College Football 2023

[Sport]

9 minutes ago, See Red said:

Having a better record than another team is a consideration, just as playing a more difficult schedule is a consideration.  It is not the end-all.

 

It has been the end-all for most of college football forever until like four days ago. Alabama shouldn't've have lost to Texas and I can't believe everyone's fine with throwing out that loss like it didn't happen. 

 

9 minutes ago, See Red said:

Maybe your system is better, maybe it's more fair.  But your system is not currently in place.

 

The system currently in place sucks. That's been my point since this started. 

 

An expanded playoff will solve for this, but it'll create other, worse issues and further devalue regular season results. My system would be the best and most fair while also maintaining the importance of the regular season.  
 

15 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

It isn't hard to grasp.  They're just a lot of people (for instance, the committee who makes these decisions) who disagree with that premise.

 

 

The committee has financial self-interest in seeing their preferred teams, which is why they disagree with that premise. I don't know why normal people would shill for them. 

 

15 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

It isn't just about having a better record. And the truth is, you actually agree with that! You don't actually feel the record is all that matters, because if you did you'd be arguing just as vehemently for Liberty as you are for Florida State.  

 

I've never wavered off of this position. Record only matters when two teams are tied. Georgia is probably better than Washington and Michigan, but I'd never argue for them to be in the playoff ahead of them. They didn't earn it same way Alabama didn't earn it. Win all your games and you don't have to stump for a spot, unless you're FSU this season. 

 

Did you see where I said "Maybe Liberty should be one of the teams! You tell Texas "hey good season, but if you wanted to control your fate you blew that when you lost to Oklahoma. Good luck in the Cotton Bowl or whatever."

[oldschoolvikings]

5 minutes ago, Sport said:

 

 

Did you see where I said "Maybe Liberty should be one of the teams! You tell Texas "hey good season, but if you wanted to control your fate you blew that when you lost to Oklahoma. Good luck in the Cotton Bowl or whatever."

 

Yeah, I saw where you said "maybe" they should.  But I didn't see where you got indignant about Liberty's exclusion, and went on an extended discussion about why it's a travesty that teams with a worse record got in over them.  It's almost as if... I dunno... deep down you know that records don't tell the whole story.

 

But, honestly, I think we're all getting off the main point here.  This year's playoff is not about having the most deserving team get crowned. It's about making sure, at all costs, that team isn't Michigan. 

 

 

 

 

Cheaters.

[McCall]

41 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

Yeah, I saw where you said "maybe" they should.  But I didn't see where you got indignant about Liberty's exclusion, and went on an extended discussion about why it's a travesty that teams with a worse record got in over them.  It's almost as if... I dunno... deep down you know that records don't tell the whole story.

 

But, honestly, I think we're all getting off the main point here.  This year's playoff is not about having the most deserving team get crowned. It's about making sure, at all costs, that team isn't Michigan. 

 

 

 

 

Cheaters.

Yes. Which will help soften the blow from Ohio State losing to Mizzou in the Cotton Bowl.

[MJWalker45]

36 minutes ago, McCall said:

Yes. Which will help soften the blow from Ohio State losing to Mizzou in the Cotton Bowl.

I'm just waiting to see how many players the Buckeyes still have for the game. 

[MJD7]

2 hours ago, See Red said:

And yes, all FSU had to do was look competent in either of their two games without Travis instead of fielding the second worst offense in the country.  But Rodemaker was terrible against Florida so I don’t know why anybody thinks he would’ve fared better against Louisville. 

FSU's offense had more yards in their conference championship game, with their 3rd-string quarterback, than Michigan did in theirs with their starter. Louisville is also ranked higher than Iowa.

[McCall]

2 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I'm just waiting to see how many players the Buckeyes still have for the game. 

Don't make excuses.

[McCall]

7 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

FSU's offense had more yards in their conference championship game, with their 3rd-string quarterback, than Michigan did in theirs with their starter. Louisville is also ranked higher than Iowa.

Iowa is ranked 5th in total defense in FBS. Louisville is 16th.

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, McCall said:

Don't make excuses.

Starting QB, multiple WRs leaving to probably include Harrison. It's not an excuse, it's just facts. Unless the Buckeyes decide they're just going to run with Henderson until his legs run off, I'm not expecting much from two quarterbacks who have thrown less than 20 passes all season against a competent defense. If Brown is the QB, I'd expect a basic option attack that should be easy to defend.  

 

[MJD7]

4 minutes ago, McCall said:

Iowa's defense is ranked 9th in FBS in yards per game allowed. Louisville is 35th.

According to the NCAA website, you actually did Iowa a disservice, as from what I can tell they are ranked 5th. However, Louisville is 16th. Maybe these results are after the conference championship games, I’m not sure.

 

By that same measurement though, FSU’s defense is ranked 14th, ahead of Alabama (18th), Texas (23rd), and way ahead of Washington (90th).
 

Could that same argument not be used as justification for FSU’s strong defense to be put in, as well?

 

And even this is besides the main point that, if you are undefeated, I don’t see how you aren’t given even a chance to compete for the championship.

[McCall]

1 hour ago, MJD7 said:

According to the NCAA website, you actually did Iowa a disservice, as from what I can tell they are ranked 5th. However, Louisville is 16th. Maybe these results are after the conference championship games, I’m not sure.

 

By that same measurement though, FSU’s defense is ranked 14th, ahead of Alabama (18th), Texas (23rd), and way ahead of Washington (90th).
 

Could that same argument not be used as justification for FSU’s strong defense to be put in, as well?

 

And even this is besides the main point that, if you are undefeated, I don’t see how you aren’t given even a chance to compete for the championship.

Yeah that was Passing yards per game. I corrected it in the original post.

 

And this was in reference to your quip about FSU having more yards in their conference championship game than Michigan. My point was Michigan was playing a better defensive team.

[See Red]

2 hours ago, MJD7 said:

FSU's offense had more yards in their conference championship game, with their 3rd-string quarterback, than Michigan did in theirs with their starter. Louisville is also ranked higher than Iowa.

 

Iowa is indisputably the best defense in college football this year.  Louisville has a middle-tier P5 defense.  FSU had 224 yards against a Florida defense that was easily one of the worst P5 defenses in the country.  Louisville is ranked above Iowa because Iowa's offense is one of a handful of worst in FBS.  Ohio State's defense is better than FSU and Michigan looked perfectly fine against them.

 

FSU's defense, while good, wasn't in the same stratosphere as Iowa, Michigan, Georgia, etc.

[infrared41]

4 hours ago, Sport said:

What you and the committee are saying is FSU's perfect record essentially doesn't count because of an inconvenient injury to a QB, which is unfair to them and sucks for larger competition reasons.

 

Of all the reasons the committee could have used to justify their decision, bringing up injuries was easily the worst one. I'd respect it more if the committee had used strength of schedule as its rationale for leaving out FSU. At least that is a somewhat legitimate take. Honestly, I would have had more respect for the committee if their reasoning  was "we screwed FSU because you, that's why."

[infrared41]

On 12/5/2023 at 7:21 PM, sayahh said:

 

Thanks. I didn't think it was partisan nor incendiary and (I thought) it was very relevant to sports (in particular college football), but the second bullet point was a catch-all, so, again, I will leave it at that since I did not mean to break the rules (even unintentionally) and mods have the final say and they've spoken.  It's just football and should be about fun and games anyway (especially since I don't play nor gamble).

 

Your post was irrelevant to the conversation. You posted a couple things about Alabama, said "in other news", and then you linked to something that was blatantly political, partisan, and entirely unrelated to college football. If there is any connection to what you  linked and college football, it would take Alex Jones to find it.

 

You've been a member here for 13 years. Call me a cynic, but I'm having a tough time buying that you didn't know bringing up politics is against the rules.

 

Hope that clears it up.

 

On 12/5/2023 at 6:48 PM, McCall said:

Hmm. Now I'm curious what was said.

 

He used a political post to suggest that there was some sort of conspiracy behind Alabama being in the playoff.

[infrared41]

22 hours ago, sayahh said:

 

Just elaborated why I thought it was relevant. Mod removed it so I'll drop it.  Was looking for a dos and don'ts and didn't find it but I will respect the mods.

 

Which part of this tripped you up?

 

5. No Politics

• Posts and artwork of a political nature or referring to politics, whether explicitly or implicitly, that are not relevant to the topics of sports or graphic design are expressly prohibited on the CCSLC. 
• This includes but is not limited to: jokes; links to news stories; concepts depicting political figures or using partisan political symbols; or any other content the moderating team deems to be of a politically incendiary nature. 
• Such content also may not be used in members' signatures, user titles, avatars or profiles. 
• Posts and artwork referring to politics that are relevant to sports or graphic design must not be overly partisan or incendiary. 
• Posting politically incendiary content may result in a suspension, up to and including a permanent ban.

[BBTV]

7 hours ago, Sport said:

It's that the playoff shouldn't be the four best teams, it should be the teams who achieved their way in.

 

You keep using the word "should" (or "shouldn't").  What it should be is irrelevant.  It is what it is.  It seems like almost everyone agrees that FSU isn't one of the four best teams.  So given what it "should" be isn't what it is, they did the right thing.

 

7 hours ago, Sport said:

FSU doesn't need style points when they have a better record than Alabama and Texas. I don't know why this is hard to grasp. 

 

It is hard to grasp.  They play different teams in a different league.  It'd be like saying the Nippon Ham Fighters are better than the Yankees if they win more games.

[Sport]

22 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

You keep using the word "should" (or "shouldn't").  What it should be is irrelevant.  It is what it is.  It seems like almost everyone agrees that FSU isn't one of the four best teams.  So given what it "should" be isn't what it is, they did the right thing.

 

 

They did the wrong thing for cynical financial reasons. It’s :censored:ing lame and it’s :censored:ing lame to shill for ABC, Nick Saban, and the college football playoff. At least See Red has the excuse of being a Florida fan. 

 

22 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

It is hard to grasp.  They play different teams in a different league.  It'd be like saying the Nippon Ham Fighters are better than the Yankees if they win more games.

False equivalence. FSU and Alabama compete for the same recruits and coaches in a sport that has a finite pool of eligible players. They play common opponents and occasionally each other. It’s more like saying the Yankees were better than the Dbacks because their division is harder and then using that logic to give them the Dbacks’ spot in the wildcard round. 

[infrared41]

40 minutes ago, Sport said:

It’s more like saying the Yankees were better than the Dbacks because their division is harder and then using that logic to give them the Dbacks’ spot in the wildcard round. 

 

Don't speak that into existence.

[WestCoastBias]

College football is such a joke now from the super conferences spanning the entire country formed by greedy TV networks to NIL, the transfer portal, and coaching changes effectively making bowl games pointless and now an undefeated Power 5 champ gets left out of the playoff over a one loss team that needed a miracle to beat  a 6-6 team two weeks ago. 

[Ted Cunningham]

I generally fall into the camp of "win the games on your schedule" but college football is just too many teams playing too few games competing for too few spots to rely solely on record. (That's why, for instance, any comparison to the NFL or especially MLB doesn't work. The fields in those sports are far smaller, and the teams involved play more games, so records are more indicative of how good a given team is. Further, in the case of MLB, they play so many games that flukes and aberrations don't really exist in a team's record. [An aside: Divisions, in that case, actually work against the weight carried by wins and losses as opposed to winning certain conferences meaning more to evaluating college football teams. Yes, I'm still salty that the 2015 Pirates had to play a one-game wildcard "series" as a 98-win team.])

 

Now, we can say "the committee should have weighed this, the committee should have evaluated that", but the committee didn't do it in any of those ways. If the committee valued wins so highly, that's the rule they would follow. But they don't. If wins mattered most, it would result in a Michigan, Washington, Florida State, Liberty playoff, and while that would be sticking to the rule , that's almost unarguably not the best teams playing each other. There have to be other inputs because teams don't play enough games and enough opponents in common to evaluate only on wins.

 

Next year should be an improvement as essentially you'll have the top 10 getting in (covering the Power 4 champs and the 6 at large teams) plus two lower-ranked conference champions. And I'm sure there will be arguments made about how they should just take the top 12 and how nos. 11 and 12 are better than a no. 19 Sunbelt champ and no. 24 CUSA champ. But, the criteria are clear: those last two "other champion" spots go to conference champs, not necessarily the best teams (however the latter is determined).

 

All of this to say that if the criteria for picking the teams is clearly stated (or more clearly anyway), I can live with the results. But this system of human beings going based on vibes rooted in some vague "rules" is decidedly worse than the BCS for making selections, and I'm glad to see the back of it.

[Sport]

Maybe a 100th person in this thread can chime in to explain how they were after the four “best” teams? 
 

The committee’s rationale and goals and mission at how they arrived at the conclusion that an undefeated power five conference champion isn’t worthy are understood. It was understood before any of you explained it to me. It doesn’t make it just.
 

An anonymous committee member said FSU wasn’t selected because “they can’t win the playoff in their current state”, which is offensive because it’s antithetical to the very concept of collegiate competition. How many times has an underdog prevailed in college sports when deemed unable to win in their current state? Hundreds. Ask Cardale Jones about that. The bigger thing is you all think we’re talking about Florida State and Alabama when what we’re actually talking about is a committee gaming their own system to make things work for a preferred school/TV draw - I don’t know why any fan of sports would support that.