College Football 2023

[MJWalker45]

5 minutes ago, See Red said:

 

Weird... that didn't stop Georgia from scoring 43.

 

Hm... maybe LSU struggled on offense in their rivalry game vs Florida...

 

Oh wait, that was the game Jayden Daniels alone had 600 yards, so that theory doesn't check out.  How else can we excuse this teams terrible play?

And Michigan had trouble with Iowa and still got the top seed. Records should mean more than "vibes". It's the standard in every other level of football except for FBS, and it's bloody annoying. 

[MJD7]

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

The conference championships are just for seeding now, starting next year. And I still expect some shenanigans with how first round matchups get put together from next season as well. They'll want to avoid replays, which means Ohio State vs Penn State in the first round wouldn't happen. Instead if Ohio State is the number 5 team they will get the G5 champions, instead of that G5 team getting an easier matchup. They're only guaranteed a place on the field, nothing more. 

Yeah, I'm starting to think more and more that any subjective means of determining who  gets in, either by a computer or a committee, is bound to have flaws like this. I think it ought to be more clear and direct how you earn your way in, so that you control your own destiny as opposed to it being decided by some distant entity. It should be more aligned with professional sports, where the best record wins your division/conference and gets you into the playoffs. "Wild Cards" seem a bit more difficult to implement in college, just because there is less likelihood for head-to-head matchups, but I suppose they could find a way to make that work too if they really wanted to.

 

I'm just not sure what else Florida State was supposed to do beyond absolutely dominate Florida & Louisville, which seems like a tall ask considering they were on their backup & 3rd-string quarterbacks. But they still found a way to win both of those games, which by all means should earn them at least a shot at the championship, even if Michigan supposedly would've dominated them (which I honestly highly doubt).

 

26 minutes ago, See Red said:

None of you are anywhere near grateful enough that the merciful committee spared us another Georgia/TCU

Do people who say this just choose to ignore that TCU won their semifinal game? They at the very least justified their spot in the playoff, even if Georgia ended up dominating them.

[dont care]

12 hours ago, Unocal said:

CFB was more fun and interesting when the SEC was irrelevant.

You say that like they ever were

[See Red]

5 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

I'm just not sure what else Florida State was supposed to do beyond absolutely dominate Florida & Louisville, which seems like a tall ask considering they were on their backup & 3rd-string quarterbacks. But they still found a way to win both of those games, which by all means should earn them at least a shot at the championship, even if Michigan supposedly would've dominated them (which I honestly highly doubt).

 

Win decisively.  It should not have been difficult to win decisively against a Florida team that was also on their backup QB.  Also shouldn't have been difficult to beat Louisville decisively when the officiating was as one-sided as it was.

 

1 minute ago, dont care said:

You say that like they ever were

 

There was that one year an undefeated Auburn team was left out of the BCS Championship game in favor of an Oklahoma team they were clearly better than.

[MJD7]

4 minutes ago, See Red said:

Win decisively.  It should not have been difficult to win decisively against a Florida team that was also on their backup QB.  Also shouldn't have been difficult to beat Louisville decisively when the officiating was as one-sided as it was.

I place more importance on the "win" part than the "decisively" part, which is something Alabama wasn't able to do in every single game this season (nor was Texas). I just don't understand how an undefeated team isn't even given a shot to keep playing for the championship. That simply makes no sense.

 

I also can't help but notice that you decided not to address the fact that TCU won their semifinal game.

[See Red]

4 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

I place more importance on the "win" part than the "decisively" part, which is something Alabama wasn't able to do in every single game this season (nor was Texas). I just don't understand how an undefeated team isn't even given a shot to keep playing for the championship. That simply makes no sense.

 

I also can't help but notice that you decided not to address the fact that TCU won their semifinal game.

Do I need to?  They lost 65-7 to Georgia. I don’t care if they got one fluke win, they didn’t belong on the same field as Georgia.   And FSU sans Travis is way worse than TCU last year. 

[MJD7]

17 minutes ago, See Red said:

Do I need to?  They lost 65-7 to Georgia. I don’t care if they got one fluke win, they didn’t belong on the same field as Georgia. 

Oh my, not a "fluke" win in the playoff semifinal...  The fact that TCU even competed with Michigan at all showed that they at least deserved to be there, even if Georgia ended up being the most dominant team by the end of it.

 

Why even bother playing the games if wins (in the semifinals, no less!) are "flukes"? 

 

If you want to call any game a "fluke," it was Alabama's miraculous 4th and 31 win over Auburn.

 

17 minutes ago, See Red said:

And FSU sans Travis is way worse than TCU last year. 

The offense is definitely not the same without Travis at the helm, but if he's as essential as these narratives are making him out to be, then he ought to be the runaway Heisman winner.

 

And, truthfully, I don't really care if FSU doesn't "look" as good as some of the other teams, they earned their way in by winning every single one of their games and deserved at least a chance to compete.

[MJWalker45]

9 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

And, truthfully, I don't really care if FSU doesn't "look" as good as some of the other teams, they earned their way in by winning every single one of their games and deserved at least a chance to compete.

Remember when Miami was going to wax Ohio State because they barely beat Michigan 14-9 in 2002? The field is where it was settled instead of a conference hall. Hopefully we see changes to how those 12 slots get decided next year. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

This all gets a lot easier when college football is just the Big Ten and the SEC, right? That's the direction we're headed in anyway.

 

 

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

And Michigan had trouble with Iowa and still got the top seed. Records should mean more than "vibes". It's the standard in every other level of football except for FBS, and it's bloody annoying. 

I still can’t figure out why they didn’t solve this problem and go to the FCS style playoff years ago. “It’s more games on the players bodies!” Yeah, it is for the FCS schools, too. Nobody tries to advocate for a “bowl system” for them because of it. I know why they do it (more $$$ in the right hands, like everything else in our society), but it’s always felt like college football was kneecapping itself by keeping this dumb bowl system rather than have a big playoff. People love football. And people LOVE playoff/tournament setups (college basketball would be nothing without the tournament). I dunno, seems like a way to straight up print money to me. 

[MJWalker45]

4 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

People love football. And people LOVE playoff/tournament setups (college basketball would be nothing without the tournament). I dunno, seems like a way to straight up print money to me. 

Loyalty to broken systems is the problem here. We'll have 10 9 leagues, and Notre Dame next year. In every other division, those leagues would have a guaranteed spot as long as they met certain requirements. Giving every league a spot leaves 3 slots for either Notre Dame or the first team out of the playoffs and so the P5 couldn't let that be the case. They're already looking at going back and reducing the conference champs slots from 6 to 5, but I think letting that 6th spot remain would improve the product. Do I think Liberty and SMU would win out? Not a chance. But you're getting more buy-in from leagues like the AAC, MAC, and Conference USA if they know that a 10-2 league champ gets a chance at the bigger slice of pie by traveling to Clemson for a playoff game than they'd get for playing in the Idaho Potato Bowl in flippin' Boise? It's possible for a 11-2 SEC team to do that, but not a Sun Belt team whose two losses could be by as little as 3 points apiece to Power 5 squads that are also in the playoffs? Are they on the same level? No. But neither are Alma University and Mount Union, but they still got the chance to try, and they succeeded.  Remember when there were too many bowls because we didn't have enough 6-6 teams? Guess what? We still do because Minnesota is going bowling with a 5-7 record this year. 

[crashcarson15]

21 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

30 years was a long time ago. Get over it. NFL fans aren't still crying about losses that happened 30 years ago. I can assure you Raiders fans have gotten over the Immaculate reception happening on them. Probably the tuck rule too.

If you can't understand that the primary appeal of college football is engaging in slightly irrational pettiness, I can't help you.

[burgundy]

1 hour ago, See Red said:

 

Win decisively.  It should not have been difficult to win decisively against a Florida team that was also on their backup QB.  

 

 

That very same day, Alabama sure did not win decisively against an Auburn team that had just lost to New Mexico State by 3 touchdowns. They even had their starting QB! Alabama only won because Auburn completely shat the bed in the final minutes. Why does FSU need to win decisively, but Alabama can skate by on dumb luck?

 

[Sport]

Florida State got f***ed with a knife and I don't really want to listen to any argument that says otherwise. Every argument against them is bucking decades of precedent - From 19 dicketty until yesterday if you win every game in a power five schedule then you're ranked ahead of teams with a loss. F****** BYU has a national championship because they won every game in a season against a cupcake ass schedule that makes FSU's schedule look like a murderer's row. 

 

"But Alabama is better" They probably are. I don't care. FSU won every game. Alabama didn't.

"FSU's schedule tho" I don't care. They won every game. 

"The QB is hurt" I don't care. They won every game. 

"They should've won by more." Style points only matter in tiebreakers when two teams have the same record. 

"Their QB is bad" I don't care. They won every game. You can't just leave an undefeated team out because they had an inconvenient injury and you think their offense wouldn't be entertaining. OSU got in with a third string QB and won it all.

"They're underdogs to UGA" Who gives a :censored:? They should get the chance to be underdogs in the playoff they were :censored:ed out of. 

"But the game wouldn't have been exciting" I don't care, you don't know that, and there's been like three entertaining games in the history of this playoff anyway. 

 

It violates the spirit of the sport, it sends the message that Bama's loss means nothing and that FSU's perfect season means nothing, and I can't believe a single college football fan would be in support of that.

 

[Germanshepherd]

2 hours ago, dont care said:

You say that like they ever were

I was too young to remember the circumstances that led to this, but didn’t an undefeated Auburn get left out of the BCS National Championship game once?

[Sport]

2 hours ago, See Red said:

Do I need to?  They lost 65-7 to Georgia. I don’t care if they got one fluke win, they didn’t belong on the same field as Georgia.   And FSU sans Travis is way worse than TCU last year. 

 

Bad take.

1. It wasn't a fluke win. They went out and beat a fellow semi-finalist. 

 

2. They were given the chance to prove themselves and earned their way onto the same field as Georgia. A chance FSU was robbed of. That Georgia pantsed the Frogs says more about Georgia than it does TCU. They would've pantsed Michigan too. 

 

3. Even if FSU this year is worse than TCU last year, which we don't know, it does not mean they shouldn't get their own shot at proving they don't belong, which they earned by winning every game on their schedule and that has always been the most highly regarded objective in college football. 

[MJD7]

47 minutes ago, Sport said:

Bad take.

1. It wasn't a fluke win. They went out and beat a fellow semi-finalist. 

 

2. They were given the chance to prove themselves and earned their way onto the same field as Georgia. A chance FSU was robbed of. That Georgia pantsed the Frogs says more about Georgia than it does TCU. They would've pantsed Michigan too. 

 

3. Even if FSU this year is worse than TCU last year, which we don't know, it does not mean they shouldn't get their own shot at proving they don't belong, which they earned by winning every game on their schedule and that has always been the most highly regarded objective in college football. 

It’s also worth pointing out that TCU was not even undefeated, nor were they the conference champion, even with their Heisman candidate quarterback uninjured, so the equivalence between the two teams isn’t even founded.

[Sport]

2 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

It’s also worth pointing out that TCU was not even undefeated, nor were they the conference champion, even with their Heisman candidate quarterback uninjured, so the equivalence between the two teams isn’t even founded.

 

Good point. Following this year's logic, two loss Alabama should've taken 1 loss TCU's spot in the playoff so it doesn't even track in that regard. His claim would make sense if TCU had been given the spot against UGA in the semi-final and then gotten embarrassed, but the inconvenience of TCU actually winning a playoff game and then getting embarrassed throws that out. They, by definition, belonged on the same field as Georgia. It wasn't really a fluke win against Michigan. Those two teams were very even. 

 

 

 

But the larger point is that it's not (or shouldn't be) the committee's job to consider entertainment factor when picking teams. You can't leave out a 12-0 conference champion just because you don't think they'd be fun. That logic taken to it's conclusion means you should just pick 4 teams in August and everyone can spare themselves the trouble and the injuries. 

[OnWis97]

It's almost like a four-team playoff doesn't work when there are five big conferences.

 

I'd have preferred to see FSU in over Alabama, even though Alabama's probably the better team. I still think Georgia's probably better than Alabama. But they lost, just as 'Bama did to Texas. FSU never did. And if you're going to consider their QB situation (which is like the NFL booting the Eagles out of the playoffs if Jalen Hurts goes down), then I think it's fair game to consider the miracle Alabama needed to beat a team that had just been smacked around by New Mexico State.

 

Anyway, I prefer resume/body-of-work to projection. And if you're going to project, may as well go:
1. Georgia

2. Bama

3. Michigan

4. Washington

 

Anyway, Bama's going to win this whole thing, obviously.

[Seadragon76]

All this talk about Florida State has me thinking... they need to be mad at Georgia for losing the SEC Championship Game.

 

If it wasn't for the Bulldogs losing, they're more then likely in the playoff as you would have four unbeaten teams and a one loss Texas team as Big 12 Champion. Guess who gets hosed there?

 

So, for all the talk of Florida State boycotting the game and stuff... I say nay. Go out there and beat the Bulldogs senseless. Make an example out of them and let the committee know that they screwed up.