it took a miracle to beat Auburn, a team that lost at home to New Mexico State?
All I know is that there is no easy answer and at least 2-3 are going to wind up being pissed off. Noon can't come fast enough.
Michigan
Washington
Florida State
Texas…………….. If competitive integrity and fairness are the metric (I know), this is an easy call. Texas beat Alabama head to head, in Tuscaloosa. Case closed. I’m sure others are right, and the committee will factor money, ratings, not wanting to piss off the almighty SEC, etc. But in terms of on the field results, this is a no brainer.
Washington
Florida State
Texas…………….. If competitive integrity and fairness are the metric (I know), this is an easy call. Texas beat Alabama head to head, in Tuscaloosa. Case closed. I’m sure others are right, and the committee will factor money, ratings, not wanting to piss off the almighty SEC, etc. But in terms of on the field results, this is a no brainer.
Top 4 conference champs get the byes.
Top group of 5 champ gets an auto bid.
Likely looking at something like this.
5 Alabama vs 12 Liberty
6 Georgia vs 11 Ole Miss
7 Ohio State vs 10 Penn St
8 Missouri vs 9 Oregon
And Alabama has the better win (Georgia) and better loss (Texas vs. Oklahoma). There is no easy answer.
I figured out how the committee can get past the SEC problem. Put Texas in and just say they’ll be SEC next year anyway so they’re just rewarding the conference early. Boom problem solved.
But there really is. They have an identical record. They played head to head, and Texas beat them. That’s the first tie breaker in most other sports, and nobody really complains about it. Quality losses should have no bearing in this instance.
Haven't those games already been baked into the rankings on a week-over-week basis?
Results matter but so does reality. FSU’s 55 yards passing with their current QB against Louisville would get them boat raced by either Alabama or Georgia. If we were talking about an FSU team with Jordan Travis, they are legitimately a top 4 team. This current FSU squad is not.
I don't think it's that easy, especially given that the Texas win over Alabama came early in the season and the committee has said it wants the best four teams (implicit in that is that it wants the best four teams right now). FSU, Georgia, Texas, and Alabama all have essentially equal claims to a playoff spot, in my opinion. I think that this is a tough call.
Last week Alabama needed a miracle to beat a terrible team. Texas won by 50 over a bowl eligible one.
Texas is playing as good as anyone on the country.
I don’t disagree in terms of what the committee will likely do. But I think it’s an incorrect metric for them to use. Games have to matter. Head to head results have to matter, regardless of when the game was played. Ultimately, it’s good thing that playoffs are expanding, and we can, maybe, finally, get this ridiculous beauty pageant element out of the sport.
I'm not knocking Texas, I'm just saying it's not clear cut that they're better than Alabama. Texas also within the last month only beat a lousy TCU team by 3 and almost lost at home to Kansas State.
What would the spread be and who'd be favored right now on a neutral field? I think it's tough to say.
Texas beat Bama by 10 in Bama’s house. Why isn’t it clear cut that they’re better? They literally proved they were better. Yes, they lost Brooks but Baxter and the other RBs have picked up the slack.
Bama looks better but UT also had to deal with a Ewers injury. He looks to be rounding into form and they’ve done much better lately. I think it’s clear that they are at least as good as Bama as of this very minute. And then I give them the tiebreaker due to that Sept game.
And if it turns out that Texas is in and Alabama is out, I think this will be the (perfectly reasonable) logic. But I also think it's reasonable to say that the two teams are even now and Alabama is a day removed from the most impressive win of the year, and two months removed from their only loss, so they should get in over Texas.
Having said that, I think there's a good chance both get in.
It’ll be interesting. Bama clearly is a top 4 team as of this minute. FSU clearly isn’t due to their QB situation. It basically comes down to whether or not the committee can hold the Travis injury against FSU.
Wait.
Texas beating Alabama by double digits in the road has to be a better win than Alabama beating Georgia by 3 at a neutral site.
Game results matter.
Under next year's rules, what would this have looked like?
1 Michigan
2 Washington
3 Florida State
4 Texas
5 Alabama
6 Ohio State*
7 UGA
8 Oregon
9 Missouri
10 Penn State
11 Ole Miss
12 Liberty (or SMU)
Oklahoma would be the last team out.
* I originally had UGA at 6 but flipped them to avoid conference matchups in the first round
Bama-Liberty
Ohio State-Ole Miss
UGA-PSU
Oregon-Mizzou
Can't wait.
1 Michigan
2 Washington
3 Florida State
4 Texas
5 Alabama
6 Ohio State*
7 UGA
8 Oregon
9 Missouri
10 Penn State
11 Ole Miss
12 Liberty (or SMU)
Oklahoma would be the last team out.
* I originally had UGA at 6 but flipped them to avoid conference matchups in the first round
Bama-Liberty
Ohio State-Ole Miss
UGA-PSU
Oregon-Mizzou
Can't wait.
I think it’s hilarious how Texas fans keep harping on the “neutral” site of Atlanta, which was filled with 80% Georgia fans.
You're using logic that the committee hasn't shown that it follows. I'm trying to guess what will happen, not what should.
So the part where I said they should use mimes gave it away?
I actually really don’t care except for the bit.
And was undefeated and back to back national champions.
But yeah, let's put more weight on game that was played in September to decide who gets in.
If the situation was flipped Texas fans would be saying "Well yeah, we lost to Alabama in September, but we've beaten 4 top 25 teams this year and just knocked off the #1 ranked team in the country who had won 29 in a row and back to back national championships."
Not sure. If they’re going purely by rankings there may be conference matchups.
Purely by whose rankings? There will still be the CFP; the only reason they exist is to create a TV-friendly playoff field via their rankings.
There are two structural problems baked in:
1) 5 P5 conferences for 4 slots
2) conference championship games, which despite the name don’t seem to fully convince. A championship game by definition should be weighted 100% to 0% vs the regular season but nobody believes that, ie UGA is getting serious consideration whereas a true title game would knock them out, but Iowa would have had no shot if it had pulled off an upset. So they’re not “championship” games per se, they’re “really important games but we’re not quuuuittte sure how much to weigh them vs a regular season game” - the question of how to weigh a dominant teams loss in a “championship” game vs another dominant teams early season loss to a meh team will never go away.
#1 will be solved by going to 8 schools. #2 is not going anywhere.
Yea, the CFP rankings. If two conference teams finish 7 and 10 are they going to manipulate the rankings to avoid the matchup or not? It’s not like the ncaa basketball tournament where you can put a team in a different bracket but on the same seed line. Only so much you can do with 8 teams.
#2 is solved next year when it’s 12 teams. Nobody should get mad that a non-undefeated acc or big 12 champ got it via auto bid over the fifth best big10 or sec team.